Interesting facts about ice cream you may not know

Ice cream is a favorite food of many people in the summer. However, not everyone knows all the interesting facts about this cool, delicious and attractive ice cream .

Fun facts about ice cream

1. Ice cream originated in China ! The cool, creamy treat we know today was invented in China and brought there by Marco Polo in the 13th century.
2. The first ice cream parlor in America opened in New York around 1790. Later, during Prohibition, in the 1920s, ice cream parlors replaced many bars and taverns as places to hang out and listen to music.
3. Thomas Jefferson was the first American to write down a recipe for ice cream and helped popularize it by serving it at the president's home. His French butler, Adrien Petit, may have been the creator of the recipe.
4. During his time in office, President Reagan declared July National Ice Cream Month, with the third Sunday in July as National Ice Cream Day.
5. Kulfi, a traditional Indian ice cream, originated in Delhi in the 16th century, is almost 500 years old!
6. Freeze-dried ice cream was made for astronauts starting with the Apollo missions. However, astronauts like Mike Massimino were largely unfavorite, saying it was 'more closely related to a building material than a food.'
7. During World War II, the US Navy converted a barge into a floating ice cream factory that could produce 10 gallons (37.9 L) of ice cream every seven minutes and hold up to 2,000 gallons (7,600 L)!
8. Commander J. Hunter Reinburg converted a plane to carry canned milk and cocoa during World War II. He then flew to altitudes where temperatures dropped below freezing, making ice cream for his troops stationed at Peleliu.
9. The first ice cream cone was patented by an Italian immigrant named Italo Marchiony in 1903. It was later popularized at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis by a Syrian immigrant named Ernest A. Hamwi.
10. Fried ice cream is made by coating a scoop of ice cream in batter and deep-frying it. A similar dessert, the Baked Alaska, was invented in 1867 by a chef named Charles Ranhofer in New Orleans, Louisiana.
11. Harry Burt, an Ohio-based confectioner, launched the first ice cream truck fleet in the 1920s, equipped with bells from his son's sleigh. Today, tunes like "Frere Jacques" (France) and "London Bridge is Falling Down" (England) can be heard everywhere.

1. The black ice cream, which has become popular on Instagram , gets its color from ingredients like black garlic, activated charcoal, and squid ink.
2. McDonald's soft-serve ice cream machines are notoriously prone to breaking down. The website McBroken.com was launched in 2020 to display a map of broken machines.
3. New Zealand consumes the most ice cream per capita in the world, at a whopping 7.4 gallons (28 L) per person per year!
4. Gourmet Grubb, a South African ice cream company, uses an insect-based milk alternative called 'EntoMilk'. Black soldier fly larvae are mixed to create EntoMilk, which has a peanut butter and spice flavour.
5. Ice cream soda, also known as 'ice cream floats', was invented by Robert Green in 1874 in Philadelphia. The story goes that Green ran out of ice and improvised with ice cream from a neighboring vendor.
6. In 1988, Palm Dairies Ltd. broke the world record for making a 54,917 lb (24.91 metric tons) ice cream sundae in Alberta, Canada.
7. The 'Blue Laws', a religious law of the 1800s, prohibited the sale of certain items such as alcohol or soda on Sundays. The soda in the soda float was replaced with chocolate sauce to create the first 'Sunday soda', which later became known as the Ice Cream Sundae.
8. In 2007, Serendipity 3 in New York sold a world record-breaking $25,000 sundae called the 'Haute Chocolate Frozen' covered in edible gold. The profits went to children's charities.
9. Alfred L. Cralle, an African-American inventor, patented the world's first ice cream scoop in 1897. This first scoop created conical scoops instead of the spherical version we know and love today!
10. Eleven-year-old Frank Epperson from California invented the first popsicle stick in the winter of 1905. After playing outside in the cold, Frank left his soda with the stirring stick still inside. His soda froze, and the popsicle stick was born!
11. Paleteros ('ice cream vendors') are popular all over Mexico. They sell paletas ('ice cream sticks') in a variety of unique flavors, like tamarind and mango with chili.

1. Brain freeze occurs when something cold hits the roof of your mouth, causing blood vessels to constrict and dilate rapidly. You can prevent this by warming the roof of your mouth with your tongue!
2. A Japanese scientist has discovered that eating ice cream in the morning can improve your ability to concentrate. Sicilians also eat ice cream for breakfast, served on a Brioche bread roll called Brioche con Gelato.

Micah Soto

Update 10 July 2025