166 Fun Facts About Ice Cream

Which two flavors topped a 2010s industry survey of America's best-selling ice creams?

Vanilla and chocolate led the International Dairy Foods Association's survey of ice cream makers and retailers; the group put vanilla's lead down to how well it goes with other desserts, from sundaes to apple pie.

Next to ice cream, Italian gelato is generally what?

Leaner, denser: artisanal gelato is made with more milk than cream and has less air whipped in than ice cream, so the scoop that tastes richer is usually the one with less fat.

The words 'sorbet' and 'sherbet' both trace back to an Arabic word meaning what?

Drink: the Arabic root gave the Middle East a word for sweetened fruit cordials, and 'sherbet' named a cold drink in English long before it meant a frozen dessert.

What three flavors make up Neapolitan ice cream?

Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry are frozen side by side in one block of Neapolitan ice cream, which is cut in slices across the stripes so that every serving gets all three flavors.

What is the main difference between sorbet and ice cream?

Sorbet is a frozen dessert made from water, sugar, and flavoring (usually fruit). Unlike ice cream, it contains no dairy products, making it suitable for those who are lactose intolerant or vegan.

Which jam maker owns Magic Shell, the topping that hardens on contact with cold ice cream?

Smucker's bought Magic Shell in the early 1980s and sells it beside its jams and other ice cream toppings; the syrup sets into a crackable shell seconds after it touches something cold.

What is a banana split traditionally served in?

A boat-shaped dish holds the banana, split lengthwise; most historians credit David Strickler, a 23-year-old pharmacy clerk in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in 1904, though Wilmington, Ohio, still celebrates a rival claim.

At the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, Ernest Hamwi improvised an ice cream container by curling what?

Hamwi, a Syrian concessionaire, curled a waffle cookie into a receptacle for the ice cream; the story is much disputed, but he went on to start his own cone-making company.

The name of the ice cream dessert 'parfait' is the French word for what?

Perfect is what parfait means; in France the dessert is a frozen cream-and-egg mixture served in slices, and the tall glass of ice cream layers is the American take on it.

What French term describes a slice of pie served with a scoop of ice cream?

À la mode means 'in the fashion' in French, where it describes clothes or a way of braising beef; only in American English does it promise a scoop of ice cream on your pie.

Which Japanese treat wraps a ball of ice cream in thin pounded sticky-rice dough?

Mochi ice cream wraps a ball of ice cream in a thin skin of mochi, pounded glutinous rice; Frances Hashimoto of Los Angeles confectioner Mikawaya popularized it in the United States in the 1990s.

What is kulfi?

Kulfi is a traditional Indian frozen dairy dessert made by slowly boiling down sweetened milk; it is not churned as it freezes, so it comes out denser than ice cream and melts more slowly.

Which US president proclaimed July to be National Ice Cream Month?

Ronald Reagan signed the proclamation in 1984, also naming a Sunday in July as National Ice Cream Day and urging Americans to mark both with 'appropriate ceremonies and activities'.

What ingredient gives mint chocolate chip ice cream its green color?

The green comes from added food coloring; peppermint or spearmint extract is colorless, which is why many artisan and 'natural' mint chip ice creams are white.

Which word from the world of budgets also names the air whipped into ice cream?

Overrun is the air whipped in during freezing: at 100% overrun the mix has doubled in volume, so half of every scoop is air, and US rules limit it by requiring a gallon to weigh at least 4.5 pounds.

Which US president's handwritten recipe for vanilla ice cream still survives?

Thomas Jefferson did not bring ice cream to America, as is often claimed, but he wrote out his own recipe after tasting it in France and helped introduce vanilla ice cream to Americans.

Why is soft serve softer than hard-packed ice cream?

It is dispensed warmer: soft serve goes straight from the machine that freezes it into the cone, while hard ice cream is hardened and stored at much lower temperatures before it is scooped.

Which flavor does South Dakota State University say was invented at its dairy plant in 1979?

Cookies and cream is the university's claim, crediting plant manager Shirley Seas and two students in 1979; several ice cream makers tell rival origin stories, and the question has never been settled.

What does the name Häagen-Dazs actually mean?

Nothing; it's invented: Reuben Mattus coined the Danish-sounding name as a tribute to Denmark's treatment of its Jews during World War II, though Danish has neither an 'ä' nor a 'zs'.

Which Ben & Jerry's flavor, its most popular as of 2020, mixes fudge brownies with cookie dough?

Half Baked topped Ben & Jerry's own ranking of fan favorites for 2020; its brownies come from Greyston, a bakery in Yonkers that takes on anyone who signs up, including people just out of prison.

Spumoni, the layered gelato with candied fruit and nuts, was created in which city?

Naples is usually credited with spumoni, born in the late 19th century when whipped cream was folded into layered gelato; it is often called the ancestor of Neapolitan ice cream.

What is the key ingredient that distinguishes frozen custard from regular ice cream?

