Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry.
Speaker 1: So this is stuff you should know, The Dreaming of
Speaker 1: Summer in the Middle of Winter edition. Oh my friend,
Speaker 1: ice cream is a year round treat for me? Yeah
Speaker 1: sure from Oh yeah, what you have? We're gonna buzz
Speaker 1: market a lot, probably Rocky Road and vividly Vanilla. What
Speaker 1: brand is? Oh? Yeah? Yeah, there were the lists ms.
Speaker 1: Was it heavier? Light? It was light? After reading this,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, this is very light, a lot
Speaker 1: of air in there. I taught myself to juggle with them.
Speaker 1: Oh well, that's exciting. That was a cross reference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I've been a Jerry's guy. Well, yeah, it's great stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't have too much of it though, because I
Speaker 1: got the lactose issues. Really. Yeah, and ice cream is
Speaker 1: your favorite treat? Yeah, it's pretty sad. That's that's self hate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ice cream followed by a large glass of milk, right,
Speaker 1: just then you just inject a bunch of casines directly
Speaker 1: into your neck. Yeah, I mean it's not like I
Speaker 1: don't have lactose issues such that any kind of milk product. Really,
Speaker 1: it's just if I overdose on it, Like if I
Speaker 1: have a a bunch of like pizza and ice cream
Speaker 1: or something. What do they call it, like mildly sensitive
Speaker 1: maybe maybe mildly intolerant. Yeah, I get the poopy butt
Speaker 1: like like you're you're cool with like, um, lactose at work,
Speaker 1: but you don't want lactose Marry and your your kid.
Speaker 1: You're that kind of intolerant to exactly. I just don't
Speaker 1: want to live in next door to me. I can
Speaker 1: I can get a I can do a pint of
Speaker 1: ice cream though, and or is it the half point
Speaker 1: the Ben and Jerry's but little one? I think it's
Speaker 1: a point. Is a point a little not the little
Speaker 1: baby one that's just like a fistful on that on seven? Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I think it's a point, is what they sell them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can do a pint of like the Chubby Hubby,
Speaker 1: that's my old favorite. That's a good one. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: basically any Ben and Jerry's is good. I'm not a
Speaker 1: big fan of cherries and stuff me neither. Um. But
Speaker 1: other than that, I'm like pretty cool with with all
Speaker 1: ice cream. And I used to not like bananas and things,
Speaker 1: but now I'm like, I'm cool with bananas. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: bananas an ice cream I would never have eaten before
Speaker 1: and now I will. I'm pretty picky with my ice
Speaker 1: cream flavors. I'm trying to think of one I really
Speaker 1: don't like, and nothing's coming to mind except for stuff
Speaker 1: with cherry in it. Yeah. I don't like mint um crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't like coconut crazy. Uh. My favorite is the
Speaker 1: Chubby Hubby. And then they have, you know, have the
Speaker 1: limited runs. Uh. They have one out now called Candy
Speaker 1: Bar Pie. Candy Bar Pie, Like what kind of candy
Speaker 1: bar is I don't know. It's got nugat in it. Um.
Speaker 1: It doesn't taste like a specific candy bar though. It's
Speaker 1: not like they're trying to be like a Snicker's ice
Speaker 1: cream sneakily. It just tastes. It's just delicious. Nice. I
Speaker 1: like butterfinger and ice cream. Yeah, what about so like
Speaker 1: places to get ice cream? Jenny's is delicious. Where is that?
Speaker 1: They have it here on the West Side over by
Speaker 1: Star Provisions, And they got a new one in or
Speaker 1: in a croc Street market. There's a place in old
Speaker 1: town Alexandria outside of DC called Pops. It's like an
Speaker 1: old timey ice cream parlor. Awesome. I think I went
Speaker 1: in there actually last summer. It's awesome. But it did
Speaker 1: not did they have like candy and all that stuff? Um?
Speaker 1: Or is it just an ice cream? It's pretty much
Speaker 1: just ice cream. There's like a couple of like long cases.
Speaker 1: They've got like the old like turn of the last century,
Speaker 1: like furniture and everything in the striped wallpaper like they're
Speaker 1: doing it right. But then their ice cream stands behind
Speaker 1: it too. It's good. Uh. And then of course Friendlies, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Friendlies has the Reese's Piece of Sunday, which is probably
Speaker 1: be the greatest ice cream treat ever created in a
Speaker 1: history of humanity. Yeah. Growing up in Atlanta, they had
Speaker 1: something called Farrel's, which was they have those. They had
Speaker 1: that in Ohio too, And on your birthday they'd come
Speaker 1: out with that big drum, scare me to death. It
Speaker 1: went under the table, old school ice cream parlor, scaring
Speaker 1: the Bejesus of children every year. Now they had a
Speaker 1: lot of candy selection too. Yeah, man, let's just talk
Speaker 1: about let's just not even do this. Let's just talk
Speaker 1: about ice cream. We love. I like disflavor. I like disflavor.
Speaker 1: Everyone's starving right now for it, though, I guarantee it
Speaker 1: that intro. I have one more though. Um, have you
Speaker 1: ever been to the Plaza Fiesta I think is what
Speaker 1: it's called over on Beauford Highway. Yeah? Okay, um, they
Speaker 1: had they have a gelato place there that had tuna
Speaker 1: flavored gelato, raw tuna flavored gelato, and by god, it
Speaker 1: tasted exactly like raw tuna. You're gonna say it was good.
