Speaker 1: For centuries around the world, ice cream was a divine
Speaker 1: treat only fit for the royals. Why ice Before the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, ice was hard to come by and even
Speaker 1: harder to keep frozen. Today's episode is all about ice cream.
Speaker 1: My name is Eva Longoria and I am Mike Dean
Speaker 1: and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
Speaker 1: our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
Speaker 1: and beverages. So make yourself at home. Echel I'm so
Speaker 1: excited about today because I love ice cream, and now
Speaker 1: that I'm lactose intolerant, I'm very sad that I have
Speaker 1: to curate my ice cream accordingly. That is try magic.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited that you love ice cream because I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure because you're not a big sweet person. I'm
Speaker 1: an ice cream junkie. But are we talking about ice cream?
Speaker 1: Are we talking about like the umbrella of ice cream?
Speaker 1: Because like the sorbets, the gelato, the raspas, the snow
Speaker 1: coat was that, that's what we're talking about. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the umbrella because there's just too much good not
Speaker 1: to talk about it. There's so much because yeah, if
Speaker 1: you think about like ice cream. When I was pregnant,
Speaker 1: I got into making ice cream, and so I got
Speaker 1: an ice cream machine and I made vanilla bean with
Speaker 1: the Mexican vanilla beans. I made sorbets, mango, lemon, pear, lime, mandarin,
Speaker 1: I mean, you name it. I made it when I
Speaker 1: was pregnant, and everybody would come over and go, this
Speaker 1: is amazing. I'm like, isn't it amazing? And then I
Speaker 1: bought all these books about ice cream and recipes. There's
Speaker 1: a beautiful book called The Perfect Scoop and it has
Speaker 1: like French ice cream, which has more dairy, and then
Speaker 1: there's American ice cream, which is different. And I mean
Speaker 1: it was all these different recipes and I was like,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. It's so complex. Yeah, it's so complex.
Speaker 1: And you think ice cream ice cream, Well, let's get
Speaker 1: into the history of this, because people have been enjoying
Speaker 1: ice cream for a very long time, absolutely, like a
Speaker 1: very very, very very very long time. The history of
Speaker 1: ice cream is ancient, ancient, ancient, So where did it
Speaker 1: come from? Like, who how did it start so long ago?
Speaker 1: If there was no ice, well there was ice, there
Speaker 1: was no ice cream makers. But where there's snow, there
Speaker 1: is ice, and there's ice cream. Okay, right, So it
Speaker 1: has been basically ice cream has been a luxury item
Speaker 1: for thousands of years, and it was this this sort
Speaker 1: of luxury treat that was only fit for royals because
Speaker 1: they needed to get ice. So there is in the
Speaker 1: fourth century BC, Alexander the Great, he loved to indulge
Speaker 1: in icy drinks flavored with honey or wine. In the
Speaker 1: first century, ice was harvested from nearby mountains and held
Speaker 1: in ice houses that were these sort of deep pits
Speaker 1: covered with straw. So this is something that people would
Speaker 1: do basically put snow in pits up until the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: so up until not that long ago. And when did
Speaker 1: sugar get added? Well, sugar was added by the Italians,
Speaker 1: of course it was I mean the Italians were really
Speaker 1: took ice cream to a whole you know, other level.
Speaker 1: But even during the Middle Ages, the Arabs drank this
Speaker 1: icy rish freshman called sherbet, flavored with cherry or pomegranate
Speaker 1: or quint so it was sweet but with fruit, not
Speaker 1: necessarily with the addition of sugar. But the first time
Speaker 1: that we see sugar added to this sort of Surbet
Speaker 1: was in seventeenth century Italy. This man named Antonio Latini.
Speaker 1: He lived in Naples. He worked for the Spanish viceroy
Speaker 1: in Naples. And this is when this part of southern
Speaker 1: Italy was part of Spain. So we could really credit
Speaker 1: the Italians for taking ice cream to a whole, you know,
Speaker 1: new level. This Sicilian named Francesco Procopio, he opened the
Speaker 1: first cafe in Paris called Il brocop and it's still around.
