Selects: How Ice Cream Works
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I screama, you screama, we all screama for How Ice Cream Works, the great episode celebrating the best dessert treat in all honesty. I mean, there's just nothing better than ice cream. This is from February 5th, 2015. I don't eat ice cream much anymore because it disagrees with my body, but boy, every now and then I get one of those pints, get a little chubby hubby if you can find it, throw it down your throat, and suffer the consequence.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. ♪

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry. So this is Stuff You Should Know, the dreaming of summer in the middle of winter edition. Oh, my friend, ice cream is a year-round treat for me. Yeah? Sure. I know, I had some last night. Oh yeah? What'd you have? We're going to buzz market a lot, probably. Rocky Road and Vividly Vanilla.

What brand is that? Oh, yeah? Yeah, they were delicious. Nice. Was it heavy or light? It was light. Yeah. Yeah, after reading this, I was like, man, this is very light. A lot of air in there. I taught myself to juggle with them. Oh, well, that's exciting. That was a cross-reference. Yeah, I'm a Ben and Jerry's guy. Well, yeah, it's great stuff. Yeah. Can't have too much of it, though, because I got the lactose issues.

Really? Yeah. And ice cream is your favorite treat? Yeah, it's pretty sad. That's self-hate. Yeah, ice cream followed by a large glass of milk. Right? No, just kidding. Then you just inject a bunch of casings directly into your neck? Yeah, I mean, it's not like I don't have lactose issues such that any kind of milk product really, it's just if I overdose on it. Huh. Like if I have a

A bunch of, like, pizza and ice cream or something. What do they call it? Like, mildly sensitive, maybe? Maybe. Mildly intolerant? Yeah, I get the poopy butt. Like, you're cool with, like, lactose at work, but you don't want lactose marrying your kid. You're that kind of intolerant to lactose, right? Exactly. I just don't want it living next door to me. I can get a...

I can do a pint of ice cream, though. Or is it the half pint? The Ben & Jerry's little one? I think it's a pint. Is it a pint? The little... Not the little baby one. That's just like a fistful. I'm not seven. Yeah, right. I think it's a pint is what they sell them at. Yeah, I can do a pint of the Chubby Hubby. That's my old favorite. That's a good one. Um...

Well, basically any Ben and Jerry's is good. I'm not a big fan of cherries and stuff. Ooh, me neither. But other than that, I'm like pretty cool with all ice cream. And I used to not like bananas and things, but now I'm like, I'm cool with bananas. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Like bananas and ice cream, I would never have eaten before, and now I will. I'm pretty picky with my ice cream flavors.

I'm trying to think of one I really don't like, and nothing's coming to mind except for stuff with cherry in it. Yeah, I don't like mint. Crazy. I don't like coconut. Crazy. My favorite is the Chubby Hubby, and then they have the limited runs. Yeah. They have one out now called Candy Bar Pie. Candy Bar Pie? Like what kind of candy bar is it modeled after? It's ridiculous. I don't know. It's got nougat in it. It just...

It doesn't taste like a specific candy bar though. It's not like they're trying to be like a Snickers ice cream sneakily. It just tastes, it's just delicious. Nice. I like Butterfinger in ice cream. Yeah.

What about places to get ice cream? Jenny's is delicious. Where is that? They have it here on the west side over by Star Provisions. Okay. And they got a new one in Crock Street Market. There's a place in Old Town Alexandria outside of D.C. called Pops. It's like an old-timey ice cream parlor. Awesome. I think I went in there actually last summer. It's awesome. But did they have candy and all that stuff?

Or is it just an ice cream shop? It's pretty much just ice cream. There's a couple of long cases. They've got the old turn-of-the-last-century furniture and everything in the striped wallpaper. They're doing it right, but then their ice cream stands behind it, too. It's good. And then, of course, Friendly's.

Yeah. Friendly's has the Reese's Pieces Sunday, which is probably the greatest ice cream treat ever created in the history of humanity. Yeah. Growing up in Atlanta, they had something called Farrell's, which was... I remember Farrell's. Oh, did they have those? They had that in Ohio, too. And on your birthday, they'd come out with that big drum. Oh, yeah. Scared me to death. Yeah. I went under the table a couple of times. Just like old school ice cream parlor, scaring the bejesus out of children everywhere. Now, they had a lot of candy selection, too. Yeah. Yeah.