Speaker 1: It isn't bad, Like, yeah, if you if you like
Speaker 1: seshimi or something like that, you would appreciate this. It's
Speaker 1: not something you're like, oh man, I've got to get
Speaker 1: some tuna flavored gelato. But you're not like it's not
Speaker 1: like one bite and you spit it out. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're just like, this is really odd but interesting, unusually tasty.
Speaker 1: Have to try that. Yeah. My other quickly. The other
Speaker 1: thing I like lately is a little heat in the
Speaker 1: ice cream, like some of them have a little cayenne
Speaker 1: in the chocolate or oh yeah, or with cinnamon or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That and some salted caramel. I am so over salted
Speaker 1: caramel or bacon and sweetness. I'm just so sick of
Speaker 1: that combination. Yeah, it's all basically a rip off of
Speaker 1: Wendy's fries and a frosty dip together. That's fine, that's
Speaker 1: the original, that one like im Yeah, alright, well I'm
Speaker 1: salivating now I am as well. Let's get through this
Speaker 1: and we can go get some ice cream. Okay, you're buying, okay. Um,
Speaker 1: so the history of ice cream chuck couldn't possibly have
Speaker 1: been around. Where'd you find this? By the way, that
Speaker 1: we need to give a good shout? Was that the
Speaker 1: Dairy Association? Y yeah, yeah, the I think the International
Speaker 1: Dairy Association, the big guy, Uh, not the regional daiies.
Speaker 1: They came up with this. Uh, this kind of this
Speaker 1: history of ice cream or dairy frozen dairy treats. It's
Speaker 1: a better way to put it, because ice cream is
Speaker 1: the lion's share of frozen dairy treats, but technically it
Speaker 1: falls under the umbrella of frozen dairy treats along with
Speaker 1: things like sherbet and gelado and frozen yogurt right there.
Speaker 1: Um uh, ice cream sandwiches, yeah, novelties exactly, those for
Speaker 1: good too. Um. Well, my friend, it goes back, they say,
Speaker 1: as far as second century BC. But they can't pinpoint
Speaker 1: like a definite person or place forture. They just know
Speaker 1: that it started popping up in history. Um, like with
Speaker 1: Alexander the Great. Um, he had flavored um ice and
Speaker 1: snow with honey and nectar. Yeah, snow cone. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that makes sense that that would be the origin
Speaker 1: of ice cream. Um, it makes me laugh. In this thing,
Speaker 1: they said that Nero and Claudius Caesar would frequently send
Speaker 1: runners to the mountains for snow. That just seems like
Speaker 1: a very Roman emperor thing to do, Like that's like
Speaker 1: something cold and sweet. Go in like three hours later
Speaker 1: they'd come back, you know, half dead. Here is your
Speaker 1: ice snow cone exactly. But they would flavor those with
Speaker 1: fruits and juices and that was sort of, um, another
Speaker 1: part of the beginning of ice cream. Apparently all this
Speaker 1: is going on in a vacuum to like over in
Speaker 1: Asia in different places. Yeah, and the in the mid
Speaker 1: eastn Asia, um, wherever they had mountains in these areas
Speaker 1: and they could get snow and ice. Um. Because Marco
Speaker 1: Polo and I think the thirteenth century UM came back
Speaker 1: to Italy and said check this idea out frozen fruit
Speaker 1: treats and that was basically the origin of ice cream
Speaker 1: in the West. Yeah. And uh. In England they were
Speaker 1: big on what they called cream ice because England, you
Speaker 1: gotta say it's slightly funny, um, or they would probably
Speaker 1: call it proper, right. You know there's an e at
Speaker 1: the end of cream is there? No, but there probably
Speaker 1: would be uh. And um. Catherine de Medici, who we
Speaker 1: mentioned in the episode, Oh Nostradamus, Nostradamus episode, that's right,
Speaker 1: she was big on it, and she was the wife
Speaker 1: of Henry the second And back then though it was
Speaker 1: you know, in the fift hundreds, in the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: it was only like royalty because ice was you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have freezers and they didn't have ice machines.
Speaker 1: You needed a guy to go run up to the
Speaker 1: mountain down. Yeah, it was a big deal to have ice, unless,
Speaker 1: of course, it was winter, in which case you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can have a frozen treat. But if there were
Speaker 1: summer and you were enjoying a frozen dairy treats and
Speaker 1: the runner, you're rich. You're super rich. Um. So apparently
Speaker 1: by about the seventeenth century there was at least one
Speaker 1: cafe in Paris. I think it was the first cafe
Speaker 1: in Paris um that started selling ice cream to the
Speaker 1: public in sixteen sixty. They basically made it egalitarian and um.
Speaker 1: From that point on, ice cream was a definite luxury item,
Speaker 1: but you didn't have to be royalty to obtain it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good way of saying it. Um. In the
Speaker 1: United States, the first time they found it in print
Speaker 1: was in a letter in seventeen forty four by a
Speaker 1: guest of the Governor of Maryland, William Bladen or Bladden.
Speaker 1: And there was an ad in seventeen seventy seven May
Speaker 1: twelve the New York Gazette for ice cream. So it
Speaker 1: was for sure for sale to the people back then
Speaker 1: by that time. Uh, George Washington had a recipe. Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson had a recipe. Dolly Madison used to like this,
Speaker 1: serve it at the White House watching ate a lot
Speaker 1: of it, right, didn't they say two hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: one summer? Yeah, and I failed to go to the
Speaker 1: West Egg currency converter at of I imagine that's a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Yeah, but he may you know that
Speaker 1: he had guests and he may have shared it with
Speaker 1: his Uh oh, I would hope so. Staff. You never know,
Speaker 1: especially if that's like fifty dollars worth of ice cream.