Speaker 1: This was in sixteen eighty six, and this cafe became
Speaker 1: the meeting place for intellectuals including Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon
Speaker 1: and Victor Hugo. And so he introduced gelato to the
Speaker 1: French public and it was served in these little, poor
Speaker 1: slim bowls resembling a little egg cups. And Procopio became
Speaker 1: known as the father of Italian gelato. This is before
Speaker 1: freezers like you, it was. It was. It was something
Speaker 1: that was quite quite expensive. Gelato has a I don't
Speaker 1: like the texture of gelato. It has a gelatiness to it. Huh.
Speaker 1: It's a different texture than ice cream for sure. So gelato,
Speaker 1: it was actually invented, even before they say that it
Speaker 1: was invented by a stage designer named Bernardo Bonatali who
Speaker 1: made ice cream for the Medici Court in Florence. He's
Speaker 1: kind of never making a gelato, but you know, this
Speaker 1: guy Procopio made it, you know, brought it to France.
Speaker 1: But it's made with it's less creamy. It's made with
Speaker 1: milk rather than cream, and it has a low or
Speaker 1: percentage of milk fat than ice cream, so it's a
Speaker 1: little smoother and silkier, whereas ice cream has more fat.
Speaker 1: It has egg yolks, so it's a little it's a
Speaker 1: little thicker than the gage. Yeah. The French were also
Speaker 1: experimenting with frozen desserts called fromage, but not fromage. You
Speaker 1: didn't have cheese. It was just called fromage partly because
Speaker 1: of that's probably because a little molds that they were
Speaker 1: that it was actually you know, placed in I've never
Speaker 1: had it. I wonder if you could still find this
Speaker 1: frozen fromage. It's so interesting because as you describe how
Speaker 1: the French experimented with the fromage the frozen dessert, the
Speaker 1: process that they describe, which is stirring it during the
Speaker 1: freezing process is the same as as as a granita. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also the similar to raspa. Yeah right, you
Speaker 1: don't have anice machine, yeah yeah. You just put it
Speaker 1: in the freezer and then you just take a four
Speaker 1: the times of a fork and raspad which is scrape,
Speaker 1: and then you create this sort of like a snow cone,
Speaker 1: basically a raspa. So that's similar to the to the granita.
Speaker 1: Speaking of raspas, which is super Mexican, I say raspas,
Speaker 1: you say rasp in um. When we were in Vera Cruz,
Speaker 1: it was called something else, raspato. I had never heard
Speaker 1: that before. Yeah, different places, different I grew up calling
Speaker 1: it ras And that's because it's snow coast scrape back
Speaker 1: block of ice. And it's usually served in a coup,
Speaker 1: like in a plastic cup from the street with like
Speaker 1: sugar syrup, you know, pour it on top of a cone.
Speaker 1: It's in a in a plastic cone. Oh I've never
Speaker 1: had it in a cone. I always have it in
Speaker 1: a cup. Oh, I mean a snow cone. Like at
Speaker 1: a carnival. They put it in a cone. Yes, like
Speaker 1: a cone. Cop Stay with us more on the history
Speaker 1: of ice cream right after the break. So what about
Speaker 1: what about ice cream and Mexico nive. Pre Hispanic niven
Speaker 1: never means snow. Niv yeah, Spanish word for snow. I
Speaker 1: always grew up called ice cream nieve. Whether it's water
Speaker 1: based or not, it's for me, it's naev. It's all nieve.
