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| Strawberry Gourmet |
Ice cream is a very essential summer delicacy. On a hot day,
we never hesitate to loosen our purse strings over ice -creams. While many of
us reflect that ice-cream is a modern concept, it has got a very interesting
origin dating back to 400 BC.
In the Persian Empire , people
would pour grape-juice concentrate over snow, in a bowl, and have this as a treat on a hot day.
Snow would either be stored in the cool-keeping underground chambers known as
"yakhchal", or taken from the snowfall that remained at the top of the
mountains. In 400 BC, the Persians went further and invented a special chilled
food, made of rose water and vermicelli, which was served to royalty during
summers. The ice was mixed with saffron, fruits, and various other flavours.
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| Chocolate Ice cream |
Ancient civilizations have served ice for cold foods for
thousands of years. The BBC reports that a frozen mixture of milk and rice was
used in China
around 200 BC. The Roman Emperor Nero (37-680) had ice brought ice from the
mountains and combined it with fruit toppings.
Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat asserts, in her History of Food,
that "the Chinese may be credited with inventing a device to make sorbets
and ice cream. They poured a mixture of snow and saltpetre over the exteriors
of containers filled with syrup, for, in the same way as salt raises the
boiling-point of water, it lowers the freezing-point to below zero. It has also
been claimed that, in the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan enjoyed ice cream and kept
it a royal secret until Marco Polo visited China
and took the technique of making ice cream to Italy .
So, the next time you have an ice-cream, whether it’s a sundae
or a gelato , do remember that you are relishing a royal delicacy!
source:Wikipedia
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