Egg yolks set frozen custard apart: US rules require at least 1.4% egg yolk solids by weight, and the yolks give it a denser, smoother texture than ordinary ice cream.

Which ice cream brand was founded in 1907 in the small town of Brenham, Texas?

Blue Bell began as the Brenham Creamery Company, making butter from farmers' surplus cream in a converted cotton gin; ice cream came in 1911, and the wildflower name in 1930.

Under US federal rules, a product must contain at least 10% of what to be labeled ice cream?

Milkfat must make up at least 10% of anything sold as ice cream in the United States; lighter products have to say so, with labels such as 'reduced fat' or 'light'.

Which fast-food chain's ice cream machines broke down so often that a website launched in 2020 to track them?

McDonald's was the target: a 24-year-old software engineer built McBroken, a live map of the chain's US restaurants showing which soft-serve machines were out of order.

The Italian dessert affogato is a scoop of gelato topped with a shot of what?

Affogato al caffè literally means 'drowned in coffee': a scoop of fiordilatte or vanilla gelato topped with a shot of espresso.

What is the ice cream truck jingle 'Turkey in the Straw' originally from?

A 19th-century American folk song, 'Turkey in the Straw' spread through blackface minstrel shows in the 1830s; that history led one big ice cream brand to commission a replacement jingle from the rapper RZA in 2020.

Which First Lady served ice cream at her husband's 1813 inaugural ball?

Dolley Madison served ice cream at her husband James Madison's second inaugural ball in 1813, when it was still a rare luxury; her fame as a hostess later put her name on a 20th-century ice cream brand.

Which country is home to dondurma, the stretchy ice cream that vendors pull and toss like taffy?

Turkey's dondurma is thickened with salep, a flour ground from orchid tubers, and mastic resin, which make it chewy, slow to melt and stretchy enough for vendors to put on a show.

Which TV host's Ben & Jerry's flavor pairs vanilla with fudge-covered waffle bits and caramel?

Colbert's Americone Dream arrived in 2007: vanilla with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl; Stephen Colbert gives his proceeds to charity through the Stephen Colbert Americone Dream Fund.

In New England, what are chocolate sprinkles on ice cream usually called?

Jimmies is the New England word; a Pennsylvania candy maker says it named them after an employee, but dictionaries list the origin as unknown.

Carpigiani's Gelato University, opened in 2003, sits just outside which Italian city?

Carpigiani Gelato University is in Anzola dell'Emilia, just outside Bologna, at the headquarters of the Carpigiani gelato-machine maker; it opened in 2003 to train would-be gelato makers from around the world.

What did Harry Burt add to his chocolate-coated ice cream bar to make it less messy?

A wooden stick was his son's idea, after Burt's daughter called the new bar too messy to eat; the sticks froze firmly into the ice cream, and Burt sold the bars from trucks fitted with bells.

Victorian cook Agnes Marshall's 1888 cookbook included an early recipe for which way of serving ice cream?

In an edible cone: Marshall's 'cornets with cream' appeared years before the American origin stories usually told about it; Victorians knew the cookery writer as the 'Queen of Ices'.

What is the Korean shaved-ice dessert classically topped with sweetened red beans?

Bingsu is Korea's shaved-ice dessert; the classic patbingsu is named for its sweetened red beans (pat), though many modern versions shave frozen milk instead of plain ice.

Oregon's farmer-owned Tillamook County Creamery Association makes ice cream, but which product is it best known for?

Cheese, cheddar above all, is what Tillamook is known for; local cheese makers banded together in 1909 to form the cooperative, which later added ice cream.

What is fried ice cream typically coated with before frying?

Cornflakes or cookie crumbs coat a scoop frozen far colder than usual, which is then fried for only a few seconds, so the shell turns hot and crisp while the middle stays frozen.

Bakdash, a parlor famous for pounded, stretchy booza ice cream, sits in the old souk of which Middle Eastern capital?

Damascus is home to Bakdash, a landmark of the Al-Hamidiyah Souq; its booza is pounded and stretched with mallets rather than churned, which gives it a dense, elastic chew.

Which chocolate-coated ice cream bar did an Iowa teacher first sell as the 'I-Scream Bar'?

Eskimo Pie is the name it took in 1921, in a deal with future candy maker Russell Stover; Christian Nelson had the idea when a boy in his shop could not choose between ice cream and a chocolate bar.

What does an ice cream maker do to the cooling mix to stop detectable ice crystals forming?

The stirring also folds in air, which is why the finished product is lighter than a solid block of frozen cream.

Which Roman emperor reportedly sent runners into the mountains for snow to make flavored ices?

Nero is the emperor in the tale, said to have had mountain snow flavored with fruit and juices; Romans really did bring snow down from the mountains and keep it in straw-covered pits.

In Italian, the word 'gelato' literally means what?

Gelato is the past participle of gelare, 'to freeze', so it literally means 'frozen'; in Italy it is the everyday word for all ice cream, not just the dense artisanal kind exported under that name.

