Summary
From 1862 to 1876 Charles Ranhofer was a chef at Delmonico's in New York City. He was a showman and a master at making ice cream. He used moulds to fashion his ice creams and made it look like certain foods such as tomoatoes, potatoes, and bananas. One time he made a hen with chicks and eggs in her nest, which were made out of burnt almond ice cream, chocolate icing, spun sugar, and songe cake. In 1867, The United States of America acquired the territory of Alaska from Rusia. Ranhofer wanted to make a style of ice cream that would celebrate this moment, and create something that no one had seen before. For his creation Ranhofer wanted it to resemble an inverted cone. He moulded a Savoy biscuit at the base. He then put a layer of banana ice cream followed by a layer of vanilla ice cream. After Ranohfer froze the ice cream. He then covered the cone with meringue, and then browned it fast in a hot oven. He called it "Alaska, Florida" but in his 1894 cookbook ,The Epicurean, it was called baked Alaska.
The flavours of ice cream come from many different sources. Vanilla comes from the plant, Vanilla planifolia. This flower must be fertilized by hummingbirds or bees before it yields a bean. The bean is put into hot water, fermented for several months , wraped in straw, then sun-dried. The vanilla bean is aged for up to two years. After the flavour, vanillin, is finally extracted. Chocolate comes from the cacao bea. The cacao bean is fruit on the Theobroma cacao tree that grows in Mexico, Central America, South America, West Indies, and on the west coast of Africa. The kernels are extracted from bean, and grounded into a liquid flow or chocolate liquor. Chocolate mixes well with coffee, which comes from the coffee tree originated in Ethiopia. Vanilla, chocolate, and coffee are the main ingrediants in many ice cream recipes. The three traveled through Europe heading into many coffee houses and cafes, from which the ice cream parlour evolved.
Quote
"Benjamen Thompson became a spy for the British during the American Revolution, was briefly a statesman, and, in 1803, went to Paris, where he gave up spying for good" (Powell 179).
Reaction
As Powell starts to get into a certain topic of ice cream, she first gives a lot of background history, even if it has nothing to do with ice cream. This is a good method to use because she is not letting the reader go into a certain topic without any idea of how they got there. Powell does this numerous of times in the book which allows the reader to learn all the history of ice cream even if it is information that is indirect.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Ice Cream: The Delicious History by Marilyn Powell pg 123-165
Summary
In European history there are people and rulers who have some sort of connection with ice cream. The first cookbook to ever contain a recipe for ice cream was Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts in 1718. Mary Eales was a confectioner to Queen Anne. The recipe was mainly cream which could be plain or sweetened with a little fruit. In the recipe it was required to place pots of the ice cream mixture into a pail, placing the pail over straw and piling up ice and bay salt around it. After put ice on the top, cover it with more straw and set it in a place where no sun light can get to it, mainly a Cellar. Then the ice cream would be frozen in four hours.
Catherine de' Medici, queen of France left her native country of Italy in order to marry the duc d’Orleans of France at the age of fourteen. After the dauphin Francois died, his brother duc d’Orleans inherited the kingdom. In the nineteenth century, a tale arose that Catherine brought her own confectioners with her to France, and they started to teach the French how to make ice cream. This legend started to be told around the time when the appeal for ice cream was spreading rapidly.
In 1904 the Louisiana Purchase Exposition celebrated the territory the United States required from Frace. At the Exposition Abe Doumar, from Syria emigrated to the United States and worked at fairs around the country. At night Abe was a zalabia salesman. Zalabia is a kind of crips waffle which he sold for a penny. He got the idea that he could make a ten cent profit instead. Abe rolled the warm zalabia into a cone and added ice cream to it. He called it "a kind of Syrian ice-cream sandwich". This idea spread through concessions.
Quote
"The Push Pop that Gary Snow enjoyed so much is still around, still shaped like a tube, with cardboard underneath and encircling the sherbet (now it comes in at least two flavours) (Powell 140)."
Reaction
Many times Marilyn Powell will talk about ice cream products that are still being produced today. By doing this the reader can see that certain products are what was popular in earlier years, and how they are even sometimes made better as time goes on. This even could be due to the fact that certain people continue to get the same products at stores because it is what they like.
In European history there are people and rulers who have some sort of connection with ice cream. The first cookbook to ever contain a recipe for ice cream was Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts in 1718. Mary Eales was a confectioner to Queen Anne. The recipe was mainly cream which could be plain or sweetened with a little fruit. In the recipe it was required to place pots of the ice cream mixture into a pail, placing the pail over straw and piling up ice and bay salt around it. After put ice on the top, cover it with more straw and set it in a place where no sun light can get to it, mainly a Cellar. Then the ice cream would be frozen in four hours.
Catherine de' Medici, queen of France left her native country of Italy in order to marry the duc d’Orleans of France at the age of fourteen. After the dauphin Francois died, his brother duc d’Orleans inherited the kingdom. In the nineteenth century, a tale arose that Catherine brought her own confectioners with her to France, and they started to teach the French how to make ice cream. This legend started to be told around the time when the appeal for ice cream was spreading rapidly.
