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History of Ice Cream

2014 marks the 50th year since the Federal gov’t. tried to stop the cheapening of ice cream  (they weren’t successful in that, either), by establishing “product identities” in the hopes that operators would quit deceiving their customers about what they were selling them.

I’ve included several links so you can check out what other folks feel can pass as “History”.

Cherry-Burrell freezer history is part of WCB quality history

To say that the monologue thus promoted is rather imprecise is an understatement. Modern Ice Cream marks it’s beginning from the first intentional cheapening of the product for “mass consumption” (by pumping air into the ice cream and increasing the output by more than 50% while still using the same amount of ingredients). Weber’s Vintage Ice Cream dates from the time BEFORE cheapening was approved.

These machines (the last pair of original ice cream machines in existence) did not appear out of the mist one day.  Putting together various Vogt Family resources, it appears that Clarence Vogt “invented” the first commercial (pressurized gas heat exchanger) ice cream machine in 1909 at the tender age of 18.  And this wasn’t even his first invention (see Ice Cubes).   

Below I’ve included a link to the About.com site just to show you how wrong you can get it if you don’t do your homework. 

Read the Long, Fascinating History of Ice Cream

In the area marked “Soft Ice Cream”, unnamed “British scientists” are blamed (credited?) for Soft-Serve.  Dairy Queen was started inA-Frame-Soft-Serve-Unit 1933 and has never served  anything else but soft-serve.  Following WWII there were long lines at the few “Fresh Ice Cream” stands that had survived the war’s rationing system.  DQ sold many franchises to new businessmen who wanted to take advantage of this demand.  When people saw the cones being marketed, they’d come to the window and ask for Custard, at which point they’d hear, “Oh, it’s the same thing”. The first on-demand soft serve unit used by DQ is shown on the right.

This is thought to be the reason that the Federal government once forced DQ to advertise that they made “frozen dairy dessert”.  DQ’s ingredient quality was perceived to be “…so low it cannot be called either ice cream or frozen custard”.  Anyway,  people didn’t quit buying it and the decree is now outside the time limits (the last local DQ got rid of that moniker with their last facilities “upgrade”).