A Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream shop used to live on North Main Street in Dayton, not far from where I grew up. It was one of my favorite places in the entire world.
We didn’t get to go very often. It had to be some special occasion, like when my sister Ann would come home for a visit. We’d all pile into the station wagon, and take the short drive up to 31 Flavors. One flavor is all I needed. It was some kind of Chocolate Fudge Brownie concoction. I got it every time.
I haven’t had ice cream in quite a while. Going on 42 years. And I never miss it. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose. But the fact remains — ice cream is one of the most popular foods in America. People love to have a cone, bowl, or trough. Whatever it takes.
It’s no surprise that ice cream has quite a history. No one knows when it actually began, but its origins reach back as far as the second century B.C. A long time before freezers, I might add.
Historians can’t give credit to a singular person for its discovery. But they have some early records. For one, Alexander the Great enjoyed snow and ice flavored with honey and nectar. Also, during the Roman Empire, Nero Claudius Caesar (A.D. 54-86) used to send his minions into the mountains for snow, Then they would flavor that snowy stuff with fruits and juices. I can’t imagine how they kept it cold, coming back down the mountain.
It is hard telling when ice cream officially came to America, but it was sometime during the 1700s. Industrial ice cream production (in the US) began in 1851. And today, most Americans — around 90% — have ice cream in their freezers.
Ice cream has run the full gamut. Including the fact that alcohol, or lack thereof, helped it along.
It began when Congress passed the Volstead Act in 1920, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Prohibition. Yes, that whole deal nearly destroyed the alcohol industry. But, the ice cream business was just starting out, and prohibition helped give the frozen treat a big boost.
As you might imagine, federal tax revenues really benefitted from the sale of alcohol. But between 1919 and 1929, those figures plummeted. They went from $365 million to less than $13 million. Yowza.
Alcohol was (mostly) gone but not forgotten. A few breweries survived to the end of Prohibition in 1933. They made it by shifting their focus. They began producing all sorts of things like American cheese, candy, and malt syrup. And wouldn’t you know? Some of the renowned breweries, like Anheuser-Busch and Yuengling, began producing ice cream.
So, instead of those men drinking at local saloons, they took to eating ice cream. As a result, there was a 40% growth in consumption between 1920 and 1929.
Another thing that drove the ice cream boom happened to be the soda fountain. Fountains began popping up everywhere. This was helped by improved methods of refrigeration. Also, great innovations came to the world of ice cream production. These factors helped bring all sorts of frozen desserts across the United States. Companies started making new single-serve products like the ice cream bar, and the Popsicle. And don’t forget those cute little ice cream-filled Dixie cups.
Still, people longed to belly up to a bar. So sugary drinks stepped in during the 1920s. Companies like Coca-Cola got huge. With that, soda fountains replaced saloons as the place where people gathered to socialize in public.
In 1922 it was estimated the U.S. had more than 100,000 soda fountains. Most of them were in drugstores. Amazingly this came to about $1 billion in sales. Ice cream was right there in the midst of it all.
Fountain mixologists — just like bartenders — concocted drinks that mixed the soda and ice cream. Like the Root Beer Float.
These days, soda fountains have disappeared. Bars, on the other hand…
The lesson here is two-fold.
Moderation is the key to life.
Find the little moments in each day that bring you joy, no matter what that might be. Whatever makes you float.
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“I go running when I have to. When the ice cream truck is doing sixty.”
—Wendy Liebman
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“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream and that’s kind of the same thing.”
— Unknown
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“It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches.”
— Lemony Snicket, Horseradish
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Drink up. Belly up. Float up.