Speaker 1: You can't eat that in one summer, even if you're
Speaker 1: Joey Chestnut, world record holder for most ice cream eating?
Speaker 1: Is he? Yeah? How much did he eat? You know?
Speaker 1: One point eight gallons in six minutes? One point eight
Speaker 1: gallons in six minutes. That doesn't seem like that much.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a lot. Yeah, that's pretty speedy, but hey,
Speaker 1: that's why he's Joey Chestnuts. Plus, don't forget the brain freeze.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, do you have a thing on that
Speaker 1: brain freeze? No, I've done it. Don't be dumb on
Speaker 1: it though before do you remember what it is? Like?
Speaker 1: What is brain freeze? Yea, oh what is brain freeze?
Speaker 1: There's a there's a blood vessel that run from your
Speaker 1: brain into the roof of your mouth. It becomes um constricted,
Speaker 1: which changes the volume of your brain, which gives you
Speaker 1: a headache, which is why if you place your tongue
Speaker 1: against the roof of your mouth while you have brain freeze,
Speaker 1: it warms up that that blood vessel, allowing it to
Speaker 1: um relax again or just light a match and hold
Speaker 1: that under your roof. Your another way to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll concentrate on that pain instead of the brain freeze. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I don't get brain freeze because, um, I think it's
Speaker 1: an adult you know how not to wolf it down
Speaker 1: like that. I've gotten it accidentally though as an adult
Speaker 1: from time to time. Yeah, no, good, No, it's terrible.
Speaker 1: It's as terrible as an adult as it is when
Speaker 1: you're a child. It's probably worse as an adult debilitating
Speaker 1: you know, YEA so painful. Um. So, like you said,
Speaker 1: until around eighteen hundred, it was um mostly for for
Speaker 1: the upper class. But then, like everything else in industry
Speaker 1: in America, around that time, manufacture became more widespread and cheaper,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you had uh, warehouses that
Speaker 1: were big freezers, and you had shipping. Um, you could
Speaker 1: ship things cold and frozen, right, So you had like
Speaker 1: the manufacturing aspect in place. Yeah, homogenizer machines, electric power,
Speaker 1: mechanical refrigeration basically. But even still you had you had
Speaker 1: the manufacturing in place. The distribution that was still limited
Speaker 1: to say, like a store somebody who could make money
Speaker 1: by investing in some freezer cases and then selling it
Speaker 1: to the public. It wasn't until UM ice boxes became
Speaker 1: widespread in America that the ice cream industry really blew up,
Speaker 1: because then you could sell to the guy down at Pops.
Speaker 1: You could also sell to uh, pops, next door neighbor
Speaker 1: who took at home that's right to keep in this freezer.
Speaker 1: And thank god that happened. Yeah, And and actually as
Speaker 1: far as making um ice cream, that the you know,
Speaker 1: the hand crank ice cream maker that used like rock
Speaker 1: salt and all that stuff. Sure, that was invented by
Speaker 1: a woman named Nancy Johnson in the eighteen fifties, I think,
Speaker 1: and she patented it, and apparently everybody ripped her off.
Speaker 1: She sold the patent for like two hundred bucks, and
Speaker 1: the guy who bought it from her turned around and
Speaker 1: like made up fortune off of it. But I guess
Speaker 1: he ultimately got ripped off by a bunch of copycats.
Speaker 1: But that that same thing is still in use today,
Speaker 1: Like you can go by the Johnson crank that same yeah,
Speaker 1: the Johnson crank ice cream maker and make your own
Speaker 1: ice cream the eighteen fifties way. Uh well, you mentioned
Speaker 1: um take home ice cream being a big deal, uh too,
Speaker 1: as far as it's spreading. Um, I do have a
Speaker 1: little modern stat, at least from a few years ago.
Speaker 1: That is still the biggest part of the market. Um,
Speaker 1: sixty of the overall market is take home ice cream. Well,
Speaker 1: I saw that seven percent of Americans have ice cream
Speaker 1: in their freezer right now. Yeah, I don't. I can't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't stick around like you know, if you're going
Speaker 1: to get a pint, um, you might as well just
Speaker 1: plow through it and be done with it and then
Speaker 1: get some a few weeks later. You no, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I can't just keep like a gallon of ice cream
Speaker 1: in the house. That's um, oh, that's that's a bad move.
Speaker 1: It's a bad move from Yeah, it's a bad move
Speaker 1: for everybody. Well know, some people have wilpower. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess you're right. I don't. You're one of them. I
Speaker 1: don't keep a gallon of ice cream in my house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you've got willpower to a large degree, I think. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: you're the guy who quit smoking by just saying I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna smoke anymore. Yeah, that's true. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I do have a degree of willpower. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do not, so we're now in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: in late eighteen hundreds, and the professional soda jerk at
Speaker 1: soda fountain shops pops up and they make things called
Speaker 1: like root beer floats and coke floats and soda floats,
Speaker 1: which I haven't had one in a long time. I
Speaker 1: used to love root beer floats, but um, I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I just it's not something I see very
Speaker 1: much anymore. Well, you have to make it the trouble
Speaker 1: of eating it together yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: see floats very often anymore. I'm sure there's some places
Speaker 1: that sell them. But they were good though. Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: root beer and ice cream is a winning combination. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I haven't had one since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Probably coke works too, Yeah, coke floats good to root
Speaker 1: beer floats with the thing though, I think you're right. Um.
Speaker 1: And then this was for me the fact of the show.
