In America, a Food for the Masses America transformed this delicacy into a food for the masses. Ice cream making was an awkward, small-batch procedure until 1843, when a Nancy Johnson of Philadelphia patented a freezer consisting of a large bucket for the brine and a sealed cylinder containing the ice-cream mix and a mixing blade, whose shaft protruded from the top and could be cranked continuously.

 

Five years later, William G. Young of Baltimore modified Johnson’s design to make the mix container rotate in the brine for more efficient cooling. The Johnson-Young freezer allowed large quantities of fine-textured ice cream to be made with a simple, steady mechanical action. The second fateful advance toward mass production came in the early 1850s, when a Baltimore milk dealer by the name of Jacob Fussell decided to use his seasonal surplus of cream to make ice cream, was able to charge half the going price in specialty shops, and enjoyed great success as the first large-scale manufacturer.

 

His example caught on, so that by 1900 an English visitor was struck by the “enormous quantities” of ice cream eaten in America. Today Americans still eat substantially more ice cream than Europeans do, nearly 20 quarts/liters per person every year.