Man, let's just talk about, let's just not even do this. Let's just talk about ice cream we love. I like this flavor. I like this flavor. Everyone's starving right now for it, though. I guarantee it with that intro. I have one more, though. Have you ever been to the Plaza Fiesta, I think is what it's called, over on Beaufort Highway? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

They have a gelato place there that had tuna-flavored gelato. Raw tuna-flavored gelato. And by God, it tasted exactly like raw tuna flavor. I thought you were going to say it was good. It wasn't bad. Really? Yeah. If you eat sashimi or something like that, you would appreciate this. It's not something you're like, oh, man, I've got to get some tuna-flavored gelato. It's not like...

it's not like one bite and you spit it out. Yeah, yeah. You're just like, this is really odd. Interesting. Unusually tasty. I'll have to try that. Yeah. My other quickly, my other thing I like lately is a little heat in the ice cream. Like some of them have a little cayenne in the chocolate or. Oh yeah, with cinnamon or something. Yeah. That and some salted caramel.

I am so over salted caramel or bacon and sweetness. I'm just so sick of that combination. Really? Yeah. It's all basically a ripoff of Wendy's fries and a Frosty dip together. That's good, too. That's fine. That's the original. The original salty sweet. Yeah.

All right. Well, I'm salivating now. I am as well. Let's get through this and we can go get some ice cream, okay? Yay. You're buying. Okay. So the history of ice cream, Chuck. How long could it possibly have been around? Where did you find this, by the way? We need to give a good shout. Was that the Dairy Association? Yes. Yeah. I think the International Dairy Association, the big guy. Not the Regional Dairy Association? They came up with this history of ice cream or dairy frozen dairy.

Dairy treats is a better way to put it. Because ice cream is the lion's share of frozen dairy treats, but technically it falls under the umbrella of frozen dairy treats. Along with things like sherbet and gelato and frozen yogurt. Right, or ice cream sandwiches. Yeah, novelties. Exactly. Those are good, too.

Well, my friend, it goes back, they say, as far as 2nd century BC. But they can't pinpoint a definite person or place for sure. They just know that it started popping up in history, like with Alexander the Great. He had flavored ice and snow with honey and nectar. Yeah, snow cone. Yeah, and that makes sense that that would be the origin of ice cream. It makes me laugh in this thing. They said that Nero and Claudia Caesar would...

frequently send runners to the mountains for snow. Right. That just seems like a very Roman emperor thing to do. Like, I'd like something cold and sweet. Go! Right. And like three hours later, they'd come back, you know, half dead. Yeah. Here is your ice snow cone. Exactly. But they would flavor those with fruits and juices, and that was sort of...

another part of the beginning of ice cream. Apparently all this is going on in a vacuum too, like over in Asia. In different places? Yeah, in the Mideast in Asia, wherever they had mountains in these areas and they could get snow and ice. Um,

Because Marco Polo, in I think the 13th century, came back to Italy and said, check this idea out. Yeah. Frozen fruit treats. And that was basically the origin of ice cream in the West. Yeah. In England, they were big on what they called cream ice. Yeah. Because England, you've got to say it's slightly funny. Or they would probably call it proper ice cream.

Right. You know? There's an E at the end of cream. Is there? No. No. But there probably was. There would be. And Catherine DiMedici, who we mentioned in the episode... Oh, Nostradamus. Nostradamus episode. That's right. She was big on it. She was the wife of Henry II.

And back then, though, it was, you know, in the 1500s, in the 16th century, it was only like royalty because ice was, you know, they didn't have freezers and they didn't have ice machines. You needed a guy to go run up to the mountain and bring it down. Yeah, no, it was a big deal to have ice. Unless, of course, it was winter, in which case you were like, oh, yeah, I can have a frozen treat. But if it were summer and you were enjoying a frozen dairy treat... Send the runner. You're rich. Yeah. You're super rich. Yeah.

So apparently, by about the...

17th century, there was at least one cafe in Paris. I think it was the first cafe in Paris that started selling ice cream to the public in 1660. Nice. They basically made it egalitarian. And from that point on, ice cream was a definite luxury item, but you didn't have to be royalty to obtain it. Yeah, that's a good way of saying it. Yeah. Yeah.

In the United States, the first time they found it in print was in a letter in 1744 by a guest of the governor of Maryland, William Bladen. And there was an ad in 1777, May 12th, the New York Gazette, for ice cream. So it was for sure for sale to the people back then. Right. By that time. Yeah.