In 1904 the Louisiana Purchase Exposition celebrated the territory the United States required from Frace. At the Exposition Abe Doumar, from Syria emigrated to the United States and worked at fairs around the country. At night Abe was a zalabia salesman. Zalabia is a kind of crips waffle which he sold for a penny. He got the idea that he could make a ten cent profit instead. Abe rolled the warm zalabia into a cone and added ice cream to it. He called it "a kind of Syrian ice-cream sandwich". This idea spread through concessions.
Quote
"The Push Pop that Gary Snow enjoyed so much is still around, still shaped like a tube, with cardboard underneath and encircling the sherbet (now it comes in at least two flavours) (Powell 140)."
Reaction
Many times Marilyn Powell will talk about ice cream products that are still being produced today. By doing this the reader can see that certain products are what was popular in earlier years, and how they are even sometimes made better as time goes on. This even could be due to the fact that certain people continue to get the same products at stores because it is what they like.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Ice Cream: The Delicious History by Marilyn Powell pg 83-122
Summary
The nature of ice cream, is that it is an intentional discovery or accidental finding. In Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History he talks about how salt is needed to survive. Also that many things used in the worl need salt. And thanks to salt, ice cream exists because salt plays a big had in freezing ice cream.
Even though ice cream needs freezing, it is only ever a partly frozen form. There are liquids in ice cream that always reamains unfrozen. If ice cream was totaly solid, it would be inpossible to scoop up. However, not making ice cream rock solid was a challenge in it's early making. Francois Pierre recommended that the mixtute be skaken several times during the freezing process to the ice cream would not freeze solid. The proper ratio of fat to air to ice was not yet known. Therefore there was not enough fat in ice cream to stop the ice crysltes from completely freezing.
By increasing the density of the base of ice cream, sugar lowers the freezing point. When the ice crystles in the ice cream begin to form, the ugar dissolved in cream, eggs or milk, becomes more concentrated which also lowers the freezing point. This process continues making the sugar concentration so high, and the freezing point so low, that there will always be some liquid unfrozen in the ice cream.
James Logue, an ice cream connoisseur, said that "The absolute best ice cream is served in little paper cups and eaten with plastic spoons. You can always tell you are somewhere serious when you get it served that way" (Powell 109). Powell then states that Logue was not talking about the presentation of the ice cream, but the quality.
After looking into the taste buds on a human tongue, Powell writes about how the ten thousand taste buds have sensative nerve endings that receive every taste of food. So if the ice cream was frozen solid, then it would make the taste buds anaesthetized. This is why it is important for the ice cream to start melting in a bowl and finish the in a person's mouth for the great effect and taste it has.
Quote
"Then the company began to capitalize on the apparent contraction between eating ice cream and wanting to be slim" (Powell 101).
Reaction
As Powell is telling different parts of history of ice cream, she also mentions a lot ice cream companies that contributed to the growth of the industry of ice cream. This quote is about a Canadian ice cream company, CoolBrands, which was big on Eskimo Pie for a period of time before putting Slender Pie on the market. As well as CoolBrands, a lot of other companies have had their own way on trying to put out a certain type of product of ice cream. The growth of ice cream is becoming even more creative. Powell gives accounts on how ice cream is sold in different parts of the world, and how these companies differ int the industry of ice cream.
The nature of ice cream, is that it is an intentional discovery or accidental finding. In Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History he talks about how salt is needed to survive. Also that many things used in the worl need salt. And thanks to salt, ice cream exists because salt plays a big had in freezing ice cream.
Even though ice cream needs freezing, it is only ever a partly frozen form. There are liquids in ice cream that always reamains unfrozen. If ice cream was totaly solid, it would be inpossible to scoop up. However, not making ice cream rock solid was a challenge in it's early making. Francois Pierre recommended that the mixtute be skaken several times during the freezing process to the ice cream would not freeze solid. The proper ratio of fat to air to ice was not yet known. Therefore there was not enough fat in ice cream to stop the ice crysltes from completely freezing.
By increasing the density of the base of ice cream, sugar lowers the freezing point. When the ice crystles in the ice cream begin to form, the ugar dissolved in cream, eggs or milk, becomes more concentrated which also lowers the freezing point. This process continues making the sugar concentration so high, and the freezing point so low, that there will always be some liquid unfrozen in the ice cream.
James Logue, an ice cream connoisseur, said that "The absolute best ice cream is served in little paper cups and eaten with plastic spoons. You can always tell you are somewhere serious when you get it served that way" (Powell 109). Powell then states that Logue was not talking about the presentation of the ice cream, but the quality.
After looking into the taste buds on a human tongue, Powell writes about how the ten thousand taste buds have sensative nerve endings that receive every taste of food. So if the ice cream was frozen solid, then it would make the taste buds anaesthetized. This is why it is important for the ice cream to start melting in a bowl and finish the in a person's mouth for the great effect and taste it has.
Quote
"Then the company began to capitalize on the apparent contraction between eating ice cream and wanting to be slim" (Powell 101).
Reaction
As Powell is telling different parts of history of ice cream, she also mentions a lot ice cream companies that contributed to the growth of the industry of ice cream. This quote is about a Canadian ice cream company, CoolBrands, which was big on Eskimo Pie for a period of time before putting Slender Pie on the market. As well as CoolBrands, a lot of other companies have had their own way on trying to put out a certain type of product of ice cream. The growth of ice cream is becoming even more creative. Powell gives accounts on how ice cream is sold in different parts of the world, and how these companies differ int the industry of ice cream.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