Speaker 1: I did not know about this religious criticism back then.
Speaker 1: They didn't like you eating things that were so rich
Speaker 1: and like a gluttonous I guess that was sinful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, on Sundays, that is. And so in response,
Speaker 1: they took out the carbonated water or the root beer
Speaker 1: or whatever and made a Sunday and that's what I
Speaker 1: called it a Sunday originally. But apparently they were like,
Speaker 1: are you mocking us? And the Soda Jerks Union said no, no,
Speaker 1: and they changed the spelling from s u n d
Speaker 1: a Y to s u n d a eat because
Speaker 1: they were mocking them, right, yes, and they were like,
Speaker 1: this is their active retribution changing the spelling of Sunday.
Speaker 1: And the other cool two was during World War Two.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was the armed forces were all trying to
Speaker 1: outstep one another and providing ice cream to the troops
Speaker 1: in new and exciting ways because it was such a
Speaker 1: morale booster, of course to get ice cream when you're
Speaker 1: at war, right, you know, a little taste of home.
Speaker 1: And h I think that was it the Navy that
Speaker 1: had the ship. Yeah, the world's first floating ice cream parlor.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. In the Western Pacific. Well, even before that,
Speaker 1: on World War One, ice cream was deemed an essential
Speaker 1: food and so ice cream manufacturers got rations of sugar
Speaker 1: um so they could keep making ice cream during the
Speaker 1: war even though everything else is being rationed. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Ed points out that during the Depression, everything kind of
Speaker 1: slowed down that was a non essential um including ice cream,
Speaker 1: but it never went away and um through the years,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty much gained in popularity. I think in
Speaker 1: the seventies is when you started to see a little
Speaker 1: more health conscious efforts, like the frozen yogurts and the
Speaker 1: like fro Yo fro Yo. Emily loves the fro Yo.
Speaker 1: It's good stuff. Like the new stuff that's really like
Speaker 1: from the Greek yogurt. You know, it's tangy, changes everything,
Speaker 1: not like I think this can't be yogurt. Growing up,
Speaker 1: was that even yogurt that was just like soft service
Speaker 1: cream on it? Is it? This camp be? I thought
Speaker 1: it was the country's best yogurt tc B Y. We
Speaker 1: heard it was this can't be yogurt. Maybe it was different.
Speaker 1: I wonder it had to be the same yeah, tc
Speaker 1: B Y Yeah no, tc B I was great. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it was. I think it's still around.
Speaker 1: It had to be yogurt because they couldn't call it that,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't definitely not the tangy stuff that you
Speaker 1: seem like a pink berry and stuff like that. So good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not the hugest fan. I love that stuff. Each
Speaker 1: byte is just like it's just a trip through a
Speaker 1: flowery mead every bit. Really, Yes, do you get the
Speaker 1: vanilla and added stuff to it? Or I get the
Speaker 1: regular like the yeah, just the I guess, plain person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you throw in a little mango, some blueberries,
Speaker 1: look at you, the white yogurt chips on top. That's
Speaker 1: a good combination. Or if you want to go a
Speaker 1: different route, there's like, you know, chocolate crunch and maybe
Speaker 1: some other kind of chocolate d delicious treat on top.
Speaker 1: I want some ice cream so bad. All right, well
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get to the science of ice cream, um,
Speaker 1: which is decidedly less yummy sounding right after these messages.
Speaker 1: So buddy, you said that, um, all of that stuff
Speaker 1: is frozen dairy treats, but not necessarily ice cream because
Speaker 1: there's a definition, correct, Yes, So ice cream is a colloid, right,
Speaker 1: which is an unusual and complex substance, and actually quicksand
Speaker 1: is a colloid. It's a colloidal gel technically, um, But
Speaker 1: ice cream is a colloid. And a colloid is a
Speaker 1: substance where you have things that don't normally mix that
Speaker 1: are mixed together, and in this case, you have fat
Speaker 1: and sugar and milk mixed together with a little bit
Speaker 1: of air thrown in. And what you need to create
Speaker 1: a colloid is something called an emulsifier. That's the bonding
Speaker 1: agent that holds everything together, these things that don't normally mix.
Speaker 1: And in the earliest cases, egg yolks where the emulsifier
Speaker 1: that held everything together. And of course, if you're making
Speaker 1: ice cream at home, you can still use egg yolks
Speaker 1: as an emulsifire. It's an easy go to thing, but
Speaker 1: if you're manufacturing it on a large scale, you're probably
Speaker 1: using something like zan thing um or something else to
Speaker 1: emultify and stabilize the whole thing to hold it together.
Speaker 1: But yes, ice cream spe typically is a colloid that
Speaker 1: has undergone a very specific manufacturing process. And if you
Speaker 1: take or add different ingredients or different steps in the process,
Speaker 1: then you have something different, like frozen yogurt or a
Speaker 1: saucer of ice cream or sure bert. Yeah, because frozen
Speaker 1: yogurt isn't just yogurt that they freeze, which I never knew.