The name 'baked Alaska' was supposedly coined at Delmonico's in New York to honor what event?

Buying the territory from Russia in 1867 is the story behind the name, said to date from 1876; the restaurant's own recipe went by 'Alaska, Florida' instead.

What is stracciatella gelato streaked with?

Chocolate shards form when melted chocolate is drizzled into the churning milk gelato and hardens on contact; Enrico Panattoni of Bergamo's La Marianna is credited with inventing the flavor.

The US Navy's $1 million 'ice cream barge' of World War II had a hull made of what?

Concrete it was: a barge borrowed from the Army became a floating ice cream factory in the western Pacific, turning out 10 gallons every seven minutes for ships too small to make their own.

What ice cream ingredient acts as a natural antifreeze, stopping it freezing solid?

Sugar lowers the mix's freezing point, which keeps ice cream scoopable at freezer temperatures instead of freezing into a solid block; more sugar means a softer scoop at the same temperature.

How much did Serendipity 3's Golden Opulence Sundae, once Guinness's most expensive dessert, sell for?

The Golden Opulence Sundae sold for $1,000 when it launched in 2004 to mark the restaurant's 50th anniversary, covered in 23-karat gold leaf and served in a crystal goblet the buyer keeps.

What did Nancy Johnson invent in 1843 that revolutionized ice cream production?

A hand-cranked freezer earned Nancy Johnson a US patent in 1843; by making the work quick and easy, it helped turn ice cream from a luxury of the rich into an everyday treat.

Which English king reportedly offered his ice cream maker a lifetime pension to keep the recipe secret?

Charles I is the king in the tale, said to have promised his cook a lifetime pension so that 'cream ice' stayed a royal privilege; historians have found no evidence for it.

Which Italian duchess is said to have brought sorbet ices to France on marrying in 1533?

Catherine de' Medici married the future Henry II in 1533, and legend says her Florentine cooks brought flavored ices to the French court; historians consider the story unproven.

Which explorer is often credited with introducing sorbet-style desserts to Italy, though his own writings never mention them?

Marco Polo is said to have learned of sorbet-style desserts on his travels to China, though none of his writings mention them; Moorish traders are the other common attribution.

Which dynasty used relays of horsemen to carry ice from the Hindu Kush to Delhi?

The Mughals ran the relays in the 16th century, bringing mountain ice to their capital for the court's chilled and frozen desserts.

Some sources trace the beginnings of frozen desserts to which ancient civilization around 550 BC?

Persia's ice houses and ice pools kept winter ice through the summer, which let Persians serve faloodeh and sorbets all year round.

Ben & Jerry's opened its first parlor in 1978 in a renovated what?

Their first scoop shop opened in May 1978 in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont, after the founders took a $5 ice cream correspondence course from Penn State.

Ben Cohen has almost no sense of smell, which led to which Ben & Jerry's trademark?

Big chunks mixed in were Ben Cohen's fix for his anosmia: unable to smell, he judges food by texture, so he kept asking for larger pieces in every batch.

What kind of business did Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield first plan to open before choosing ice cream?

A bagel shop was the first plan, but the equipment cost too much; the pair switched to ice cream and picked Burlington, a college town that had no ice cream parlor.

What did Ben & Jerry's keep when Unilever bought it in 2000?

An independent board was written into the $326 million sale, charged with protecting the brand's social mission; it has since taken its own parent company to court.

Which 1987 flavor was Ben & Jerry's first named for a rock legend?

Cherry Garcia arrived in 1987 as a tribute to Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia; the idea came from fans, and it became the best known of the company's customer-suggested flavors.

Ben & Jerry's 1984 'What's the Doughboy Afraid Of?' campaign targeted which company?

Pillsbury owned Häagen-Dazs and tried to limit Ben & Jerry's distribution in Boston.

Which Ben & Jerry's flavor was briefly renamed in 2009 to celebrate same-sex marriage in Vermont?

Chubby Hubby became 'Hubby Hubby' in September 2009 when Vermont legalized same-sex marriage; it mixes vanilla malt ice cream with fudge, peanut butter and pretzels.

What is the name of the huge Ben & Jerry's sundae served in a bucket at scoop shops?

The Vermonster piles scoops of ice cream, bananas, hot fudge, cookies and a brownie into a bucket; since 2009 teams of four have raced to finish one in an annual charity Vermonster Challenge.

In which New York City borough did Reuben and Rose Mattus found Häagen-Dazs in 1960?

The Bronx: Reuben Mattus spent years selling his family's fruit ices and ice cream pops there from a horse-drawn wagon before he and Rose launched their luxury brand in 1960.

Häagen-Dazs launched in 1960 with just three flavors: vanilla, chocolate and which other?

Coffee completed the trio with vanilla and chocolate, and the range stayed tiny for years: strawberry, the fourth flavor, arrived only in 1966 after six years of development.