George Washington had a recipe. Thomas Jefferson had a recipe. Yeah. Dolly Madison used to like to serve it at the White House. George Washington ate a lot of it, right? Didn't he say $200 a day?

For one summer? Yeah, and I failed to go to the West Egg Currency Converter. That's a lot of ice cream. I imagine that's a lot of money. Yeah, but he had guests, and he may have shared it with his staff. Oh, I would hope so. You never know. Especially if that's like $50,000 worth of ice cream. That would be a lot. You can't eat that in one summer. Even if you're Joey Chestnut, world record holder for most ice cream eating. Is he? Yeah. How much did he eat? 1.8 gallons in six minutes.

1.8 gallons in six minutes. That doesn't seem like that much. Oh, that's a lot. Yeah, that's pretty speedy. Yeah, it is. But hey, that's why he's Joey Chestnut. Plus, don't forget the brain freeze. Oh, yeah. Man. Do you have a thing on that? Brain freeze? No, I've done a Don't Be Dumb on it, though, before. Do you remember what it is? Like, what is brain freeze? Yeah. Oh, what is brain freeze? Yeah. Oh, there's a...

There's a blood vessel that runs from your brain into the roof of your mouth that becomes constricted, which changes the volume of your brain, which gives you a headache. Gotcha. Which is why if you place your tongue against the roof of your mouth while you have brain freeze, it warms up that blood vessel, allowing it to...

Relax again. Or just light a match and hold that under the roof of your mouth. That's another way to go. Yeah. You'll concentrate on that pain instead of the brain freeze. Interesting. I don't get brain freeze because I think as an adult you know how not to wolf it down like that. I've gotten it accidentally, though, as an adult from time to time. Really? Yeah. No good? No, it's terrible. It's as terrible as an adult as it is when you're a child. It's probably worse as an adult. It's just debilitating, you know? Yeah. It's so painful. Yeah.

So like you said, until around 1800, it was mostly for the upper class. But then, like everything else in industry in America around that time, manufacturing became more widespread and cheaper, and all of a sudden you had warehouses that were big freezers, and you had...

Shipping, you could ship things cold and frozen. Right, so you had like the manufacturing aspect in place. Yeah, homogenizer machines, electric power. Right. Mechanical refrigeration, basically. But even still, you had...

you had the manufacturing in place the distribution though was still limited to say like a store somebody who could make money by investing in some freezer cases and then selling it to the public yeah it wasn't until ice boxes became widespread in America that

the ice cream industry really blew up because then you could sell to the guy down at Pops. Yeah. You could also sell to Pops next door neighbor who took it home. That's right. To keep in his freezer. And thank God that happened. Yeah. And actually, as far as making ice cream, that's...

The hand crank ice cream maker that used rock salt and all that stuff? Sure. That was invented by a woman named Nancy Johnson in the 1850s, I think? Yeah. And she patented it.

And apparently everybody ripped her off. She sold the patent for like $200. And the guy who bought it from her turned around and made a fortune off of it. But I guess he ultimately got ripped off by a bunch of copycats. But that same thing is still in use today. Like you can go buy. The Johnson Crank. That same, yeah, the Johnson Crank ice cream maker.

and make your own ice cream the 1850s way. Well, you mentioned take-home ice cream being a big deal as far as it's spreading. I do have a little modern stat released from a few years ago. That is still the biggest part of the market. 67% of the overall market is take-home ice cream. Well, I saw that 87% of Americans have ice cream in their freezer right now. Yeah, I don't. I can't.

It doesn't stick around? No, like, you know, if you're going to get a pint, you might as well just plow through it and be done with it. Right. And then get some a few weeks later. You're not a quitter. No, and I can't just keep like a gallon of ice cream in the house. Oh, that's a bad move. That's a bad move for me. Yeah, it's a bad move for everybody. Well, no, some people have willpower. Yeah, I guess you're right. You're one of them.

I don't keep a gallon of ice cream in my house. Yeah, but you got willpower to a large degree, I think. Yeah, well. You're the guy who quit smoking by just saying, I'm not going to smoke anymore. Yeah, that's true. You know? Yeah, I guess I do have a degree of willpower. But I do not. So we're now in the 19th century, in the late 1800s. Right. And the professional soda jerk at soda fountain shops pops up, and they make things called like root beer floats and Coke floats and soda floats. Right.