Speaker 1: It's actually during the ice cream making process they'll put
Speaker 1: in the yogurt cultures to make it frozen yogurt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't start with yogurt. You make yogurt doing Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that either. Pretty cool, agreed, which is
Speaker 1: why every time I just throw the yogurt and the freezer,
Speaker 1: it doesn't taste anything like really cold yogurt. Uh. The
Speaker 1: U s d A actually has a ingredient standard for
Speaker 1: it to be labeled ice cream, which has to it
Speaker 1: has to be at least ten percent in milk fat
Speaker 1: and a minimum of six percent non fat milk solids
Speaker 1: like Casin's, and a gallon has to weigh four point
Speaker 1: five pounds. I think that's neat. Yeah, sure, because I
Speaker 1: can't get it act together and anything, but it can
Speaker 1: define ice cream. Yeah. And the reason they have the
Speaker 1: minimum or the yeah, the minimum poundage is because, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, um, lighter ice cream is generally uh
Speaker 1: cheaper because it means there's there's just more air whipped
Speaker 1: in there. And that's why Ben and Jerry's pine is
Speaker 1: like a brick in your stomach. Yeah. And um. The
Speaker 1: Grabs who wrote this points out that that's usually a
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb that the heavier the ice cream,
Speaker 1: the higher quality it is, but he points out to
Speaker 1: be fair, you need to compare like types like, you
Speaker 1: can't compare something that's loaded down with like brownies and
Speaker 1: snickers with like a plain vanilla, because you know the
Speaker 1: brownies and snickers are gonna add weight and throw off
Speaker 1: your judgment. That's right in more ways than one. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some milk fat, there is um a range of milk
Speaker 1: fat you can use. Premium ice creams max out at
Speaker 1: about sixteen percent at the most, but generally they're about
Speaker 1: fourteen uh and ice cream in general is a minimum
Speaker 1: of about ten percent. And butterfat, which is another name
Speaker 1: for its great um. Butter fat makes it taste good
Speaker 1: and it makes it creamier and richer. But um, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that they found that uh sixtent is about as
Speaker 1: high as you want to go. Though it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: just make it fifty it would be even better. Um
Speaker 1: vomited after everybody. Well, you would and people they point out,
Speaker 1: their head points out, you wouldn't. People would need as
Speaker 1: much because it is so rich and it is so
Speaker 1: calorie rich as well. And so they found that perfect
Speaker 1: combination of enough to make you plow through that pint
Speaker 1: and want to get another one the next night. About
Speaker 1: fourteen to sixteen percent. Yeah, that sounds pretty good when
Speaker 1: you're talking butterfat te percent for the cheap stuff that
Speaker 1: like ned Flanders would eat, you know, yeah, totally. Um. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, ice cream is a alloid and it's
Speaker 1: um created by adding egg yolk to milk, fat and
Speaker 1: uh sugar. And I think that's a custard if you
Speaker 1: use the egg yolk, right. I think he used more
Speaker 1: egg yolk at one point for percent, at least something
Speaker 1: like that high than that. Yeah, frozen custard is at
Speaker 1: least one point four percent egg yolk solids, so they're
Speaker 1: even that's even worse for you, right, So that's just
Speaker 1: like well not necessarily cholesterolized. Um. But the ice cream
Speaker 1: itself is specifically just this combination of um, different types
Speaker 1: of ingredients with other agents that hold the whole thing
Speaker 1: together that's put through this process. Right, So when you
Speaker 1: have your sugar, when you have your cream, your milk,
Speaker 1: and you have your eggs or whatever you're going to
Speaker 1: use as stabilizer emulsifier, you put the whole thing together,
Speaker 1: and what you have right there is an ice cream mix.
Speaker 1: And no matter what the you're making it at home
Speaker 1: or if you just bought a factory or inherited it
Speaker 1: from your rich uncle who just died and they left
Speaker 1: it to you. Um, then you're going to be following
Speaker 1: pretty much the same process using virtually the same ingredients. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got um an ice cream machine, which, um, when
Speaker 1: I looked at the process of making ice cream, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much what goes on in this little thing. Like
Speaker 1: you freeze the canister, which I found out the hard way.
Speaker 1: That's how you do it, because I was like, man,
Speaker 1: it's not getting solid. No way you did it without
Speaker 1: freezing the kyd, Like you just used it at room temperature.
Speaker 1: At room temperature, and how long did you try that for?
Speaker 1: It's fun for quite a while before I realized what
Speaker 1: was going on. We luckily figured that out. Um from
Speaker 1: the get go made some pretty killer lemon gelato ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you freeze the thing and then it's uh, the
Speaker 1: canister actually spins and they have like a blade in
Speaker 1: there that disrupts it introduces the air bubbles, which is
Speaker 1: key um to making ice cream ice and rich and creamy.
Speaker 1: And it also is acts as a scraper to keep
Speaker 1: ice froom forming, which is exactly what happens in big factories.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much the same process, right or if you're
Speaker 1: using the hand crank thing. That's what you just said,
Speaker 1: the Johnson crank. Right. What you just said listed off
Speaker 1: all of the UM necessary components to making ice cream.
Speaker 1: You've got UM something that's cooling it that whether that
Speaker 1: little drum that you put in the freezer, or you
Speaker 1: have ammonia filled tubes that are freezing a tube that
Speaker 1: your mixes in. UM. So you've got that right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have UM and the ammonia tubes. We should point
Speaker 1: out that there's no ammonia. It's just making the tube cold, right.
Speaker 1: The ammonia is not being introduced into ice cream, not
Speaker 1: at all. It's just yeah, the tube is up against
Speaker 1: the tube that the ice cream is in, that's right. UM.
Speaker 1: Or if you are making it at home using a
Speaker 1: Johnson crank, you're gonna use rock salt, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of I didn't understand what the
Speaker 1: point of using rock salt was, so looked into it.