Häagen-Dazs unsuccessfully sued which rival in 1980 over its Scandinavian-style name and packaging?

Frusen Glädjé was an American-made ice cream with a Swedish-sounding name; the court threw out the suit for 'unclean hands', since Häagen-Dazs had sold itself as Scandinavian in the same way.

Baskin-Robbins was founded in 1945 in which California city?

Baskin-Robbins traces to Glendale, California, where Irv Robbins opened Snowbird Ice Cream in 1945; he merged with brother-in-law Burt Baskin's Burton's Ice Cream to form the chain in 1953.

How was the order of the surnames in 'Baskin-Robbins' decided?

A coin toss settled it in 1953, when Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins put their separately run Burton's and Snowbird shops under one name.

Which doughnut chain shares its Canton, Massachusetts headquarters with sibling ice cream brand Baskin-Robbins?

Dunkin' Donuts, now branded simply Dunkin', became Baskin-Robbins's sibling in 1990, when the ice cream chain's British owner, Allied-Lyons, bought it; the shared headquarters moved to Canton in 2004.

Which ice cream chain opened its first store in Joliet, Illinois, in 1940?

Dairy Queen's first store opened on June 22, 1940, at 501 North Chicago Street; it closed in the 1950s and later housed a repair shop and a church, but Joliet made the plain building a city landmark in 2010.

Which conglomerate has owned Dairy Queen since 1998?

Berkshire Hathaway closed its purchase of International Dairy Queen in early 1998; Warren Buffett told shareholders he brought 'product expertise' to the deal as a regular at the Dairy Queens of Omaha.

Sherb Noble sold 1,600 soft-serve portions in two hours with what offer?

All you can eat for 10 cents packed Noble's ice cream shop in Kankakee, Illinois; father and son J.F. and Alex McCullough had talked him into testing their new soft-serve formula on the public.

Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, who opened Paris's Café Procope in 1686 and sold ices there, came from which island?

Sicily: Procopio was born on the island, at Palermo or Aci Trezza, and the café he opened in Paris went on to become the haunt of Voltaire, Diderot and Benjamin Franklin.

The chocolate-hazelnut gelato flavor bacio takes its name from the Italian word for what?

Kiss is what bacio means; Italy's best-known 'kisses' are Perugina's Baci, hazelnut-filled chocolates sold since 1922 and wrapped in a little love note since the 1930s.

Edward Berners of Wisconsin is said to have made the first sundae in 1881 by pouring what over ice cream?

Chocolate sauce, kept at his soda fountain, went over a dish of ice cream at customer George Hallauer's request; Berners sold the result for five cents, at first only on Sundays.

Before edible cones, Victorian street sellers served ice cream in small reusable glasses known as what?

Penny licks held a pennyworth of ice cream in a thick little glass; customers licked it clean and handed it back, often to be refilled unwashed, and fears of spreading disease helped the cone take over.

What is Sicily's coarse, spoonable water ice, often eaten with a brioche, called?

Granita began with winter snow gathered on Etna and Sicily's other mountains and kept in stone stores for summer; with a soft brioche it is still a typical Sicilian breakfast.

A 1934 flat tire in Hartsdale, New York, led which man to found a soft-serve empire?

Tom Carvel's truck got a flat tire in Hartsdale over Memorial Day weekend in 1934; he sold out his melting ice cream to passing drivers within two days and later put up a stand on the same spot.

Under what name did Frank Epperson patent the Popsicle in 1924?

Epsicle joined Epperson's name to icicle; by the family story his children called it Pop's 'sicle and talked him into the change, though dictionaries suggest lollipop plus icicle.

Which company sued the Popsicle Corporation six months after its patent, forcing a licensing deal?

Good Humor settled out of court in 1925: Popsicle paid it a licence fee and kept to water ices and sherbet, while ice cream stayed with Good Humor, a split the two went on testing in court for years.

Which ice cream of the late 1980s was developed at Frisko in Aarhus, Denmark?

Magnum carried about three times the chocolate its makers had ever put on a bar; the launch stock sold out within six weeks and Frisko had to nearly triple its output.

Wall's in Britain, Algida in Italy and Streets in Australia are sister ice cream brands sharing which logo?

A heart: the red swirl replaced a red-and-white awning logo from 1998, giving one look to ice creams that keep their local names, from Langnese in Germany to Ola in the Netherlands.

Which James Bond actor is said to have suggested the idea behind the Magnum, years before its launch?

Roger Moore reportedly said in the 1960s that his one wish was for Wall's to make a choc ice on a stick; Wall's says it knows nothing of this and calls it 'a brilliant story'.

Cold Stone Creamery takes its name from what?

A frozen granite slab is where staff fold mix-ins into each order; founders Donald and Susan Sutherland started the chain because they wanted ice cream that was neither hard-packed nor soft-serve.

Cold Stone Creamery opened its first store in 1988 in which Arizona college town?

