Victorians Adored Ice Cream!
Victorians adored ice cream. At the beginning of the 1800s, ice cream was an elite and expensive dish, in flavors like Parmigiano and asparagus. I have tasted homemade ice cream in such flavors as asparagus, spinach, and orange blossom, and I can tell you with 21st-century experience that these flavors might sound strange but are delicious. By the end of the 1800s, ice cream in flavors we are most familiar with today, vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, were adored by everyone.
The pioneer in commercial ice cream making is milk dealer Jacob Fussell, of Baltimore, Maryland. Circa 1852, Fussell transformed his leftover cream into bulk ice cream using a mechanical ice cream freezer. Fussell’s economy of scale enabled him to sell his product cheaply and widely from Boston to Washington, according to Thomas J. Schlereth in Victorian America, Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876-1915. Fussell was a pioneer in wholesale ice cream for everyday people. He was also noted for his charitable works and was a Quaker abolitionist active in the Underground Railroad. He established housing called Fussell Court for freed enslaved persons. He also sold huge quantities of ice cream to Union supply officers during the Civil War. As with condensed milk, American veterans returned home with a fondness for commercial ice cream.
Augustus Jackson (1808-1852) was a Black innovator from Philadelphia who developed the “Philadelphia style” eggless ice cream recipe that is widely used today. He was a former White House chef and revolutionized the process of making ice cream by using salt to change the freezing point of ice, allowing it to be kept colder for a longer period of time, which aided in packing and shipping. Jackson is often called the “Father of Ice Cream” for his techniques that made large scale production of ice cream possible.
The oldest ice cream maker in the United States is Bassetts Ice Cream of Philadelphia. The company got its start in 1861 when Quaker farmer Lewis Dubois Bassett, the great-great-great grandfather of the present owner, started making ice cream by mule power in Salem, New Jersey. In 1885, he began selling his ice cream from a location at 5th and Market Streets in Philadelphia. Bassetts moved production and their retail store to the newly opened Reading Terminal Market in 1892, and you can still visit their stall there today. Bassetts is the last remaining original merchant at Reading Terminal Market.
Some of our favorite treats, like the ice cream cone, the ice cream sundae, and the banana split are Victorian inventions. The commercialization of the ice cream cone was tied up in legal wrangling for years, beginning in 1902 when Italo Marchiony patented a device for forming ice cream cones. After squabbles with his own cousin, patent filings, and a lawsuit, the matter was finally settled in the Federal Court of Appeals in Philadelphia in 1914. “All Can Make Cones!” the International Confectioner trade journal jubilantly declared.
The ice cream sundae originated in the late 1800s, due to an innovation driven by religious zeal related to the “sinfulness” of soda. The banana split was invented in 1904 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania by 23-year-old soda jerk, David Strickler, who was attending the University of Pittsburgh at the time. Some innovators and pioneers of ice cream include Augustus Jackson, Nancy Johnson, and Bassetts of Philadelphia. Dig into ice cream–it’s more than just a sweet treat!