Which I haven't had one in a long time. I used to love root beer floats. Yeah. But I don't know why. It's not something I see very much anymore. Well, you have to go to the trouble of...

Putting it together yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you don't see floats very often anymore I'm sure there's some places that sell them, but they were good though. Oh, yeah, man root beer and ice cream is a winning combination Yeah, I mean I haven't had one since I was a kid probably coke works - yeah coke floats good - root beer floats are the thing though I think you're right And then this was for me the fact of the show. I did not know about this religious criticism back then they

Didn't like you eating things that were so rich in like a gluttonous, I guess. It was sinful. Yeah. Well, yeah. On Sundays, that is. And so in response, they took out the carbonated water or the root beer or whatever and made a sundae. And that's what we called it a sundae originally. But apparently they were like, are you mocking us? And the soda jerks union said, no, no. And they changed the spelling from S-U-N-D-A-Y to S-U-N-D-A-E. Because they were mocking them. Right. Right.

And they were like, this was their act of retribution, changing the spelling of Sunday. And the other cool thing, too, was during World War II, apparently, it was the armed forces were all trying to

Outstep one another in providing ice cream to the troops in new and exciting ways because it was such a morale booster Of course to get ice cream when you're at war right, you know a little taste of home And I think that was it the Navy that had the ship. Yeah, the world's first floating ice cream parlor That's awesome in the Western Pacific. Well, even before that in World War one ice cream was deemed an essential food and so ice cream manufacturers got rations of sugar and

so they could keep making ice cream during the war even though everything else was being rationed. Yeah, and Ed points out that during the Depression, everything kind of slowed down that was a nonessential, including ice cream. But it never went away. And through the years, it's pretty much gained in popularity. I think in the 70s is when you started to see a little more health-conscious efforts like the frozen yogurts and the like.

fro-yo fro-yo right emily loves the fro-yo it's good stuff like the new stuff that's really like from the greek yogurt you know oh yeah it's tangy changes everything not like i think this can't be yogurt growing up was that even yogurt that was just like soft serve ice cream wasn't it is it this can't be i thought it was the country's best yogurt tcby we heard it was this can't be yogurt huh maybe it was different i wonder uh

It had to be the same. Yeah, TCBY. Yeah. No, TCBY was great. I don't know what it was. I think it's still around. It had to be yogurt because they couldn't call it that. But it wasn't definitely not the tangy stuff that you see like at Pinkberry and stuff like that. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, I'm not the hugest fan. I love that stuff. Each bite is just like it's just a trip through a flowery meadow.

Every bite. Really? Yes. Do you get the vanilla and add your stuff to it? I get the regular, just the, I guess, plain version. Yeah, and then you throw in a little mango, some blueberries. Oh, look at you. The white yogurt chips on top. That's a good combination. Or if you want to go a different route, there's like, you know, a chocolate crunch and maybe some other kind of chocolatey delicious treat.

Man, I want some ice cream so bad. All right, well, we'll get to the science of ice cream, which is decidedly less yummy sounding right after these messages. So you should love yourself.

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Get outside with Wayfair. Head to wayfair.com right now. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. So, buddy, you said that all of that stuff is frozen dairy treats. Right. But not necessarily ice cream because there's a definition, correct? Yes. So ice cream is...

is a colloid, right? Yeah. Which is an unusual and complex substance. And actually, quicksand is a colloid. It's a colloidal gel. Yeah. Technically. I remember that. But ice cream is a colloid, and a colloid is a substance where you have things that don't normally mix that are mixed together. Right. And in this case, you have fat and sugar and milk mixed together with a little bit of air thrown in.

And what you need to create a colloid is something called an emulsifier. That's the bonding agent that holds everything together, these things that don't normally mix. And in the earliest cases, egg yolks were the emulsifier that held everything together. And, of course, if you're making ice cream at home, you can still use egg yolks as an emulsifier. It's an easy go-to thing. But...

If you're manufacturing it on a large scale, you're probably using something like xanthan gum or something else to emulsify and stabilize the whole thing, to hold it together. But yes, ice cream specifically is a...

colloid that has undergone a very specific manufacturing process. And if you take or add different ingredients or different steps in the process, then you have something different like frozen yogurt or soft serve ice cream or sherbert. Yeah, because frozen yogurt isn't just yogurt that they freeze, which I never knew. It's actually during the ice cream making process, they'll put in the yogurt cultures to make it frozen yogurt.