Tempe is where Donald and Susan Sutherland opened the shop after years of hunting in vain for ice cream that was smooth and creamy, neither hard-packed nor soft-serve.

Which song do ice cream vans traditionally play in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand?

Greensleeves is the usual chime of British and Commonwealth ice cream vans; legend credits the tune to Henry VIII, but its Italian style reached England only after his death.

New Zealand's hokey pokey ice cream is vanilla studded with small pieces of what?

Honeycomb toffee is itself called hokey pokey in New Zealand; elsewhere in the 1880s the phrase meant the cheap ice cream that street vendors sold.

Robert M. Green claimed to have invented which treat at a Franklin Institute celebration in Philadelphia in 1874?

Ice cream soda: Green said he first mixed one at the fair, but there is no conclusive proof, and at least three rivals claimed the invention for themselves.

What do Australians and New Zealanders call ice cream served in a soft drink?

A spider is the name on both sides of the Tasman; some Australians insist it is no mere float, since the drink is poured over the ice cream until it froths up, not the scoop dropped in last.

TCBY began as 'This Can't Be Yogurt'; what did the letters stand for after a lawsuit?

The Country's Best Yogurt replaced 'This Can't Be Yogurt' after the rival chain I Can't Believe It's Yogurt sued in the mid-1980s; TCBY kept its initials and simply changed what they stood for.

A royal chef of which kingdom published the three-layer Fürst-Pückler-Eis recipe in 1839?

Prussia: court cook Louis Ferdinand Jungius dedicated the layered ice to Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau in his 1839 cookbook; years earlier he had worked in the prince's own kitchen at Muskau.

Which dessert from Pizzo in Calabria is a ball of gelato with a molten chocolate centre?

Tartufo, Italian for truffle, is said to date from about 1952, when a Pizzo pastry chef ran out of moulds while catering a wedding and shaped the portions in the palm of his hand.

Sgroppino, the Venetian dessert cocktail, blends prosecco and vodka with which sorbet?

Lemon sorbet is whisked with prosecco and vodka into a frothy drink; the name probably comes from sgroppare, to untie a knot, for a digestif meant to settle a full stomach.

Germany's Spaghettieis tops strands of vanilla ice cream with which 'sauce'?

Strawberry sauce plays the tomato on vanilla ice cream pressed through a spätzle maker; Mannheim's Dario Fontanella, who claims the invention, recalls that the first children served it cried, expecting ice cream, not pasta.

Which city is known as the 'unofficial frozen custard capital of the world'?

Milwaukee earned the title after frozen custard, shown off at Chicago's 1933 World's Fair, spread across the Midwest; local rivals such as Kopp's, Gilles and Leon's have competed for its custard fans for decades.

Which St. Louis stand, opened in 1930, is credited as birthplace of the 'concrete'?

Ted Drewes, a St. Louis stand dating to 1930, is credited with the 'concrete', frozen custard blended with mix-ins so thick it is handed over upside down.

Which ice cream brand did Curt Jones invent while trying to improve animal feed?

Dippin' Dots began when Jones, a microbiologist flash-freezing cultures for feed, tried the same liquid-nitrogen trick on ice cream mix; his first plant was his parents' garage.

Why aren't Dippin' Dots sold in most supermarkets?

They need storage below −40°F, far colder than a supermarket freezer runs, so Dippin' Dots are sold instead from their own freezers at stadiums, malls and theme parks.

William Dreyer reportedly cut the first Rocky Road marshmallows with what?

Dreyer reportedly snipped the marshmallows with his wife's sewing scissors in 1929; the name Rocky Road was meant to cheer people up after that year's stock market crash.

In the UK, ice cream Swiss roll cakes are known by what name?

Arctic rolls wrap vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce in sponge; Birds Eye axed the dessert in the 1990s as demand fell, then revived it a decade later as a cheap treat for recession-hit shoppers.

Which tall British sundae shares its name with a pen name of Washington Irving?

Knickerbocker glory echoes Diedrich Knickerbocker, the name Irving put on his 1809 History of New York; it became a nickname for New Yorkers, though how it reached a British sundae is unclear.

Which Cadbury chocolate bar is pushed into a soft-serve cone to make a British '99'?

Flake was born around 1920, when a Cadbury worker saw overflow from the chocolate moulds set in thin ripples; by 1930 Cadbury was selling half-length Flakes made for ice cream cones.

One claim traces the '99' ice cream cone's name to a shop at 99 Portobello High Street in which Scottish city?

Edinburgh: Stefano Arcari opened his shop at number 99 in the seaside suburb of Portobello in 1922, and his family says the cone took its name from the address; the chocolate's maker calls the origin 'lost in the mists of time'.

A GQ writer spent ten days in 2016 eating nothing but which low-calorie ice cream?

Halo Top: Shane Snow got through about five pints a day; sales grew roughly 2,500 percent that year, and in July 2017 it became America's best-selling grocery-store pint.