Speaker 1: But Mexico has a very important and ancient tradition of
Speaker 1: eating ice cream. So in Prehispanic Mexico, pikas which were
Speaker 1: these elite, long distant traders that cover these vast networks
Speaker 1: of routes connecting the Aztec Empire. They were responsible for
Speaker 1: obtaining snow from the volcanoes that are surrounding modern day
Speaker 1: Mexico City in a two day process. So they would
Speaker 1: swiftly hike up the volcanoes packed snow and these leather
Speaker 1: satchels that were wrapped with agave fibers in order to
Speaker 1: keep to keep the snow from from melting before it
Speaker 1: reaches final destination. And the snow was sold in luxury
Speaker 1: markets of Platelco, which was the luxury market in modern
Speaker 1: day Mexico City. But the job of flavoring the snow
Speaker 1: fell to a select group of priests who added ingredients
Speaker 1: like honey or agave nectar or fresh fruits like prickly pear,
Speaker 1: sometimes a little bit of corn, and the finished product
Speaker 1: was symbolically offered to the gods before being sold in
Speaker 1: the markets at a premium. We talked about this a
Speaker 1: little bit in our chocolate episode that cacao beans were
Speaker 1: used as currency. So the cost of one cup of
Speaker 1: ice cream would cost twenty cacao beans. So this is
Speaker 1: very expensive considering the cost. You could buy a rabbit
Speaker 1: that could feed you know, a bunch of people would
Speaker 1: cost thirty cacao beans, so twenty would buy this luxurious
Speaker 1: cup of nie. Where does where does Tamarin come from Mexico? Right,
Speaker 1: Thamarin comes from Mexico, botha Mario, Linamica. They all made
Speaker 1: their way to Mexico post conquest from the Caribbean or Africa. Well,
Speaker 1: there are different, you know theories. Tamarindo's native to South Asia,
Speaker 1: but it could have it's South Asians, so you see
Speaker 1: a lot of Indian you know, cuisine. So it could
Speaker 1: have made its way from Asia to the Philippines and
Speaker 1: then into Mexico on the Manella galleons. Or maybe it
Speaker 1: had already made its way to Africa, you know, pre
Speaker 1: colonial Mexico. So maybe it made its way to Mexico
Speaker 1: via Africa. I associate Tamarindo with Mexico, like it's so Mexican.
Speaker 1: And so it was during this colonial period that the
Speaker 1: ingredients were like uh made intergral to the to the
Speaker 1: ice cream, I mean into into Mexican cuisine in general,
Speaker 1: but like damarindo, lime, hibiscus, sugar, um. You know, it
Speaker 1: all became part of the history of ice cream in Mexico.
Speaker 1: And all of these local fruits. I mean, Mexico has
Speaker 1: amazing local fruits. And when those local fruits met gelato
Speaker 1: recipes by the Italian immigrants, I mean, so many artisanal
Speaker 1: ice creams and sorbets were born during the colonial period
Speaker 1: and they were like churned by hand, um in salt
Speaker 1: filled wooden barrels. That's so funny, Like they were churned
Speaker 1: in wooden barrels. Yeah, you've seen these, probably when you're
Speaker 1: driving in Mexico because you see them in a lot
Speaker 1: of the you know, the streets. I you know, when
Speaker 1: I went to Totacruz, I had ice cream when I
Speaker 1: meant to meet you and Dacrus, I have an ice
Speaker 1: cream everywhere I got. I'm obsessed with ice cream. But
Speaker 1: on the roads. On the side of the roads. In Mexico,
Speaker 1: they have these neighbors rafa. So it's these these wooden
Speaker 1: barrels with a metal cylinder on the inside, and in
Speaker 1: between the cylinder and the barrel they put the ice
Speaker 1: and salt and so you turn by hand and it
Speaker 1: freezes the the ice cream, but not like a solid
Speaker 1: block like but it makes these delicious, you know, water
Speaker 1: based ice creams, basically like sorbetsum with these fruit. I
Speaker 1: was in Mexico City a couple of weeks ago and
Speaker 1: I adnavana, which is like the sour sup Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was so delicious and it was made like that
Speaker 1: and sold and this little cup. My mouth is watering
Speaker 1: just thinking about. Yeah. Well, the Maluccon and Veracruz has
Speaker 1: a very rich history of ice cream vendors. It's because
Speaker 1: that was the port. So you had the Italian everywhere,
Speaker 1: and so you had French people, you had you know,
Speaker 1: all the Europeans, all the Caribbeans, so that Benacruz for sure,
Speaker 1: and then also like Goyacan and Socimilco they had there's
Speaker 1: like ice cream festival, so they have this amazing you
Speaker 1: know tradition of ice cream butletice mata also this sort
