When and how was ice cream invented?

Eating Ice Cream In 1899

SLURP! SLURP!

Ice cream may very well have a long and complicated history stemming back to a period when the world’s earliest writing systems had yet to come into fruition.

Despite ice cream being widely regarded as some sort of modern, westernised product, it is very probable that the earliest ice cream as we know it was invented several thousand years ago in a potential region anywhere between Western Europe, to Ancient China, depending on your interpretation of the evidence.

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Alexander the Great was himself said to be addicted to the product of frozen milk, mixed with nectar, honey and WINE! He would reportedly eat/slurp this at any opportunity, much to the annoyance of his political and military advisors.

Meanwhile, some traditionalists would say that ice cream is a Chinese invention, due to claims that Tang of Shang (reigned 1675–1646 BC) was in fact the first true consumer of ice cream.

Tang Of Shang Thinking About Ice Cream

After the Battle of Mingtiao, the Xia Emperor Jie was defeated, and Tang became the first emperor of the Shang Dynasty.

Despite his popularity in lowering taxes and military spending, it seems that this economically conservative leader could not afford to not overindulge himself in the consumption of ice cream.

The Great Wall Of China — Built A Millennium After Ice Cream Became A Priority

Some ninety-four men were allegedly hired for the sole purpose of making the best quality ice cream for their emperor — buffalo milk, flour and camphor — who most certainly passed this on to his successors, as there is evidence that by 200 BC (the post-Qing Dynasty era) flavours of ice cream were even being distributed to a great portion of the population, who mixed the product with rice!

Of course, this does not prove once and for all that ice cream was a Chinese invention, as all this proves is that one of the oldest records which arguably could be that of the ice cream originated from that part of the world, and even that is dependent on whom you ask, for it is very unlikely that what we today know as ice cream would have looked the same way to the ancient world.

Ancient Egyptian Art “Claiming” To Portray The Modern Ice Cream

Some might throw their hands up at this statement and claim that it could not be an ice cream, then, since an ice cream is SUPPOSED to have a cone mixed with a round scoop of frozen dairy.

However, this would not be a fair statement in much the same way we wouldn’t consider a medieval house to not be a house just because its designs were different to a modern home while lacking electricity and plumbing.

I am not going to delve into what exactly specifies an ice cream, since that is best left for users to decide. For myself, I am only interested in presenting a compilation of plausible theories proposed by other people in regards to when the ice cream itself was invented.

Kulfi — Traditionally Claimed To Have Originated From The Mughals In The Sixteenth Century — Is Another Contender For The First Ice Cream

Some people — most notable Iranians — claim that the ice cream was invented around 500 BC in Ancient Persia, to be consumed by the royal family members of that period (Xerxes II, enemy of Leonidas of Thermopylae, for instance), with surviving records from that period including recipes combined with vermicelli and rose water.

Ice Cream:

Over the centuries, the “ice cream” of Ancient Persia/Achaemenid Empire presumably continued its evolutionary process until it turned into what is now widely regarded as Faloodeh.

The Roman Empire can definitely make claim to being the true inventors of ice cream, and while nobody can know for certain how a Roman ice cream would have looked like, I am quite certain — as far as the ancient world is concerned — that the Romans probably had the closest adaption to the ice cream as we know it before the modern ages for reasons which will be explained later down below.