Yeah, you don't start with yogurt. You make yogurt during... Yeah, I didn't know that either. Pretty cool. Agreed. Which is why every time I just throw the yogurt in the freezer, it doesn't taste anything like I want it to taste. It's just really cold yogurt. It's gross. The USDA actually has an ingredient standard for it to be labeled ice cream, which has to be at least 10% milk fat and a minimum of 6% nonfat milk solids. Like casings.

And a gallon has to weigh 4.5 pounds. I think that's neat. Yeah, sure. Because as we learned... The federal government can't get its act together on anything, but it can define ice cream. Yeah, and the reason they have the minimum poundage is because, as we mentioned earlier, lighter ice cream is generally cheaper because it means there's just more air whipped in there. And that's why a Ben & Jerry's pint is like a brick ice cream.

in your stomach. Yeah, and the grabster who wrote this points out that that's usually a general rule of thumb, that the heavier the ice cream, the higher quality it is. Yeah. But he points out, to be fair, you need to compare like types. Sure. Like you can't compare something that's loaded down with like brownies and Snickers with like a plain vanilla. No. Because, you know, the brownies and Snickers are going to add weight and throw off your judgment. That's right, in more ways than one. Yeah. So milk fat, there is a...

range of milk fat you can use. Premium ice creams max out at about 16% at the most, but generally they're about 14%. And ice cream in general is a minimum of about 10%. And butterfat, which is another name for it, sounds so great. Both of them sound great. Butterfat makes it taste good and it makes it creamier and richer. But it's interesting that they found that

16% is about as high as you want to go, though. It's not like, oh, just make it 50% because that would be even better. You'd just vomit after every bite. Well, you would, and people, they point out, or Ed points out, people wouldn't eat as much because it is so rich and it is so calorie rich as well. And so they found that perfect combination of enough to make you plow through that pint and want to get another one.

the next night. Yeah. About 14 to 16%. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds pretty good when you're talking butterfat. 10% for the cheap stuff that like Ned Flanders would eat, you know? Yeah, totally. Um, so like I said, ice cream is a colloid and it's, um, created by adding egg yolk to milk fat and, uh, sugar. And I think that's a custard if you use the egg yolk, right? I

I think you use more egg yolk. Yeah, 1.4% at least. Something like that. I thought it was higher than that. Yeah, frozen custard is at least 1.4% egg yolk solids. Okay. So that's even worse for you. Right. So that's just like, well, not necessarily. Well, cholesterol-wise, sure. But the ice cream itself is specifically just this combination of different –

types of ingredients with other agents that hold the whole thing together that's put through this process, right? So when you have your sugar, when you have your cream, your milk, and you have your eggs or whatever you're going to use as a stabilizer or emulsifier, you put the whole thing together and what you have right there is an ice cream mix.

And no matter whether you're making it at home or if you just bought a factory or inherited it from your rich uncle who just died and left it to you, then you're going to be following pretty much the same process using virtually the same ingredients. Yeah, I've got an ice cream machine, which when I looked at the process of making ice cream, it's pretty much what goes on in this little thing. Right. Like you freeze the canister. Right.

Which I found out the hard way. That's how you do it. Right. Because I was like, man, it's not getting solid. Oh, no way. You did it without freezing the candy first? Yeah, I had no idea. Like you just used it at room temperature? At room temperature. How long did you try that for? Oh, it spun for quite a while before I realized what was going on. We luckily figured that out.

From the get-go made some pretty killer lemon gelato once yeah So you freeze the thing and then it's the canister actually spins and they have like a blade in there right that disrupts It introduces the air bubbles which is key yeah to making ice cream nice and rich and creamy and it also is acts as a scraper to keep ice from forming which is exactly what happens in big factories and

It's pretty much the same process. Right, or if you're using the hand crank thing, that's what you just said. The Johnson crank? Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Well, you just said listed off all of the necessary components to making ice cream. You've got something that's cooling it, whether that little drum that you put in the freezer or you have ammonia-filled tubes that are freezing a tube that your mix is in. Yeah. So you've got that, right? Yeah. You have... And the ammonia tubes, we should point out...