Halo Top swaps much of its sugar for erythritol and which other sweetener?

Stevia, a no-calorie sweetener from a plant leaf, is paired with the sugar alcohol erythritol; that let early cartons boast 240 calories a pint, about a quarter of some premium pints.

Which ice cream truck company, founded in Philadelphia in 1956, plays 'Jingle and Chimes'?

Mister Softee's jingle has words as well as music, both written by Philadelphia ad man Les Waas for radio commercials; the trucks play only an instrumental version.

Which ice cream treat was created by Ohio's Isaly Dairy Company?

Klondike bars were sold only around Isaly's shops in Ohio and Pennsylvania until Henry Clarke bought the brand in the 1970s and took it national, multiplying sales many times over.

Which animal appears as the mascot on the Klondike bar's silver foil wrapper?

A polar bear is the mascot printed on the silver foil, an Arctic touch for a bar named after the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon.

Ben & Jerry's says it first sold which flavor in 1984 after an anonymous note on its Burlington shop's suggestion board?

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough began as a scoop-shop special made from the anonymous suggestion; it took until 1991 to get the dough into pints, where it quickly became a favorite.

Which convenience store chain has trademarked the term 'brain freeze'?

7-Eleven, home of the Slurpee, the frozen drink behind many such headaches, holds 'Brainfreeze' as a registered trademark.

Physicist Nicholas Kurti used a microwave in 1969 to make an inside-out version of which dessert?

Baked Alaska in reverse: in his lecture 'The Physicist in the Kitchen', Kurti microwaved a frozen meringue shell filled with liquor, heating the inside while the outside stayed frozen, a trick dubbed the Frozen Florida.

Ais kacang, the shaved-ice dessert of Malaysia and Singapore, literally means what?

Ais kacang is Malay for 'bean ice'; it began as shaved ice over red beans and now carries jellies, sweetcorn, rose syrup and evaporated milk.

In Mexico and the Southwestern United States, what is a frozen ice pop on a stick called?

Paleta makers across Mexico trace their trade to Tocumbo, a small town in Michoacán; nobody protected the name La Michoacana, so unrelated paleterías all over the country share it.

Early ice cream makers added what to their ice to lower its melting point and freeze the cream?

Salt melts the ice into a brine that can fall to about −21°C, far colder than ice alone, which pulls enough heat out of the cream to freeze it; Hannah Glasse's 1751 recipe calls for 'a Handful of Salt'.

Which savoury flavour appeared among the ice creams in Frederick Nutt's 1789 confectionery book?

Parmesan cheese, three ounces of it, was rasped into a pint of sweetened cream, then sieved and frozen, so Nutt's savoury-sounding ice was really a sweet for the dessert table.

Which orange-roofed roadside restaurant chain advertised 'a world of 28 flavors' of ice cream?

Howard Johnson's built its name on 28 flavors made with about twice the usual butterfat; a customer who could prove they had tried all 28 earned a free cone.

Fonterra sold Tip Top, New Zealand's biggest ice cream brand, to which company in 2019?

Froneri, the Nestlé and PAI Partners ice cream joint venture, bought Tip Top from Fonterra in 2019 for about NZ$380 million.

What is Puerto Rico's shaved-ice dessert, sold from carts in cone-shaped cups, called?

A piragua is ice shaved by hand from a block in the vendor's cart, pressed to a point with a funnel and soaked in fruit syrup; unlike a round snow cone, it is sipped or eaten straight from the cup.

Which future British prime minister, once a food chemist, is doubtfully credited with helping to invent soft serve?

Margaret Thatcher's exact role at J. Lyons is unclear, and soft serve had already been on sale in the United States since the late 1930s, years before she joined the firm.

Which leader drove the creation of Coppelia, the vast state-run ice cream parlor that opened in Havana in 1966?

Fidel Castro led the project himself, and his longtime secretary Celia Sánchez named the parlor after her favorite ballet.

Rolled ice cream, also sold as 'stir-fried' ice cream, began as a street food in which Asian country?

Thailand's street vendors launched the craze in 2009, chilling the mix on an ice pan with a motion like stir-frying, and it had spread abroad by 2012.

Which McDonald's dessert was invented in 1995 by Ron McLellan, a Canadian franchisee in Bathurst, New Brunswick?

The McFlurry proved itself in Bathurst, moved on to Toronto restaurants, and was not introduced to the United States until 1997.

Which parlor tool did Pittsburgh hotel porter Alfred L. Cralle patent in 1897 so servers could work one-handed?

The ice cream scoop came to Cralle after he watched hotel servers struggle with ice cream sticking to their spoons, so he gave his design a built-in scraper.

Which Dairy Queen treat, on the menu since 1985, do staff flip upside down to show how thick it is?

The Blizzard was an instant hit, selling more than 100 million cups in its first year, and company policy says one per order gets flipped.

Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins, who each first ran a separate California ice cream shop, were related in what way?