Speaker 1: We covered a little bit within the salt episode, but
Speaker 1: not like super in depth. Okay, So basically, the reason
Speaker 1: that you would add rock salt to ice is because
Speaker 1: if you just used ice, the freezing point of ice
Speaker 1: is UM thirty two degrees fahrenheit. It takes more than that,
Speaker 1: more degrees than that. Let me put it in a
Speaker 1: different way. The milk freezes at a lower temperature than ice, right,
Speaker 1: so when you add salt, you actually lower the freezing
Speaker 1: point of that ice. Because when you're using ice, it's
Speaker 1: a fresh water mixture. Salt water ice has a lower
Speaker 1: freezing temperature, so you're melting it and it's melting and refreezing,
Speaker 1: and as the ice melts, the way that it's melting
Speaker 1: is by drawing heat from something else, in this case
Speaker 1: your ice cream mixture. Right, So when you add salt,
Speaker 1: it has to draw more heat to melt because it
Speaker 1: has a lower freezing point freezing temperature, So that's why
Speaker 1: you add salt. It actually lowers the freezing point, which
Speaker 1: allows you to to cool your ice cream faster. Right,
Speaker 1: So it says it lowers the freezing point. Yeah, milk
Speaker 1: has a lower freezing point, and it makes the draws
Speaker 1: the heat out more quickly, so those ice crystals don't
Speaker 1: form on the side. Just that simple little thing is
Speaker 1: the magic that makes it happen. Yeah, we had a
Speaker 1: electric ice cream maker growing up that was the same
Speaker 1: as the Johnson crank version, but you just plug it in,
Speaker 1: not like the new one that I have today, which
Speaker 1: is much different, which you definitely plug in. Yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: plug in, and you gotta freeze that thing apparently. But
Speaker 1: my church, one of my favorite memories growing up is
Speaker 1: my church would have ice cream socials where everybody would
Speaker 1: bring their own homemade ice creams and there would just
Speaker 1: be a table with like thirty of those steel containers.
Speaker 1: You know. The people just take it right out of
Speaker 1: the old you know, ice rock salt bin and just
Speaker 1: set it on the table and you would just go berserk,
Speaker 1: you know. As a child, we had a Johnson Frank. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: growing up, and you probably had to do it right
Speaker 1: because the parents are always like that's the fun part.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm sure I did. I don't really remember.
Speaker 1: I just remember the wooden bucket thing with the crank
Speaker 1: on top, That's what I remember. And like a bag
Speaker 1: of rock salt, that's right, man, that we also used
Speaker 1: for the driveway to Yeah, yeah, of course we did
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. But I remember when I saw that rock
Speaker 1: Salt come out. It was a special evening at the
Speaker 1: Brian House. Yeah. Um, so I mentioned the little paddle, Um,
Speaker 1: it's called a dasher, which is the blade inside the tube.
Speaker 1: And this is if you're an ice cream factory, and
Speaker 1: like we said, it whips it up, introducing those air
Speaker 1: bubbles and that's what gives it the structure, and like
Speaker 1: I said, also prevents the ice crystals, larger ice crystals
Speaker 1: from forming because you don't want that. No, you want
Speaker 1: a cold, but you don't want ice. And we should say,
Speaker 1: by this time, you you've got your ice cream mixture,
Speaker 1: but you've already added whatever flavor you're gonna add. But
Speaker 1: if you're adding chunks of stuff, which you should, you're
Speaker 1: not doing that quite yet. No, so you're freezing it.
Speaker 1: What you've what you've just created is a frozen ice
Speaker 1: cream mixture because not technically U s D a standard
Speaker 1: ice cream. Yet if you stopped right here, and even
Speaker 1: if you added the snickers of the brownies or whatever
Speaker 1: or both, what you would have as soft serve ice cream,
Speaker 1: the ice cream still has another step to go through
Speaker 1: to become regular old ice cream. And that's the hardening process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the hard freeze. And that's basically all it is is
Speaker 1: you take that soft serve and you have to get
Speaker 1: it down super low at least to zero degrease fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: But um, when you're an ice cream factory, you're gonna
Speaker 1: pump it down even lower because you're gonna be shipping
Speaker 1: it and packaging it, and that you want it to
Speaker 1: stay nice and hard throughout that whole process. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that's how you do it. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much making ice cream. It's it's a great,
Speaker 1: great thing that everyone should try making ice cream. Sure, sure, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: actually that's funny that you say that, because whether you
Speaker 1: have a hand crank or one of those awesome electric
Speaker 1: ones that you are that you have to freeze the
Speaker 1: drum ahead of time. You you can also just make
Speaker 1: it at home with like basically nothing, just using a
Speaker 1: couple of bags baggies, like a bigger baggy, a smaller baggy,
Speaker 1: and make a little rock salt mixture. And um, well,
Speaker 1: I won't go through the whole recipe, but if you
Speaker 1: go to how stuff works and look up how ice
Speaker 1: cream works, there's a recipe for five minute ice cream
Speaker 1: that makes us a little bit using nothing but plastic
Speaker 1: bags and the ice cream ingredients. Yeah, and I don't
Speaker 1: think we mentioned that. Um, it's pasteurized along the way
Speaker 1: to Yeah, pasteurization keeps you from getting salmonella. Yes, and
Speaker 1: if you're making your own mix at home, you can
Speaker 1: even do that yourself with a double boiler. So, um,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about just how much everybody
Speaker 1: loves ice cream right after this, all right, buddy, Um,
Speaker 1: we will finish this out with some stats and the like.
Speaker 1: But first we should talk about overrun because that's an
Speaker 1: important part of ice cream because when you're making ice
Speaker 1: cream that there's gonna be an increase in volume as
Speaker 1: you go because you're whipping all the air into it,
Speaker 1: and that increases called overrun, and it's indicated by a percentage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you're if the volume goes from one gallon
Speaker 1: of ice cream mixture to a completed one and a
Speaker 1: half gallons of ice cream, it's over run, which is good.
