Gleaned from reading The Science of Ice Cream, which was available through the science library at the University of Oregon.
- Margaret Thatcher was an ice cream scientist in the 1950’s.
- 9% of all milk produced in the USA is used to make ice cream.
- New Zealanders consume the most ice cream per capita at 26 liters per person per year.
- USA ranks second in the global consumption game with 22 liters ice cream consumed per person per year.
- Both ice cream mix and ketchup are shear-thinning complex fluids. This is the name for the common ketchup bottle phenomena: these fluids become less viscous (looser) when tapped.
- maltol and ethylmaltol are often added to ice cream to enhance caramel flavors.
- furaneol is used to enhance “red fruit flavors”.
- The Turkish ice cream Maras is stabilized with sahlep, a stabilizer extracted from a rare type of wild orchid tuber. These days, the orchid derived sahlep is rarely used.
- Liquid nitrogen works so well to make ice cream not just because it freezes the mixture so quickly, but because it also vigorously boils, thus fluffing up the ice cream mixture as it freezes.
6 Comments
This sounds like a cool book, but…
$60 for a 187 page paperback?!?
No wonder my library doesn’t have it.
So many fun facts that I didn’t know! But if the US is second in worldwide per capita consumption, who is #1?
New Zealand consumes the most ice cream per capita.
–McAuliflower
. . . nearly 300 libraries DO have it, so get it through interlibrary loan!
Yeah! Who is the number 1? Germans? 
I remember seeing something about Turkish ice cream on one of the PBS travel shows. They made it sound like it was pretty much the best thing ever.
We had some Hazelnut flavored Turkish Ice Cream in Osaka that was pretty good. The vendor made a big production out of pulling it with his paddle. It wasn’t as chewy as I thought it was going to be. The flavor and sweetness was subtle- perhaps tailored for the Japanese pallet (gosh I miss not very sweet desserts).
–McAUliflower
There are ice cream SCIENTISTS? Clearly, I’ve spent all these years pursuing the wrong profession.