Brothers-in-law Baskin and Robbins came to ice cream separately: Robbins worked in his father's shop as a teenager, while Baskin made it for fellow navymen in World War II.

Which fast-food chain made its thick Frosty deliberately mild so it would not overwhelm the taste of its hamburgers?

Wendy's founder Dave Thomas blended chocolate with vanilla for the original Frosty and made it thick enough to need a spoon.

Which waffle-shell ice cream novelty, invented by Alan Drazen in 1983, did Klondike discontinue in 2022?

Choco Taco fans included Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who publicly offered to buy the rights after production stopped.

What sits at the bottom of the plastic cone in a Screwball, the ice cream novelty first sold in the 1970s?

A gumball is the reward for finishing a Screwball, and one American version doubles the prize under the trademarked name Two Ball Screwball.

During World War II, the US Navy ran a floating ice cream factory for Pacific sailors on what kind of vessel?

A concrete barge fitted with an ice cream plant could turn out ten gallons every seven minutes, a million-dollar effort to lift morale among sailors and Marines.

Which appliance maker developed freeze-dried 'astronaut ice cream' under contract to NASA for the Apollo missions?

Whirlpool's crumbly creation may never have left Earth: its only trace is the Apollo 7 menu, and the mission's last surviving astronaut could not recall eating it.

London street vendors once sold ice cream in which small reusable glass, later banned for spreading disease?

The penny lick had a thick base and a shallow bowl that made a portion look bigger than it was; customers licked it clean and handed it back for the next buyer.

Sorbetes, the Philippine street treat nicknamed 'dirty ice cream', uses carabao milk or which other milk?

Coconut milk caught on because it was cheaper and easier to find, and the 'dirty' tag only sets the pushcart ice cream apart from factory brands.

Carrageenan, a thickener and stabilizer used in ice cream and other dairy products, is extracted from what?

Red seaweed such as Irish moss, a dark, parsley-like alga that clings to rocks, yields carrageenan, which binds strongly to the proteins in milk.

Soft-serve ice cream, often maple-flavored, is known as a 'creemee' in which New England state?

Vermont makes more maple syrup than any other US state, which is why maple is the signature creemee flavor.

Which ice cream dessert of rippled layers and thin sheets of chocolate did the British company Wall's launch in 1982?

Viennetta's layers were extruded one after another onto trays on a moving belt, a patented technique devised at the Wall's factory in Gloucester.

Which Iowa city, home of Blue Bunny maker Wells Enterprises, bills itself as the 'Ice Cream Capital of the World'?

Le Mars is home to a plant so large that Wells is described as the world's largest producer of ice cream novelties in one location.

Which American poet included 'The Emperor of Ice-Cream' in Harmonium, his first collection, published in 1923?

Wallace Stevens counted the poem among his personal favorites from the book.

Akutaq, an Alaska Native dessert sometimes known as Native ice cream, whips berries into what instead of dairy?

Animal fat such as caribou or moose tallow or seal oil is whipped until light and fluffy, and many versions fold in dried fish or meat as well as berries.

Which sandwich cookie brand is crumbled, under license, into the most popular version of cookies and cream ice cream?

Oreo crumbs are the standard, but who first stirred cookies into ice cream is disputed, with rival claims from a consultant, a university and two ice cream makers.

Which comic-book hero lends his name to a Midwestern ice cream swirled in red, blue and yellow?

Superman only got the credit later: the flavor is thought to predate the character's 1938 debut and was linked to him because its colors match his costume.

Green tea ice cream gets its color and flavor from which powdered tea, also used in Japanese tea ceremonies?

Matcha ice cream reached the United States in the late 1970s, mostly through Japanese restaurants and markets, and went mainstream in the late 1990s.

Which Australian soprano inspired chef Auguste Escoffier's dessert of peaches, raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream?

Nellie Melba was first served the peaches in a silver dish perched on an ice sculpture of a swan, a nod to Wagner's Lohengrin, the opera she was singing in London.

Gilroy, California, self-styled world capital of which pungent crop, has served it as an ice cream at its festival?

Garlic ice cream has turned up at festivals from Ithaca to Toronto, and tasters at one Massachusetts event praised it as creamy with a subtle flavor.

Which nut goes into the buttery vanilla ice cream prominent in the American South and counted as soul food?

Pecan gives butter pecan its name, and a variant of the recipe swaps the nuts for almonds to make butter almond.

Which purple yam, a staple of Filipino desserts, gives a popular ice cream its vivid violet color?

Ube is often confused with taro, and because the boiled yam is nearly flavorless, the taste people know is really that of ube halaya, a sweetened jam.

Canada's retro tiger tail ice cream ripples which dark candy flavoring through an orange base to mimic stripes?

Licorice stripes made tiger tail a hit from the 1950s to the 1970s, and nostalgia has brought the flavor back since the 2010s.

Which crunchy breakfast cereal is folded into an ice cream popular in New England and the Canadian Maritimes?