Speaker 1: But um, what the the pros shoot for? Like our
Speaker 1: friends at Bluebell with the great, great commercials. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: do make fantastic ice cream they Yeah, it is really good.
Speaker 1: So if you are a national ice creamier, you might
Speaker 1: have as much as overrun, but the premium ice creams
Speaker 1: um are more dense, so they have less overrun, Right,
Speaker 1: which is why they're heavier. But you can also get
Speaker 1: into a situation where your ice cream is dense because
Speaker 1: you're not using much UM stabilizer and emulsifier. So that's
Speaker 1: not good no, because it makes your ice cream chewy.
Speaker 1: So just really dense ice cream is not necessarily the
Speaker 1: best thing. You want a mixture between the two of
Speaker 1: somewhat dense but not totally dense, but not super light
Speaker 1: ice cream. There's a there's a balance that you want
Speaker 1: to achieve. Yeah, because the air, like we said, is
Speaker 1: what gives it the structure that you appreciate, and you
Speaker 1: know it's familiar it. Get some chewy ice creams no
Speaker 1: good uh and chuck, we were remissing, not mentioning um
Speaker 1: ice cream cones. Yeah, I'm not a cone guy, are you? Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh really? So when you go to like you go out,
Speaker 1: you get it in a cone every time? Just sometimes? Yes,
Speaker 1: do you get the waffle cone? If I get a cone,
Speaker 1: I like, I like it all except the I don't
Speaker 1: know what they call the non sugar cone ones. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely the lowest on my list. But that one's fine. Um,
Speaker 1: but yes, I guess it does go waffle sugar cheap cone, um,
Speaker 1: as far as order of preference goes, but no waffle
Speaker 1: cone obviously that that like just adds to the whole thing,
Speaker 1: smelling like fresh made waffle cones being made while you're
Speaker 1: ordering ice cream. Really, I always get the cup, should
Speaker 1: almost always do, just for like, just to be healthier
Speaker 1: while I'm eating ice cream. Well no, but I mean
Speaker 1: that's a decision. Yeah, for sure, you know, but it
Speaker 1: is preferable in a waffle cone. I think they're delicious.
Speaker 1: I might start getting a cone every now and then. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's an origin story to the waffle cone,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people place it at the nineteen
Speaker 1: o four World's Fair in St. Louis, and um, that
Speaker 1: is probably not where ice cream cones were invented, but
Speaker 1: that is where they were popularized. Yeah. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're at a World's Fair, there's gonna be some waffling
Speaker 1: going on waffle making. There definitely was some waffles being made, um,
Speaker 1: but there was also some ice cream being served, that's documented,
Speaker 1: that's right. And the story goes that the ice cream
Speaker 1: makers ran out of plates or bowls or whatever they
Speaker 1: usually use, um, and they turned to the waffle makers.
Speaker 1: Who said, hey, we can help you out for a fee,
Speaker 1: Let's turn these things into some sort of cone and
Speaker 1: bam that's what happened. But it turns out that the
Speaker 1: person who actually invented the ice cream cone was an
Speaker 1: Italian immigrant to America, uh named Italo Marque. Please go ahead,
Speaker 1: you mean yeah? And he also invented the ice cream
Speaker 1: area ice crema, and I think he was the first
Speaker 1: one to coin that term. He was in the ice
Speaker 1: cream big time. Yeah, but he actually filed the patent
Speaker 1: for the on making machine a full year ahead of
Speaker 1: the fair. Yeah, so they he generally gets credited with
Speaker 1: the invention of the ice cream cone, although just because
Speaker 1: you pattent the machine doesn't necessarily mean that you were
Speaker 1: the first person who thought of the cone. No. Supposedly
Speaker 1: there's French cookbooks that date back to the eighteen forties
Speaker 1: that UM have recipes for ice cream cones. Oh really Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and we also didn't mention Jacob Fusel. We'd probably need
Speaker 1: to mention that guy because he was the first UM.
Speaker 1: He opened the first wholesale manufacturing operation in the United
Speaker 1: States in Baltimore, and he, like UM, some of the
Speaker 1: greatest success stories in business sort of got into it
Speaker 1: by accident because he was just a dairy guy who
Speaker 1: had too much cream, and I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: guess I can try this ice cream thing out. And
Speaker 1: before you knew it, he was selling more ice cream
Speaker 1: than he was anything else. Yes, it's good for him,
Speaker 1: good for us, good for that's true, good for all
Speaker 1: of us. So if you want to become like a
Speaker 1: Jacob Fusele type, you can actually go, depending on where
Speaker 1: you are in the country, to your local major university
Speaker 1: and they may or may not, depending on the size
Speaker 1: of their dairy program, offer like a real ice cream course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Penn State is known for one. Correct, Yeah, Wisconsin has one,
Speaker 1: but of course, actually Penn State graduated Ben and Jerry
Speaker 1: back in in ice creamery. Yes, I thought you could say, like, no,
Speaker 1: they were architects. Now, one of them tried to get
Speaker 1: into med school, he graduated and couldn't afford med school.
