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Cloudy skies. Low 62F. Winds light and variable..
Cloudy skies. Low 62F. Winds light and variable.
This hand-cranked 1923 White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer is on display at Sharon’s Cookies on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg.
Sharon Willochell Seiler, the owner of Sharon’s Cookies on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg, was vacationing in New Hampshire when she spotted this vintage hand-cranked ice cream freezer in an antique store.
Sharon’s Cookies is located along East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg.
This hand-cranked 1923 White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer is on display at Sharon’s Cookies on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg.
Sharon Willochell Seiler, the owner of Sharon’s Cookies on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg, was vacationing in New Hampshire when she spotted this vintage hand-cranked ice cream freezer in an antique store.
Sharon’s Cookies is located along East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg.
Sharon Willochell Seiler of Greensburg was vacationing in New Hampshire when she spotted an old ice cream freezer in an antique store.
“I just had to have it,” she said. “It looked like it came out of a barn somewhere and the people didn’t know what they had, but I knew what it was. Then I got online and found out how old it was.”
It’s a hand-cranked 1923 White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer from a company that’s been making the appliances, later in both hand cranked and electric models, since 1853. She cleaned it up to display in her bakery, Sharon’s Cookies on East Pittsburgh Street in Greensburg.
Years ago, Seiler was involved in a family ice business in Greensburg where they also sold ice cream from Kerber’s Dairy in North Huntingdon Township. So, no, she doesn’t have a background in making ice cream.
“I just think that ice cream is fascinating,” she said.
That interest and the recently acquired freezer inspired her to research the history of America’s favorite dessert.
Some sources trace early forms of ice cream to the second century B.C. Among its fans were Alexander the Great, who enjoyed snow and ice flavored with honey and nectar. During the 1st century Roman Empire, Nero Claudius Caesar sent runners into the mountains to bring back snow that was then flavored with fruits and juices. Persians made a type of frozen treat out of rose water and vermicelli.
Explorer Marco Polo returned from to Italy from the Far East with a recipe for what resembled sherbet, and that evolved into “cream ice.” Catherine de Medici served flavored ices and sorbets.
Charles I of England was so impressed with the flavored “frozen snow” that, according to tradition, he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret so that only royalty could enjoy it.
While some of those stories are legends, what is verified is that Sicilian chef Procopio introduced a richer ice cream made with milk, cream, butter and eggs at Café Procope, the first café opened in Paris in 1686.
In the New World, a letter written in 1744 by a guest of Maryland Gov. William Bladen mentioned ice cream. The first advertisement appeared on May 12, 1777, in The New York Gazette when confectioner Philip Lenzi announced that ice cream was available “almost every day.”
Merchant records show that President George Washington spent about $200 for ice cream during the summer of 1790, and inventory records at Mount Vernon included two pewter ice cream pots. President Thomas Jefferson allegedly had an 18-step ice cream recipe similar to contemporary Baked Alaska.
Other records show that in 1813, Dolly Madison served a strawberry ice cream dessert for President James Madison’s second inaugural banquet at the White House.
“It was always the elite and upper class who had it as a treat for the wealthy,” Seiler said.
That changed in 1832 when Augustus Jackson, an African-American candy confectioner in Philadelphia, created several ice cream recipes and an improved method of making it. A former White House chef for Presidents James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, he returned to his native town to run a catering business and to sell ice cream in packaged tins. At that time, many African-Americans owned ice cream parlors and the treat was becoming available to everyone.
Meanwhile also in Philadelphia, Nancy Maria Donaldson Johnson was looking for an easy way to make ice cream, a chore that was very labor intensive. She designed a hand crank to rotate two spatulas in a bucket within another container filled with ice and salt. The principles of thermodynamics and endothermic reactions caused the liquid ingredients in the inner container to freeze. She applied for a patent for her “artificial freezer” in 1843.
“She discovered how to church ice cream herself, and before that, it was never something that regular folks would have,” Seiler said. “You just need rock salt and chipped ice, and it takes about an hour and a half to keep cranking it. That’s why ice cream socials became popular. You had to invite a lot of people to a party to keep cranking this thing, and the ice cream had to be eaten right away.”
Johnson’s invention not only made ice cream easily available but it was also the forerunner of other ice cream freezers.
The American soda fountain shop and the profession of “soda jerk” emerged in 1874 with the invention of the ice cream soda. When overly religious people in the 1890s decried having “sinfully” rich ice cream sodas on Sunday, merchants left out the soda and invented the ice cream Sunday, later spelled sundae.
Then the banana split was invented in 1904 by David Strickler who was working at Tassell Pharmacy in Latrobe.
Ice cream, scarce at home because of rationing dairy products, was a special treat for the troops during World War II. Americans celebrated victory with ice cream, and in 1946, they consumed over 20 quarts of the treat per person.
Recent figures from several internet sources list per capita consumption at a little over 21 quarts.
Seiler is cleaning up the 98-year-old hand-cranked freezer and hopes that its presence in her bakery will spark interest in the history of ice cream.
“I want other women to know about Nancy Johnson,” she said. “She had the first patent granted to a woman, and she brought ice cream to the masses.”
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