Grape-Nuts ice cream, in one origin story, was born in 1919 when Nova Scotia chef Hannah Young ran out of fresh fruit and threw in cereal instead.

Moose Tracks, the vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and fudge, took its name from what kind of local business?

A mini golf course stood just down the street from Jilbert Dairy, the first shop to carry the flavor, which is now licensed to many different brands.

Which Upper Midwest ice cream, described as fruity, almondy or like cotton candy, often has a secret recipe?

Blue moon is named for its bright blue color, and the most widespread version was devised by Bill Sidon in the 1950s.

Which boozy ice cream flavor is said to have begun in 1930s Sicily under the name 'Málaga gelato'?

Rum raisin took that first name from Málaga wine, which is made from raisins, and it caught on in the United States after Häagen-Dazs added it in the early 1980s.

John Harrison, who claims he invented cookies and cream at Dreyer's, had what insured for a million dollars?

His taste buds were reportedly sharp enough to tell 12 percent butterfat from 11.5 percent, and he helped create more than a hundred ice cream flavors.

Vanilla ice cream owes much to Edmond Albius, who at age 12 on Réunion invented a quick way to do what?

Albius, born into slavery, learned to pollinate the flowers with a thin stick and a flick of the thumb, which made vanilla profitable to grow far from its native habitat.

Which English celebrity chef made bacon-and-egg ice cream one of his signature dishes?

Heston Blumenthal infuses lightly roasted bacon in milk for ten hours, though an American parlor had tried the flavor as an April Fools' Day stunt back in 1992.

Lúcuma, a fruit likened to maple syrup or butterscotch, is a favorite ice cream flavor in which South American country?

Peru uses lúcuma mostly as a flavoring for juices, milkshakes and above all ice cream, and its taste has also been compared to sweet potato.

Which everyday loaf is toasted or caramelized for an ice cream flavor that was popular in nineteenth-century England?

Brown bread ice cream first emerged in eighteenth-century France, and some recipes only infuse the flavor before straining out the crumbs.

The Virginia House-Wife, Mary Randolph's 1824 cookbook, has the sole historical recipe for which shellfish ice cream?

Oyster ice cream was then forgotten for some two centuries, until twenty-first-century seafood festivals began serving the savory flavor again.

A classic banana split takes its name from the fruit being cut in which way before the ice cream goes in?

In half lengthwise is the rule: a sundae made with banana slices instead is classed by one food writer as a different dish, the banana royale.

Alongside chocolate and strawberry, which fruit sauce is the third traditional topping on a classic banana split?

Pineapple was there from the start: the original 1904 recipe called for it crushed, along with strawberries and raspberries.

Which preserved cherries, also a familiar cocktail garnish, traditionally crown the whipped cream on a banana split?

Maraschino cherries are the modern standard, whereas the original 1904 recipe was finished with pitted black cherries.

Which drugstore chain is credited with spreading the banana split's popularity by making it a signature dessert?

Walgreens found that its in-store fountains drew in customers who might otherwise have had their prescriptions filled at another neighborhood drugstore.

David Strickler, credited with creating the banana split in 1904, was a pharmacy student working in which job?

Soda jerk Strickler charged ten cents for his creation, twice the price of other sundaes, and later bought the pharmacy and put his own name on it.

Which Pennsylvania city, hometown of Arnold Palmer and Fred Rogers, is certified as the birthplace of the banana split?

Latrobe won the title from the National Ice Cream Retailers Association in 2004, and a state historical marker now stands at the site of the old pharmacy.

Wilmington, a college town in which state, claims the banana split and holds an annual festival in its honor?

Ohio's claim rests on Ernest Hazard, said to have devised the dessert in 1907 to lure college students into his shop during the slow days of winter.

David Strickler devised the banana split in 1904 after admiring fruit-laden sundaes on vacation in which seaside resort?

Atlantic City's sundaes stayed with the young pharmacy student, whose own creation first caught on with students from nearby Saint Vincent College.

Which sweet syrup, poured over David Strickler's original 1904 banana split, is no longer used on the classic version?

Marshmallow syrup went over the fruit and chopped nuts in the original recipe, while caramel is a later, non-traditional addition.

Which French ice cream dessert is frozen in a rounded mold lined with an outer shell of ice cream?

Bombe is French for bomb: the dessert is named for its cannonball shape, and Escoffier's Le Guide culinaire gives more than sixty recipes for it.

When the word 'milkshake' first appeared in print in 1885, it described an eggnog-like tonic made with which spirit?

Whiskey soon gave way: by 1900 the word meant wholesome drinks made with flavored syrups, and before long customers were asking for them with ice cream.

Bastani sonnati, Iran's traditional ice cream of rose water and pistachios, gets its golden color from which spice?

Saffron is so central that the dessert is also known simply as saffron ice cream, and it shares its long history with faloodeh, a rose-water sorbet made with vermicelli.