Speaker 1: The other one just dropped out of college. But both
Speaker 1: of them went together to Penn State's ice cream course
Speaker 1: and graduated. Well, I saw um. I went to their
Speaker 1: website to look at some of their facts and they
Speaker 1: I think they said they started their initial business with
Speaker 1: like four thousand dollars twelve grand. Yeah, either way, that's cheap,
Speaker 1: you know it is. I do have some other stats, though,
Speaker 1: lay him on us chuck. Uh. Yeah, it's been a
Speaker 1: while since we've had a stat run. Uh. The majority
Speaker 1: of US ice cream and frozen dessert manufacturers have been
Speaker 1: in business for more than fifty years, and many are
Speaker 1: still family owned. This is why you see like the
Speaker 1: bluebells and stuff like that. You know, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of upstarts like uh, you know, like extreme ice
Speaker 1: cream made with mountain dew code red. Oh god. Uh.
Speaker 1: Usd area approximates and this is a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Twenty courts per capita. Um, what the the U S
Speaker 1: eats every year? No? Produced? Oh wow, yeah, they produced
Speaker 1: twenty courts per capita. What's interesting, though, is the United
Speaker 1: States isn't the leader in ice cream consumption. Did you
Speaker 1: know that? Who is New Zealand? No way? Yeah, New Zealand?
Speaker 1: Um per capita? I guess obviously. Yeah, well yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so the average New Zealander eats seven and a half
Speaker 1: gallons of ice cream a year. Americans eat five and
Speaker 1: a half gallons. Yeah. Apparently, Asia, the Caribbean and Mexico
Speaker 1: and Latin America all import ice cream as well to
Speaker 1: a large degree, and the most popular flavors still vanilla,
Speaker 1: which I had to explain to Emily was a real flavor.
Speaker 1: She thinks it's an absence of all flavors, like white light.
Speaker 1: It was like, no, vanilla is a thing, and some
Speaker 1: people love it. Vanilla is still good. She thinks it's
Speaker 1: a waste of calories to eat anything that's just plain vanilla.
Speaker 1: They are really good vanillas out there that you're just like,
Speaker 1: this is this is all that's needed, like super creamy
Speaker 1: like vanilla bean yummy. And then chocolate, chip mint and
Speaker 1: cookies and cream followed as the next most popular. I'm
Speaker 1: surprised plain chocolate is not on the list. Um. I
Speaker 1: saw a grub hub survey. They did most popular ice
Speaker 1: cream flavors by flavor ordered, and vanilla was number one. Um.
Speaker 1: Green tea was number two. Hm, And I was thinking
Speaker 1: about it, and it's probably because, uh, like at a
Speaker 1: Japanese restaurant. Yeah, you don't really have any other options
Speaker 1: besides you know, green tea. Yeah, I've never had the
Speaker 1: green tea. Ice cream is a good Oh my god, really, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't need dessert in restaurants. It's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to start you. If you go to
Speaker 1: a good Japanese restaurant, they bring it out whether you
Speaker 1: ask for it or not. It's a part of the meal,
Speaker 1: and it'll be like Green Tea or um red Bean.
Speaker 1: There's another one too that's a pretty good ice cream,
Speaker 1: but Green Tea definitely has it destroyed. That sounds delicious,
Speaker 1: Yes it is. I'm hungry. Yeah. So if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about ice cream and to get this awesome,
Speaker 1: really easy five minute ice cream recipe, go to how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and type ice cream in the
Speaker 1: search bar. And since I said search bar, its time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this first of two
Speaker 1: um scientific method emails, so you're gonna hear one here
Speaker 1: and then one of the next one awesome because these
Speaker 1: are great. We I was super proud of that one,
Speaker 1: and we got a lot of kudos from scientists, which
Speaker 1: is always nice. Hey guys, my name is Danny. I'm
Speaker 1: twenty three and recently graduated with a degree in astronomy
Speaker 1: and physics. Now work at an aerospace company in l
Speaker 1: A on a space mission concept called the Star Shade.
Speaker 1: I know the star shade is a really awesome piece
Speaker 1: of tech that allows will allow us to image planets
Speaker 1: around other stars and ultimately search for life outside of
Speaker 1: our solar system. I'm writing because I was just listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast on the scientific Method, and as someone
Speaker 1: whose job regularly involves the scientific method, I want to
Speaker 1: express my appreciation for you guys recording such a great
Speaker 1: discussion on the subject. It's extremely important to give the
Speaker 1: public the opportunity to learn about science. I think that
Speaker 1: your podcast is a great vehicle by which this is achieved.
Speaker 1: So thanks. I remember once in the show, you guys
Speaker 1: let it slip that you get a few hundred emails
Speaker 1: a week, so statistically speaking, I'm twice as likely to
Speaker 1: become a millionaire than to get my email read. On
Speaker 1: the show, I saw that and I felt like he
Speaker 1: was baiting us. Oh, he totally was, and it worked.
Speaker 1: But in the case that some miracle happens and you
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Speaker 1: the astrophysics blog my friends and I have. It's called
Speaker 1: Astrophysics Unleashed and can be found online at astrophysics dash
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Speaker 1: we seek to expose the beauty hidden within astronomy and
Speaker 1: modern science. It's a great place for the inquiring mind
Speaker 1: to find food for thought or to ask questions. So
Speaker 1: that is from Danny, and he said, I wanted to
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Speaker 1: I'd spell her name wrong. Hopefully that is right. Tell
Speaker 1: her that I have no idea what she's like at all,
Speaker 1: but I'd be willing to bet that she's really cool.
Speaker 1: That is nice man. Usually people have like a better
Speaker 1: chance of getting struck by lightning. And it's spelling Jerry's
Speaker 1: name correctly. But he nailed it well. And here's a spoiler.
Speaker 1: The other scientists um said the exact same thing about
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