There's no ammonia. It's just making the tube cold. Right. The ammonia is not being introduced to the ice cream. Not at all. It's just, yeah, the tube is up against the tube that the ice cream is in. That's right. Or if you are making it at home using a Johnson crank, you're going to use rock salt, right? That's right. So I was kind of, I didn't understand what the point of using rock salt was. So I looked into it. We covered it a little bit within the salt episode, but not like...

super in-depth. Okay, so basically the reason that you would add rock salt to ice is because if you just used ice, the freezing point of ice is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah. It takes more than that, more degrees than that. Let me put it a different way. More temperature. Milk freezes at a lower temperature than ice. Yes. Right? So when you add salt...

you actually lower the freezing point of that ice. Oh, okay. Because when you're using ice, it's a freshwater mixture. Saltwater ice has a lower freezing temperature. Yeah. So you're melting it, and it's melting and refreezing. And as the ice melts...

The way that it's melting is by drawing heat from something else. In this case, your ice cream mixture, right? Right. So when you add salt, it has to draw more heat to melt because it has a lower freezing point, freezing temperature. Yeah. So that's why you add salt. It actually lowers the freezing point, which allows you to cool your ice cream faster. Ah. Right? Makes sense. So it lowers the freezing point. Yeah. Milk has a lower freezing point. And it makes the...

draws the heat out more quickly so those ice crystals don't form on the side. Just that simple little thing is the magic that makes it happen. Yeah. Yeah, we had an electric ice cream maker growing up that was the same as the Johnson crank version, but you just plug it in. Not like the new one that I have today, which is much different. Right, which you definitely plug in.

Yeah, definitely plug in. And you've got to freeze that thing, apparently. That's so funny. But my church, one of my favorite memories growing up is my church would have ice cream socials where everybody would bring their own homemade ice creams. And there would just be a table with like 30 of those steel containers. You know, the people would just take it right out of the old...

rock salt bin and just set it on the table. And you would just go berserk as a child. We had a Johnson crank growing up.

And you probably had to do it, right? Because the parents are always like, that's the fun part. I don't, I'm sure I did. I don't really remember. I just remember the wooden bucket thing with the crank on top. Yeah. That's what I remember. And like a bag of rock salt. That's right, man. That we also use for the driveway too. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Of course we did in Atlanta, but I remember when I saw that rock salt come out, it was a special evening at the Bryan house. Yeah. Oh yeah. So I mentioned the little paddle. It's called a dasher, which

which is the blade inside the tube, and this is if you're in an ice cream factory. And like we said, it whips it up, introducing those air bubbles, and that's what gives it the structure and, like I said, also prevents the ice crystals, larger ice crystals from forming because you don't want that.

No. You want it cold, but you don't want ice. And we should say by this time you've got your ice cream mixture, but you've already added whatever flavor you're going to add. Right. But if you're adding chunks of stuff. Which you should. You're not doing that quite yet. No. So you're freezing it. What you've just created is a frozen ice cream mixture. Yeah. It's not technically USDA standard ice cream yet.

If you stopped right here, and even if you added the Snickers or the brownies or whatever... Or both. What you would have is soft serve ice cream. Yeah. The ice cream still has another step to go through to become regular old ice cream, and that's the hardening process. Yeah, the hard freeze. Yeah. And that's basically all it is, is you take that soft serve, and you have to get it down super low, at least to zero degrees Fahrenheit, but...

When you're in an ice cream factory, you're going to pump it down even lower because you're going to be shipping it and packaging it and you want it to stay nice and hard throughout that whole process. And, yeah, that's how you do it. That's pretty much it. That's pretty much making ice cream. It's a great, great thing that everyone should try.

Making ice cream? Sure. Sure, yeah. Well, actually, it's funny that you say that because whether you have a hand crank or one of those awesome electric ones that you have to freeze the drum ahead of time, you can also just make it at home with basically nothing. Yeah. Just using a couple of bags, baggies. Yeah. Like a bigger baggie, a smaller baggie, and make a little rock salt mixture. And, well...

I won't go through the whole recipe, but if you go to HowStuffWorks and look up how ice cream works, there is a recipe for five-minute ice cream that makes just a little bit using nothing but plastic bags and the ice cream ingredients. Yeah, and I don't think we mentioned that it's pasteurized along the way, too. Oh, that's a big one. Which is an important step, yeah. Pasteurization keeps you from getting salmonella. Yes. And if you're making your own mix at home, you can even do that yourself with a double boiler.

