Grampa didn’t invent ice cream but he knew how popular it was when he and grandma milked 26 cows by hand in the town of Shawville in the 1920s.
They milked Holsteins in the fall and winter months because they produced the most milk. That was back when many town folks kept their own milk cow who had her calf in the spring, pastured on a community pasture in town and produced milk for the family all summer. However when the pasture dried up and cold winds arrived in the fall the town cows dried up too.
Very few town folks had their own cream separator and although they had milk from their own cow they bought cream from grampa all summer. It was in that summer ice cream season that our farm milked Jersey cows which produced less milk but just as much cream.
Ice cream was actually invented in China in the 600 AD period. The first ice cream was made from water buffalo milk.
By the 19th century many families had a hand cranked ice cream maker which was just a one pint galvanized can which held the creamy mixture of cream, flavouring, sugar, eggs, etc. Recipes varied as much as the people who owned the ice cream makers. The tin can of ice cream mixture was in the middle of a wooden two gallon pail filled with crushed ice and salt which made the ice melt faster, but also made the ice-water colder. There was an agitator inside the tin with the ice cream mix in it. The agitator was connected by a small gear to a hand crank which, if turned enough, would whip the mixture into ice cream. Because they knew how good the ice cream tasted, it was never hard to find help to turn the crank. There are still ice cream makers available today and they are usually electric because today most homes have electricity.
When ice cream first became available in stores it was usually only vanilla, chocolate or Neapolitan.
Until commercial ice cream became perfected, the homemade ice cream was still preferred for several years. Today almost all ice cream is purchased ready-made from the supermarket.
Vanilla was the first flavour for ice cream. Chocolate is the second most popular with a thousand other flavours available in different regions and at different times of the year.
Gelato is a special type of ice cream that is very popular in Europe but hard to find in Canada. My mom used to buy some Sorbet which is really only flavoured and sweetened frozen water because it was marketed as a diet food.
I still like frozen yogurt for a change but it is 100 per cent dairy. There are still some sales of frozen dessert, which is marketed in look alike ice cream containers. Frozen dessert sales have dropped off and no wonder, if you read the list of ingredients.
Although ice cream cones first became popular at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, cones were invented two years before by a couple of Italians.
Although it was definitely not my first ice cream cone; I still remember my first tiger tail ice cream cone. I bought it from a Mennonite girl in a little corner store just outside Elmira, Ont.
The first two dairies in Canada to use only 100 per cent Canadian milk in their ice cream were Kawartha in Peterborough, Ont., and Coaticook in Coaticook, Que.
Now most Canadian dairies use Canadian milk in their premium ice cream. A rule of thumb when buying ice cream is buy by weight, not by volume. The lighter package usually contains more air mixed in it and always read the list of ingredients.
I recently spoke to a lady in a grocery store who was born in England and she said that whenever the temperature rose above 30 degrees it was ice cream time.
My favourite ice cream cone is still moose tracks!
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
