Luxury foods demand the luxury treatment! Take a look at the ice cream cups and other special serving vessels for ice cream. If you’ve been reading Random Bits of Fascination for a while, then you may remember talking about specialized china for luxury dishes before. If not, you might want to check out these posts on Chocolate Pots vs. Coffee Pots, and Chocolate cups vs. Tea cups. Since ice cream was (during Austen’s day) a … Continue reading →
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 … Continue reading →
How about tea time in an ice cream: tea and biscuit ice creams. Tea time brings images of hot beverages, tiny sandwiches, dainty cookies and an air of elegant refinement. What about turning all of that into ice cream flavors? Ok, you can stop looking at me funny. It really isn’t that much of a stretch, well at least not all of it. Come take a peek. Tea and Coffee First up, let’s put the … Continue reading →
Were ice cream cones really invented at the World’s Fair or did they originate much earlier, early enough that Jane Austen might have enjoyed one? Explore the history of ice cream cones with me.
Continue reading →In Jane Austen’s day, vanilla wasn’t a common flavor, flower ice cream flavors were. When we think of common ice cream flavors today, our minds usually go to vanilla. Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, vanilla (which is the fruit of the vanilla orchid—but you probably already knew that…) was pretty uncommon. Far more common flavors were floral ones, including jasmine, orange flower, violet, elder flowers and rose. (Quinzio, 2002) The flavors do sound … Continue reading →