So we'll talk a little bit about just how much everybody loves ice cream right after this. ♪

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All right, buddy. We will finish this out with some stats and the like, but first we should talk about Overrun.

because that's an important part of ice cream because when you're making ice cream, there's going to be an increase in volume as you go because you're whipping all that air into it. Yeah. And that increase is called overrun. Right. And it's indicated by a percentage. Yeah, so if the volume goes from one gallon of ice cream mixture to a completed one and a half gallons of ice cream, it's a 50% overrun. Which is good. But what the pros shoot for, like...

Our friends at Bluebell with the great, great commercials. Yeah. They do make fantastic ice cream. Yeah, it is really good. So if you are a professional ice creamier, you might have as much as 100% overrun, but the premium ice creams are more dense, so they have less overrun. Right. Which is why they're heavier. Yes. But you can also get into a...

situation where your ice cream is dense because you're not using much stabilizer or emulsifier. So that's not good? No, because it makes your ice cream chewy. Oh, no. So just really dense ice cream is not necessarily the best thing. Right. You want a mixture between the two of somewhat dense, but not totally dense, but not super light ice cream. There's a balance that you want to achieve. Yeah, because the air, like we said, is what gives it the structure that you appreciate most.

And, you know, it's familiar. Right. You get some chewy ice cream, it's no good. No. And Chuck, we were remiss in not mentioning ice cream cones. Yeah, I'm not a cone guy. Are you? Yes. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. So when you go to like, you go out, you get it in the cone every time? No. Just sometimes? Yes. Do you get the waffle cone?

If I get a cone, I like it all except the, I don't know what they call the non-sugar cone ones. The cheap styrofoam type? Yeah. That's definitely the lowest on my list, but that one's fine. Okay.

But yes, I guess it does go waffle, sugar, cheap cone. Okay. As far as order of preference goes. Right, sure. But no, waffle cone, obviously. That just adds to the whole thing. Smelling like fresh-made waffle cones being made while you're ordering ice cream, really. I always get the cup.

Yeah, I almost always do just to be healthier while I'm eating ice cream. Well, no, but I mean, that's a decision. Yeah, for sure. But it is preferable in a waffle cone. I think they're delicious. I might start getting a cone every now and then. So there's an origin story to the waffle cone, and a lot of people place it at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. That's right. And that is probably not where...

ice cream cones were invented, but that is where they were popularized. Yeah, I mean, if you're at a World's Fair, there's going to be some waffling going on.

Some waffle making. There definitely was some waffles being made, but there was also some ice cream being served. That's documented. That's right. And the story goes that the ice cream makers ran out of plates or bowls or whatever they usually use, and they turned to the waffle makers who said, hey, we can help you out for a fee. Yeah. Let's turn these things into some sort of cone, and bam, that's what happened. Yeah.

But it turns out that the person who actually invented the ice cream cone was an Italian immigrant to America named Italo Marcucci. Please go ahead.

You mean Italo Maggioni? Right. Yeah, and he also invented the ice cream, a you screamer, a we all screamer for ice cream. Nice. I think he was the first one to coin that term. He was into ice cream big time. Yeah, but he actually filed a patent for the cone making machine. A full year ahead of the fair. Yeah, so he generally gets credited with the invention of the ice cream cone.

although just because you patent the machine doesn't necessarily mean that you were the first person who thought of the cone. No, supposedly there's French cookbooks that date back to the 1840s that have recipes for ice cream cones. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, and we also didn't mention Jacob Fusel. We'd probably need to mention that guy because he was the first –

He opened the first wholesale manufacturing operation in the United States in Baltimore. And he, like some of the greatest success stories in business, sort of got into it by accident because he was just a dairy guy who had too much cream and was like, well, I guess I can try this ice cream thing out. And before you know it, he was selling more ice cream than he was anything else. Yes. Good for him. Good for us. That's true. Good for all of us. So if you want to become like a Jacob Fusel type entrepreneur,

You can actually go, depending on where you are in the country, to your local major university. And they may or may not, depending on the size of their dairy program, offer like a real ice cream course. Yeah, Penn State is known for one, correct? Yeah, Wisconsin has one. Of course. Actually, Penn State graduated Ben and Jerry back in 1977. Really? Yep.

Yep. In ice creamery? Yes. Ah, I thought you were going to say like, no, they were architects. No, one of them tried to get into med school. He graduated and couldn't afford med school. Yeah. The other one just dropped out of college, but both of them went together to Penn State's ice cream course and graduated. Well, I saw, I went to their website to look at some of their facts and they, I think they said they started their initial business with like $4,000. Yeah.

