I scream, you scream…

…we all scream for ICE CREAM! Just so you know: JULY is ICE CREAM MONTH. Yep, it’s official. National Ice Cream Month. Here’s some (annotated) trivia about ice cream, plus a kind of zen video on the subject.

Did you know?…

• Each American consumes a yearly average of 23.2 quarts of ice cream, ice milk, sherbet, ices and other commercially produced frozen dairy products. (I have to say here that I eat maybe one pint a year, sorry Ice Cream Council of America.)
• The Northern Central states have the highest per capita consumption of ice cream at 41.7 quarts. (Uh, the dairy region of the U.S., not a surprise.)
• More ice cream is sold on Sunday than any other day of the week. (What else are you supposed to do after church?)
• Ice cream and related frozen desserts are consumed by more than 90 percent of households in the United States. (Much more interesting: Who are the hold outs?)
• Ice cream consumption is highest during July and August. (What? You mean folks around here aren’t gobbling up frozen desserts in January?)
• In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. (Mark the day…if President Reagan made the designation it must be a bank holiday.)
• The most popular flavor of ice cream in the United States is vanilla (27.8%), followed by chocolate (14.3%), strawberry (3.3%), chocolate chip (3.3%) and butter pecan (2.8%). (Source: The NPD Group’s National Eating Trends In-Home Database) (Did you think someone was going to question percentages? Though I am wondering what NPD stands for…)
• Children ages two through 12, and adults age 45 plus, eat the most ice cream per person. (I guess those between 13-44 are doing something else.) The average number of licks to polish off a single scoop ice cream cone is approximately 50. (Now that’s a video I’d like to see so I can count for myself.)

(Oh boy, have at me ice cream manufacturers, dairy farmers, and President Reagan.)

The History of Ice Cream and the Cone: The true origin of ice cream is unknown, however reports of frozen desserts have been reported as far back as the second century B.C.

• The first official account of ice cream in America was recorded in 1700 from a letter written by a guest of Maryland Governor William Bladen.
• In 1812, Dolley Madison served a magnificent strawberry ice cream creation at President Madison’s second inaugural banquet at the White House.
• The first ice cream cone was produced in 1896 by Italo Marchiony. Marchinoy, who emigrated from Italy in the late 1800’s, invented his ice cream cone in New York City. Around the same time a similar creation, the cornucopia, was independently introduced at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

Stephen Sullivan of Sullivan, Missouri was one of the first independent operators in the ice cream cone business. In 1906, Sullivan served ice cream cones at the Modern Woodmen of America Frisco Log Rolling in Sullivan, Missouri. (And, ice cream eaters, you thought you had nothing in common with Frisco Log Rolling!) I’m going out to get some fried ice cream, with a cherry and sprinkles.

Tags: ice cream