Speaker 1: of burnt milk m So it's interesting. Like just the
Speaker 1: differences between Mexican ice cream and American ones is that,
Speaker 1: you know, Mexican ice creams are more fruit is front
Speaker 1: and center, right, whereas American ice creams are more you know, chunky,
Speaker 1: right like Ben and Jerry's with like chunks of brownie
Speaker 1: or cookies and cream which is my favorite, with trunks
Speaker 1: of oreos um. You don't really see that in Mexico. No, No,
Speaker 1: like Mexican ice creams closer to the gelato or less flat,
Speaker 1: less fat less air very few or egg based, and
Speaker 1: fruit is always front and center, like for sure, front
Speaker 1: and center. And that's why I think balletas and snow
Speaker 1: cones are way more popular in Mexico than ice cream
Speaker 1: per se. Yeah, I think they're both. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think maybe the ice cream. Depending on where you are
Speaker 1: in Mexico, there is a big sort of ice cream,
Speaker 1: you know, traditional let Goyacan. In Mexico City, there's tons
Speaker 1: of ice cream vendors all over. I was in the
Speaker 1: Chacon a few months ago also, like ice cream was everywhere,
Speaker 1: but different than the ice cream shops that we see here.
Speaker 1: Like going to like basket Robins or Jennies or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're more sort of outside, yeah, like a little like
Speaker 1: a little vendors that have an ice cream and then
Speaker 1: separately the balletas and separately the last bus. So then
Speaker 1: speaking of raspas, that brings us to the Americas. So
Speaker 1: when did ice cream reach the America's obviously with colonization,
Speaker 1: with colonized like everything else, like everything else. European settlers
Speaker 1: in the early seventeen hundreds, and they brought their European
Speaker 1: cookbooks with them and they start you start seeing ice
Speaker 1: cream molds that are super cool. I've been looking. I
Speaker 1: always go off and go like on eBay or et
Speaker 1: C to see if I could find these old ice
Speaker 1: cream molds. So they would basically put them in there
Speaker 1: to shape these ice cream and they had like fruit
Speaker 1: shapes or little animal shapes, and it became, you know,
Speaker 1: very popular among the upper classes. But the first ice
Speaker 1: cream parlor opened in New York in seventeen ninety, and
Speaker 1: everybody was like George Washington during the summer of seventeen ninety,
Speaker 1: George Washington was a fan. Thomas Jefferson was a fan
Speaker 1: a Graham Lincoln's wife was a fan of ice cream.
Speaker 1: She would she would hold strawberry parties, serving ripe strawberries
Speaker 1: with cake and ice cream like this, I want to
Speaker 1: go to that. This was like a you know that
Speaker 1: sounds like a fun party. So it was pretty popular
Speaker 1: in the seventeen Yeah, the seventeen nineties, that's the era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first, the earliest recipe for ice cream in the US.
Speaker 1: He's actually written in Thomas Jefferson's hand. Wow. So cool.
Speaker 1: He brought this recipe back to the US from Paris
Speaker 1: he lived in He lived in Paris for four years
Speaker 1: before the French Revolution, and when he came back, he
Speaker 1: brought back eighty six crates of kitchen equipment, including an
Speaker 1: ice cream maker, and there was a recipe earliest recipe
Speaker 1: for vanilla ice cream. Yeah, and a relative of his.
Speaker 1: I have this cook of the Virginia Housewife. This is
Speaker 1: from eighteen twenty four by Mary Randolph, who was related
Speaker 1: to him by by mary marriage. She includes twenty different
Speaker 1: recipes for ice cream in this cookbook. And this is
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty four, so this is very very early on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was like up and running, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was a thing by eighteen twenty four, ice cream
Speaker 1: was a thing. You know what's so funny is that
Speaker 1: how much ice cream we consume in America. That nine
Speaker 1: percent of American cow's milk production is dedicated to ice cream,
Speaker 1: and that vanilla is the most popular flavor. It's my
Speaker 1: favorite flavor. Don't go anywhere. When we come back, we've
Speaker 1: got more on the history of ice cream. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Hungry for History. Fanny Gerson is the chef and
Speaker 1: founder of Lanu Jurquina, and New York based frozen treats
Speaker 1: and baked goods shop dedicated to celebrating this sweets of Mexico.
