Amazing Things You Never Knew about Ice Cream.

Amazing Things You Never Knew about Ice Cream.

When I think about summer, one of the first things that come to my mind is the way our family used to eat ice cream on the weekends. Something about this delicious dessert always makes us feel better, and it's a well known "cure" for a hard day. It was really surprising for me to find out just how many things about this simple delight are attributed to luck and chance. I'm sure you too will be amazed to find out all of these incredible facts about ice cream: The idea for chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream came from an anonymous suggestion on a board in a Burlington shop of Ben & Jerry’s. The flavor went into production in 1991 and became a huge success.

The sundae was invented by soda shops in the late 1890s and there is much debate about the true origin and meaning of the name. It might come from a belief that a special treat such as sundae is usually eaten on special day, such as Sunday. Another possible origin is the German word Sünde, meaning sin, alluding to the calorie rich nature of a sundae.

When you see pictures of ice cream on advertisements or on display cabinets it's most likely mashed potatoes.  Food photographers often use this as a stand-in for actual ice cream since it looks the same, but is much easier to shape.

The first known ice cream recipe was found in the recipe book of Lady Anne Fanshawe. It is dated at 1665 and shows it was flavored with orange flower water, mace and other bizarre additions.

The first versions of Neapolitan ice cream were made of green pistachio, white vanilla, and red cherry ice cream, the same colors as the Italian flag. Today the flavors have changed to vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, because those are the three most popular flavors in the market.

An “ice cream headache” happens when the nerve endings on the roof of your mouth touch anything too cold. When that happens they send a message to your brain signaling a loss of body heat. The blood vessels in your brain contract in response to that and when they return to their normal size, the blood rushes back to your head. Knowing this won't make your head hurt any less, but at least now you know why it hurts...

Some the most popular ice cream flavors of the colonial era in the United States were oyster, parmesan, and asparagus. Luckily they have been replaced by vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.

Chocolate ice cream is much older than vanilla, the first documented recipe for it appeared in the book The Modern Steward, published in Italy during 1692. Not only was vanilla much later invented, but it was also much less popular since vanilla was very expensive.

Professional ice cream taste-testers (yes It's a real job) use special gold spoons to test each new dish. Gold dishes leave virtually no trace of flavor which allow the tester to taste the product with no trace from what was last on the spoon.

Ever wondered why Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors are so full of chunky mix-ins and extra everything? Well it turns out that co-founder Ben Cohen has no sense of scent. He therefore gets a lot of his pleasure in ice cream from its texture. After some early tasting sessions Ben & Jerry’s decided this wasn't a bad idea at all, and we should all be thankful about that!

This is the biggest ice cream dish in the UK, it takes two hours to make and it includes 99 scoops of ice cream. This sugar monster weighs around 9lb (4kg) and contains more than  21,000 calories.

The waffle cone was created by simple chance when Abe Doumar, a traveling salesman, was working at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. He saw that an ice cream vendor ran out of paper dishes and encouraged him to start serving on rolled waffles made by another nearby vendor.

The most important ingredients in ice cream are milk, sugar and... Air. Without air mixed in, ice cream would be as hard as a rock and not much different than flavored ice.

The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate ice cream sundae is the most expansive dessert in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records. It's made using a blend of 28 cocoas, including 14 of the world's most expensive, 5g (0.17 oz) of edible 23-karat gold, and a gold spoon decorated with white and chocolate-colored diamonds, which you can take home with you. The price for all of this goodness? 25,000$ US.