I saw 12. Oh, 12 grand? Yeah. Well, either way, that's cheap. I know. You know? It is. I do have some other stats, though. Lay them on us, Chuck. Yeah, it's been a while since we've had a stat run. The majority of U.S. ice cream and frozen dessert manufacturers have been in business for more than 50 years, and many are still family-owned. This is why you see, like, the blue bells and stuff like that. Right. You know? There's not a lot of upstarts.

Like, you know, like extreme ice cream. Right. Made with Mountain Dew, Code Red. Oh, God. U.S. dairy approximates, and this was a few years ago, 20 quarts per capita. What, the U.S. eats every year? No, produced.

Oh, wow. Yeah, they produce 20 quarts per capita. What's interesting, though, is the United States isn't the leader in ice cream consumption. Did you know that? Who is? New Zealand. No way. Yeah, New Zealand. Per capita, I guess, obviously. Yeah, well, yes.

Yeah, so the average New Zealander eats 7 1⁄2 gallons of ice cream a year. Wow. Americans eat 5 1⁄2 gallons. Huh. Yeah. Apparently, Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Latin America all import ice cream as well to a large degree. And the most popular flavor is still vanilla, which I had to explain to Emily was a real flavor.

She thinks it's an absence of all flavors. Like white light. I was like, no, vanilla's a thing. And some people love it. Vanilla's still good. She thinks it's a waste of calories to eat anything that's just plain vanilla. There are really good vanillas out there that you're just like, this is all that's needed. Oh yeah, I agree. Like super creamy, like vanilla bean. Yummy. And then chocolate chip mint and cookies and cream followed as the next most popular. I'm surprised

Plain chocolate is not on the list. I saw a Grubhub survey. They did most popular ice cream flavors by flavor ordered, and vanilla was number one. Wow. That's surprising. But green tea was number two. Hmm. And I was thinking about it, and it's probably because, like at a Japanese restaurant, you don't really have any other options besides green tea. Yeah.

I've never had the green tea ice cream. Is it good? Oh, my God. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Dude. I don't eat dessert in restaurants. It's so good. Yeah, I'm going to have to start eating dessert in restaurants. If you go to a good Japanese restaurant, they bring it out whether you ask for it or not. Oh, really? It's part of the meal. And it'll be like green tea or red bean is another one, too. That's a pretty good ice cream, but green tea definitely has it destroyed. That sounds delicious. Yes, it is.

I'm hungry. Yeah. So if you want to know more about ice cream and to get this awesome, really easy five-minute ice cream recipe, go to HowStuffWorks.com and type ice cream in the search bar. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

I'm going to call this first of two scientific method emails. So you're going to hear one here and then one in the next one. Awesome. Because these are great. I was super proud of that one. And we got a lot of kudos from scientists, which is always nice.

Hey, guys. My name is Danny. I'm 23 and recently graduated with a degree in astronomy and physics. Now I work at an aerospace company in L.A. on a space mission concept called the Starshade. Way to go, Danny. I know. The Starshade is a really awesome piece of tech that will allow us to image planets around other stars and ultimately search for life outside of our solar system.

I'm writing because I was just listening to the podcast on the scientific method. And as someone whose job regularly involves the scientific method, I want to express my appreciation for you guys recording such a great discussion on the subject. It's extremely important to give the public the opportunity to learn about science. I think that your podcast is a great vehicle by which this is achieved. So thanks.

I saw that and I felt like he was baiting us. Oh, he totally was. And it worked.

But in the case that some miracle happens and you do read it, I'd love if you could plug the astrophysics blog my friends and I have. It's called Astrophysics Unleashed and can be found online at astrophysics-unleashed.tumblr.com. And it's a place where we seek to expose the beauty hidden within astronomy and modern science. It's a great place for the inquiring mind to find food for thought or to ask questions.

So that is from Danny, and he said, I want to shout out to Jerry, J-E-R-I, but I was afraid I'd spell her name wrong. Hopefully that is right. Tell her that I have no idea what she's like at all, but I'd be willing to bet that she's really cool. That is nice.

Man, usually people have a better chance of getting struck by lightning when spelling Jerry's name correctly, but he nailed it. Well, and here's a spoiler. The other scientist said the exact same thing about spelling her name wrong, and he spelled it right. Wow. So how about that? Man, scientists are smart. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com, and you can join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

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