Speaker 1: Here is Fanny telling us a bit about herself, sharing
Speaker 1: what inspired her to open her business, and giving us
Speaker 1: her thoughts on what makes Mexican flavors so unique. My
Speaker 1: name is Fanny Gerson. I was born and raised in
Speaker 1: Mexico City, and Lani Yorkina is a company that I
Speaker 1: started in two thousand and ten. I had spent the
Speaker 1: year prior to that doing research for my first cookbook,
Speaker 1: called My Sweet Mexico. Really that experience changed me, so
Speaker 1: one day I literally had a dream that I was
Speaker 1: going to open a Mexican ice cream shop. In New
Speaker 1: York and that's how Lan Yorkina was born. And I
Speaker 1: decided to start with paltas Mexican style ice pops because
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, this is a way to test
Speaker 1: the idea without you know, costing much less than I
Speaker 1: didn't have to buy a machine. And also I didn't
Speaker 1: see anybody really making baltas in New York. And that's
Speaker 1: how it started. And now Lemi Yorquina. We are still
Speaker 1: known mainly for frozen treats for our Balta's ice cream,
Speaker 1: but we also do all sorts of treats, sweets, candies, confections, cakes,
Speaker 1: to ross all kinds of stuff. So to me, the
Speaker 1: sweetness of Mexico encompasses a lot of things, like not
Speaker 1: just literally sweet, you know, because everything that we do
Speaker 1: is say is sweet, but really highlighting our culture in
Speaker 1: a beautiful, delicious, positive and rich way. You know. Mexican
Speaker 1: food often get sort of put together as this lump thing,
Speaker 1: like there's one thing, you know, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of assumptions about it. But Mexican food is incredibly rich,
Speaker 1: very regional, and there's been a lot of things written
Speaker 1: and researched about the cuisine as a whole, but not
Speaker 1: a whole lot specifically on sweets. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: it was out of my own curiosity. So it's really
Speaker 1: celebrating that. And for the most part, also a lot
Speaker 1: of the traditions in Mexico, particularly the sweets, are oral ones,
Speaker 1: meaning they're passed down from generation to generation. So for me,
Speaker 1: it's a celebration that it's rooted in tradition and just
Speaker 1: giving it continuity. I think that one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting things about Mexican ice cream is if you think
Speaker 1: about ice cream and jelato, Like in different parts of
Speaker 1: the world, if you go to a shop or a stand,
Speaker 1: you're going to see mostly cream based or milk based selections,
Speaker 1: you know, ice creams and the sorbet. You may have
Speaker 1: like one or two trickle. You know, they're sort of
Speaker 1: like as a thing, but in Mexico it's the opposite.
Speaker 1: You often see like more fruit based ones or at
Speaker 1: least half, and they're just so bright and colorful, and
Speaker 1: also it's it's they are so amazing. They really are.
Speaker 1: Like the flavors that we have, they're very sort of
Speaker 1: in your face, like a lot of you know, Mexican flavors,
Speaker 1: and they're playful, and that's the other thing I just
Speaker 1: want to mention, like Mexican food in particularly the sweets
Speaker 1: are very playful and joyful, and I think that that
Speaker 1: makes them particularly special and that I hope when people
Speaker 1: come to New York they can get a taste of lamarquina.
Speaker 1: Although if you do live in the US, we ship nationwide,
Speaker 1: so that's that's pretty cool. What's your favorite flavor of
Speaker 1: ice cream? Well, I love vanilla ice cream. It's what
Speaker 1: I always have in my freezer. But my favorite is
Speaker 1: cookies and cream. Okay, yeah, I don't like cookies and cream.
Speaker 1: I don't like mint. I don't know why people put
Speaker 1: mint and chocolate together. That does not make sense. I
Speaker 1: don't like those Girl Scout cookies that have mint and chocolate.
