Dumb History of Ice Cream

It is difficult to pin down the origins of Ice Cream. Which is perfect, because I can make things up and you can’t prove me wrong. This is history at its finest.

Let me cut to the chase. God invented Ice Cream. From my thirty years of decorated experience of inventing nothing, I can assure you that it is not humanly possible for a human to invent it. It is one of those rare heavenly things that can only be God’s creation.

That’s how religion was invented. When you don’t know who created something, you attribute it to god. We had so many gods few centuries ago. One god for rain, one for fire, one for tree and the rest for the hell of it. But with time, and with science, we narrowed down our beliefs into two gods: one who created the universe and the other who created Ice cream. I hope you are catching my drift because I drifted quite a bit. 

God made all kinds of ice creams. This one time, he suffocated the ice cream of air and called it gelato. This other time, he has skipped churning completely just because he can and slow-froze the ice cream, called it kulfi. This other-other time, he skipped dairy altogether and made it with a fruit, called it Sorbet. How’d you like your Ice Cream? Rare or well done. You know i’m only joking, they are all brilliantly done. God’s work.

But we all know, there is no twist without a tale, or something like that. In this tale, god sold off his Ice Cream company to many tail-less creatures called humans. And some of them did the impossible: they took a perfectly nice thing and made it terrible. They added lobster, fish and a birthday cake; Because why not! They added a topping of stupidity and showed it to everyone. Because why not! Thankfully, these are rare, quite terribly done. They were perfectly fine foods, separately by themselves, but sometimes innovation is mis-spelled as stupid.

“Ice Cream Man”

Anyway, the first time I saw God was when I was nine years old. He was driving an Ice Cream truck singing poems about Ice cream. And young children were running after him in joy as if  he’s The Pied Piper. I said to him, “Take all my money, give me all the Ice cream”. He said, “You’ll only get one for this money”. God knows maths. He knows everything. He is not like other gods, you don’t have to pray to him for Ice Cream, you just need to pay him. You do all the praying to your mother. Because like all kids at that time, I was broke and jobless. So, every evening I had to do the “Please, Mom, can I have some money?” dance. 

Things are easier now. Ice cream is accessible 24*7. You need not chase the Ice Cream truck if your mom takes a few extra seconds to find the money in her purse.

But back in the day, things were pretty ugly. I, myself, almost walked out of my house thrice because my Mom did not give me money for Ice Cream.

“Is it not too early to have Ice Cream?”, my mom inquired.

“Time is a construct of the mind on a rotating rock”, I said something like that. 

“They say everything is great as long as you have it in moderation” my Grand Father said. I think they should start minding their own business. It’s about time.

“I do not understand the concept of moderation. I am only eight”, I am never short of witty comebacks.

“No you are nine”, my younger sister corrects me. She should also mind her own business. She was probably too young to start her own business, but still.

“Who asked you?”, I lashed out. Ok, sometimes I do run out of witty comebacks. Cut me some slack. Man deserves an Ice Cream after a long ice-cream-less day. Like they say, all work and no Ice Cream makes Jack a sad boy. 

Everybody likes Ice Cream. Let me autocorrect that. Everybody needs Ice Cream. Except my friend Bob who says he’s on diet. He’s been on diet since 1967. Bob is idiot, he was not even born in 1967. He is a bit too much. He only eats Gelato. I have nothing against gelato but while Ice Cream melts from outside, Gelato would melt both from inside and outside. So you only have twelve seconds to eat it. This year, you will only have eleven seconds due to global warming. Good luck!

As I was saying, everybody needs Ice Cream. You must be familiar with “Ice Cream Therapy”. It is when your therapist takes you out for an ice cream. This happens when the therapist finally realizes that no amount of you talking is going to make you feel any better and concedes that Ice cream is the answer to human trauma.

That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Ice Cream contains two out of three human cravings: sugar and fat. If you get it in Salted Caramel flavor, then you are covering all the three bases. It cannot get any more perfect. 

“Some Real History of Ice Cream”

Thomas Jefferson, world famous for penning the declaration of Independence, used the same pen to write down the recipe of Ice Cream and shared it with people of USA. He is therefore considered one of the sweetest Presidents of USA. You can see a picture of him licking ice cream on some dollar notes even today. For those of you who don’t know, Thomas Jefferson, is a very old man in America. He went to school with Joe Biden. History says that he borrowed Biden’s pencil and never gave it back. Poor Biden!

Anyway, Ice cream became truly popular only after 1919. It was the year when alcohol was banned. It was also the year when Americans picked their new poison: Ice Cream. In no time, it became the national comfort food. Even when the world was hit with rocky times during the Great Depression of 1929, humans came up ‘Rocky Road’ flavor. Rain or shine, Ice Cream is fine. Even a World War could not put brakes on Ice Cream.

During World War II, while rest of the world rationed ice cream and told its soldiers, “No ice cream for you!”, the U.S. said “More ice cream for you!”. Ice cream factories were setup on front lines of war and a floating ice cream barge was deployed in the Pacific to deliver Ice Cream to the Allied ships. The taste of vanilla brought the soldiers closer to home, even as they fought far away from it. Vanilla reminded them of simpler times of childhood, summers, vacations, and friendships. Ice cream isn’t just Ice Cream; it’s also all the things we associate with Ice Cream. 

In 1942, when Japanese torpedoes struck the USS Lexington, the crew abandoned ship into shark-infested waters but not before raiding the freezers for good old ice cream and scooping it into their helmets. I bet they were more worried if there is going to be any Ice Cream in heaven than if they’ll be able to make it to heaven. 

According to internet, Ice Cream is ranked the second best thing in the world after sex. So obviously, for children, it’s the first best thing in the world. No wonder, global warming has nothing on global Ice Cream production. We even set up ice cream machines in Antarctica because even if all the ice has melted, we'll still have ice cream.