Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making

Six. Women’s Work

six Women’s Work 129 In 1850, Godey’s Lady’s Book called ice cream “one of the necessary luxuries of life” and proclaimed that “a party, or a social entertainment, could hardly be thought of without this indispensable requisition.” The writer was trying to persuade readers to buy “a recent valuable invention, in the shapeof an‘icecreamfreezerandbeater.’”Accordingtothearticle,Masser’s Self-Acting Patent Ice-Cream Freezer and Beater would make ice cream more easily and much faster than the old method,which it called difficult, laborious, and uncertain. It said, “And if there is any one article, above all others, that the lady of the house would desire to have well made, it is her ice cream, as there is no article on the refreshment table that is more certain to undergo the ordeal of criticism.How important therefore is it to have it as it should be and can be,smooth,light,and well made.”1 Making ice cream at home was not yet as widespread as Godey’s Lady’s Book implied. In fact, it would take most of the rest of the century before ice cream became as indispensable as the magazine suggested.At midcentury , well-off householders in eastern cities could have their servants prepare ice cream for them,or they could send out to the confectioners for ice creams molded into fanciful shapes for their elegant parties. The not-sowell -to-do might make ice cream at home themselves, assuming they had the necessary ingredients and implements. However, many were not so fortunate.Women living in rural communities or on the frontier often did not have iceboxes, much less ice cream makers.2 Nor were there confectioners or,as yet,drugstore soda fountains where they could buy ice cream. For them, ice cream was a rare luxury, not a necessary one. Even for those with the wherewithal, but without household help, making ice cream was an occasional extravagance,a summer ritual,a weekend treat.Maine’s Jennie Everson called it “Sunday ice cream” and described it wistfully. “One of the most popular and tasty uses for ice was for the making of ice cream. Here is another reason why farmers had a cow or two but not enough milk or cream to sell. Those were the days when ice cream was made of heavy cream, sugar, several fresh eggs, and some vanilla extract. Or perhaps, around the Fourth of July when the strawberry patch was at its best,some fresh,crushed strawberries were stirred in.”3 But cookbooks and magazines were beginning to offer homemakers advice on acquiring ice cream makers and the other implements that went along with making ices and ice creams. Recipes for everything from lush frozen puddings rich with cream and brandied fruits to wan dishes of cornstarch-thickened ice milk began to appear in print. Writers offered recipes and serving suggestions for both prosperous households and modest ones. If not everyone served ice cream at special occasions, it was not for a lack of information. By Women, for Women During the nineteenth century, many cookbooks and household magazines were written by women for other women. The authors were professionals—not chefs, but writers, lecturers, and teachers. Although some of them were inexperienced in running a household or cooking for a family, they took on the task of teaching others how to do so by applying the skills and techniques of business and science to housekeeping and cooking. They were working women, and many of them were very successful; nevertheless, they glorified the role of the homemaker. They believed that, with instruction, women could improve the family’s, and by extension the country’s, morality, health, and education. Sarah Tyson Rorer, one of the leaders of the movement, was the author of nearly two dozen books, the director of the Philadelphia Cooking School, domestic arts editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, and a contributor to Good 130 / Women’s Work Housekeeping magazine. Her career had begun when she took a cooking class at Philadelphia’s New Century Club. Looking back years later, she explained, “Before I had taken the second lesson I saw the great possibilities of right living and a well-organized school of domestic science. In fact, I saw, a hundred years ahead, the influence that this knowledge would have over the health and homes of the people.”4 The women...