Ice Cream, in some form, has been around for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks mixed snow with honey and fruit as early as 500 B.C. Marco Polo, in his travels to China, is said to have brought back a recipe for something close to sherbet. “Cream Ice,” as it was originally called in England, seems to have been a royal luxury, possibly available only to aristocrats. It wasn’t until 1660 that all Europeans could enjoy ice cream.

By the 1700s, ice cream had made it to America. Records show that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed ice cream. Thomas Jefferson even crafted his own recipe for vanilla ice cream. Dolly Madison served strawberry ice cream at her husband’s second inaugural banquet at the White House.

In the middle and late 1800s, ice cream production in the United States increased due to technological advancements such as electricity, freezing, refrigeration, and new milk homogenization techniques.

In 1904, an ice cream merchant at the St. Louis World Fair invented the ice cream cone. When he ran out of dishes to serve his ice cream, he used one of his zalabis – crisp, rolled up waffles, to hold the ice cream. His customers loved it and hence, the ice cream cone was born.

As ice cream fountain shops proliferated in the early 1900s, new ice cream products such as ice cream soda, sundaes, and root beer floats came into being. The word “sundae” was used rather than “sunday” to remove any connection to the Sabbath, observed on Sunday.

Ice cream production and popularity continued to increase through World War II and into the 1950s and 1960s. Eventually, however, ice cream fountain shops disappeared, as ice cream became staples as fast food restaurants and in super markets. Furthermore, specialty ice cream parlors such as Baskin-Robbins and more recently, Ben & Jerry’s, offered ice cream in every conceivable style and flavor.

Today, ice cream remains one of America’s favorite desserts. Americans consume almost 1.6 billion gallons of ice cream per year. Nearly 90% of American households have ice cream in their freezers at any given time.