Having already visited bread ice creams, it only seems appropriate to peek in on breads’ greatest companions, cheese and meat. Yes, you read that correctly, meat and cheese ice creams.

Don’t turn the page just yet. You wouldn’t want to miss the Iron Chef connection to more than one of these ice creams.

Iced cheese

Iced cheese is a little confusing as it seems to refer to two distinctly different concoctions. Some of these appear to be rich ice creams flavored with fruit, spice, even coffee or chocolate, and frozen into cheese molds and made to appear like different sorts of cheese. The first two are recipes of that sort.

Iced Cream-cheese.

Boil a pint of good cream, then put half a pound of sugar to it, about a dozen of sweet almonds pounded, a little preserved orange-flowers, or orange-flower water, and rasped lemon-peel; boil together a few minutes; when you take it off the fire, add five yolks of eggs beat up, and stir it continually till they are well mixed with the cream; sift it in a sieve, and put it into the icing-pot: when it is pretty much iced, work it well to put it into cheese-moulds; ice it again, and serve as usual.—It is also done with coffee and chocolate in the same manner as the ices, only that each is thickened with four or five yolks of eggs, as directed in the first, and moulded like a cheese, which gives it the name. (Clermont, 1776)

Iced Cheese of any sort of Marmelade. Fromage de Marmelade glaci  

They are made after the same manner; when the cream and eggs are well mixed, add a sufficient quantity of what marmalade you please to give it a proper taste of the fruit desired. (Clermont, 1776)

Don’t start breathing a sigh of relief though, because, there were indeed another whole set of ‘ice cheese’ recipes that actually are flavored with cheese. Emy made a glace de crème aux fromages containing grated Parmesan and Gruyère. Gilliers’s fromage de parmesan mixed grated Parmesan with coriander, cinnamon, and cloves and froze it in a mold resembling a wedge of Parmesan cheese. Once it was unmolded, he recommended presenting it with a burnt sugar crust. (Quiznio, 2002)

Parmesan Ice Cream

Take six eggs, half a pint of syrup and a pint of cream put them into stewpan and boil them until it begins to thicken ; then rasp three ounces of parmesan cheese, mix and pass them through a sieve, and freeze it.  (Nutt, 1789).

Little Souffle’s of Cheese (Petits Souffles de Fromage Glacis).

Three tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, 2 ditto of gruyere, little cayenne, half a pint of whipped cream, and rather more than a quarter of a pint of aspic jelly. Mix and fill up the cases and freeze in the cave for 1 hour. Serve with browned bread-crumbs on the top. (Marshall, 1888)

Meat Ice Creams

Well, if we’re going to serve cheese ice cream, it isn’t much of a hop from there to meat, right? In for a penny, in for a pound as they say—here we go…

Up first, oyster ice cream. This one comes from The Virginia Housewife (1824) by Mrs. Randolph, a relative of Thomas Jefferson.

Oyster Cream.

Make a rich soup, (see directions for oyster soup,) strain it from the oysters, and freeze it.

Oyster Soup.

Wash and drain two quarts of oysters, put them on with three quarts of water, three onions chopped up, two or three slices of lean ham, pepper and salt; boil it till reduced one-half, strain it through a sieve, return the liquid into the pot, put in one quart of fresh oysters, boil it till they are sufficiently done, and thicken the soup with four spoonsful of flour, two gills of rich cream, and the yelks of six new laid eggs beaten well; boil it a few minutes after the thickening is put in. Take care that it does not curdle, and that the flour is not in lumps; serve it up with the last oysters that were put in. If the flavour of thyme be agreeable, you may put in a little, but take care that it does not boil in it long enough to discolour the soup.  (Randolph, 1824 )

Before you react too strongly to this one, let’s leap ahead to modern day. Oyster ice cream was featured on the 1999 American debut of Iron Chef (a cooking competition show that originated in Japan.) Since then, Iron Chef has also featured ice creams of parmesan cheese, trout, black truffle, scallops and pork. Just something else that goes to show the more things change, the more they stay the same. Kind of makes the following recipes for ham, foie gras, and whiting(fish) ice creams look pretty tame.

Little Creams of Ham Iced. (Petites Cremes de Jambon Glacees.)

Whip half a pint of cream till quite stiff, then mix with it a quarter of a pint of liquid aspic jelly and a few drops of carmine to make it a pale salmon colour, add a dust of cayenne, and five ounces of lean cooked ham that is cut up in very little dice shapes; stir all together over ice until it begins to set, then put it in a Neapolitan ice mould and place this in the ice cave for about one and a half hours; when sufficiently iced dip the mould in cold water, remove the covers ,and turn the ham cream on to a clean cloth, cut it in slices crossways, and dish them up on a dish-paper in a round over-lapping one another; garnish the centre with a bunch of picked mustard and cress or any nice salad, and decorate the slices with ham butter by means of bag and fancy pipe. (Marshall, 1890)

Iced Cream with Foie Gras a la Caneton. (Creme glacee au Foie Gras a la Caneton.)

Take one and a half pints of cream and season it with a pinch of cayenne pepper and a little salt; mix with it three quarters of a pint of liquid aspic jelly and freeze in the freezing machine until the mixture is setting, then line the duck mould with it, colouring a small portion with a little of Marshall’s apricot yellow to represent the beak of the bird.

When the mould is lined, fill up the centre with the contents of a jar or tin of pate de foie gras from which the fat has been removed, then close up the mould and put it into the charged ice cave or in a mixture of ice and salt to freeze for about one hour; if placed in ice and salt the joints of the mould should be lined with dripping to prevent the brine entering.

When frozen dip the mould into cold water and turn out the duck on to a bed of chopped aspic jelly and garnish it round with little eggs, made by putting a portion of the cream and foie gras in small egg moulds and freezing them similarly to the duck, and little blocks of cut jelly and sprigs of picked chervil. If you have glass eyes for the duck they give it a finished appearance. Serve for an entree or second course dish, or for any cold collation. The same mould may be used for a large variety of different dishes. (Marshall, 1890)

Souffles of Curry a la Ripon (Petits Souffles de Karl a la Ripon).

Fry in about 2 ounces of fresh butter, 2 onions sliced, 2 sour apples, sprig of thyme, 2 bay leaves, sprig of parsley, about 1 ounce of cocoanut and C almonds blanched; to this add a raw or cooked sole or whiting. Fry all until a good golden colour, then add half a teaspoonful of curry powder, half a teaspoonful of curry paste, half a teaspoonful of tamarinds, little salt, and juice of 1. lemon; cover then with milk and cook till tender, add a little saffron yellow to colour. Take the meat from the fish-bone and pound,  and pass through a tammy cloth ; add a quarter of a pint of this puree to a good quarter of a pint of whipped aspic and half a pint of whipped cream; whip well together. Freeze in cases in cave for 1½ hours. When serving, garnish with prawns. (Marshall, 1888)

(Just an interesting note: Marshall seems to hold the patent for the Marshalls Ice Cave used in making all her recipes, which may just explain a few of the recipes above. It might give you a little comfort to know that these were not meant as desserts. She published these mid-meal sorbets in both of her cookbooks proclaiming they had an acknowledged place in serving a first-class dinner. Both her books were published in the Victorian era, well out of Jane Austen’s day, but they are just so interesting I had to include them.)

For more on Ice Cream in Jane Austen’s World, click HERE.

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