Speaker 1: I don't like thin mints. I don't like mint chocolate.
Speaker 1: Why who put those two things together? Makes me very angry. Um.
Speaker 1: According to the International Dairy Foods Association in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: Americans eat roughly twenty pounds of ice cream each year,
Speaker 1: so that's about four gallons per person. So this is like,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of ice cream. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: ice cream. This is why I don't have cookies and
Speaker 1: cream in my freezer because I would eat four gallons probably,
Speaker 1: And yeah, if it's if it's in the freezer, it
Speaker 1: will be eaten Dairy Queen, which is my favorite, probably
Speaker 1: my favorite ice cream. Oh my god, you're not glad
Speaker 1: you brought up Derek Queen. Okay, got Dairy Queen. Is
Speaker 1: there's nothing better? I was. I made a big note
Speaker 1: on my notes the soft syrup dipped in chocolate dip
Speaker 1: cone and and the dilly bar, which is the dilly bar.
Speaker 1: The dilly bar is basically the same thing. It's on
Speaker 1: a stick. It's basically the soft serve and dipped, but
Speaker 1: it's on a stick. Um, so it has the hard
Speaker 1: shell chocolate. And so anyway, I love dairy I mean
Speaker 1: that's the ice cream I grew up with. That was
Speaker 1: like the fancy if we were going to splurge that
Speaker 1: we would go to Dairy Queen. Yeah, growing up it
Speaker 1: was Dairy Queen. And every time I go to Texas,
Speaker 1: I have to go to Dairy Queen. It's a road
Speaker 1: trip stop. Like every single time. It's the cone, the
Speaker 1: curly with the chocolate and you have to eat it
Speaker 1: really quickly because it's mouths. I also, if we didn't
Speaker 1: go to Dairy Queen, it was the ice cream man,
Speaker 1: it was the ice cream truck. We didn't really do
Speaker 1: the have the ice I don't have a memory of
Speaker 1: an ice cream No, I don't really have memory of
Speaker 1: an ice cream truck growing up. Dairy Queen one percent,
Speaker 1: because there was one very close to my house. Um.
Speaker 1: And then also we would we would actually go across
Speaker 1: No Laredo and by there was a place there called Larrechia,
Speaker 1: and we always bought. We always had it. Our freezer
Speaker 1: always had lime. But I don't really remember the ice
Speaker 1: cream truck growing Okay, See, you and I grew up
Speaker 1: so different and so similar because I didn't grow up
Speaker 1: with baltas. We didn't have them in Corpus Christi. Um,
Speaker 1: and I really didn't get into balas you call them, right,
Speaker 1: which is like popsicles, yeah, but fruiting. No, They're like, no,
Speaker 1: they're popsicles on steroids. Because these the combination flavors that
Speaker 1: Mexicans do with these popsicles, like the Ta Marino mangol,
Speaker 1: you know, the coconut with chile or whatever. Like they're
Speaker 1: just amazing combinations. And I never really had them until
Speaker 1: I married Bippe and they're everywhere obviously in Mexico. In
Speaker 1: Mexico City, yeah, I didn't grow up with balata and
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this? And because I'm black,
Speaker 1: those in Dollar Now they're my new favorite thing. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah. And we grew up even in Laredo
Speaker 1: with a little especially downtown Laredo that's cool, closer to
Speaker 1: the bridge, the palate, the little you know, the guy
Speaker 1: with a little cart and had these water based you know,
Speaker 1: Mario with my guy and all of these like amazing flavors.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting that And I always have in
Speaker 1: my freezer. I always have Valta's, always have, always, always,
Speaker 1: and there's always have line Valetta's Mango. I make them.
Speaker 1: Also there's this brand that's like a yes, they have
Speaker 1: I know that they're the best. They have them. They
Speaker 1: sell palates at grocery stores. I buy them, you know,
Speaker 1: at the grocery stores here in La It's like a
Speaker 1: hot pink box. And they make the best pecan Valtas.
Speaker 1: They're incredible. So I always have Falitas and I always
Speaker 1: have ice cream in my freezer always. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Tell all your friends about Hungry for History.
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