The history of American Ice Cream 

You leaked my new workout routine!! 2:30 lol thanks for including me and great video as usual man 👍🏼

The fact that there's no "regular" or "original" flavor is so fascinating. Even more interesting that "vanilla" has come to fill that void despite being its own distinctive flavor.

I think something that should belong to the American cultural canon is breakfast cereal. We have a whole lot of it especially in Battle Creek, MI.

I feel like a good addition to the canon series would be one on sandwiches. There's the iconic PB&J, grilled cheese, BLT, Reuben, meatball sub. So many sandwiches to dominate America's collective fascination yet no one to explain their origins to us.

Vanilla ice cream with crushed Oreo cookies ground up WAS called "Oreo" Flavor by various ice cream shops. They were forced to stop. (Or were warned that they would soon be forced to stop.) I remember as a young child when a local ice cream shop introduced us to the brand new "Oreo" flavor, then we were told they weren't going to be allowed to have an Oreo flavor, then they changed the name to Cookies and Cream. It was very dramatic and worrisome. (This would have been around 1981 when I was too young to be aware of the date but was aware of Trademark law. Between the age of 4-7.) It was in an area 200-400 miles to any big city (New Orleans or Atlanta). So that process probably happened 5 years earlier in the Northeast.

Popular Condiments would be a good fit for this series I feel: Ketchup, Mustards, Mayo, BBQ, Hot Sauce etc...

Vanilla is more or less considered to be the basic, default, starting point flavour of ice cream the way white is considered to be the basic paint colour. In both cases, it's not hard to find people who consider them to be "non-flavoured" or "non-coloured." What's also interesting is that vanilla is among the most expensive natural flavours and white is among the most difficult colours to mix.

It’s actually fascinating because here in Poland we have a different ‘basic flavour’, which is called lody śmietankowe, so ‘cream ice cream’. However vanilla ice cream is often confusingly called lody śmietankowe, so it’s a bit of a mess

When I visited Canada, the greatest culture shock I faced was by seeing the sheer variety of ice creams and by large quantities it was sold in. Ice cream is very popular in India as well, but is eaten in self serving sizes and the flavours are kept really basic unless you really want to pay extremely high prices at niche ice cream parlors. However, recently due to globalisation many new ice cream parlours have been bringing a greater variety to India. I assume if I were to go there in the 80s or 90s, I would have had no idea such types of ice cream even existed while today I can atleast have an idea of the existence of such ice creams due to youtube videos.

One of the other interesting things about the rise of ice cream in the US: At least here in the Midwest, a TON of breweries frantically switched to making ice cream during prohibition. In fact, some of them still continued to make ice cream after prohibition, such as Strohs.

Here in my state (Michoacan, Mexico) we have a very popular ice cream flavor: pasta. It's weird, but it's not the pasta used for spaghetti, it's just a mix of vanilla and corn syrup (so the taste it's like a more sweet and sugary vanilla ice cream). The name pasta comes from the color and texture that are similar to classic pasta. Also, we have a very popular ice cream franchise called "La Michoacana". It's so popular that it's basically a synonim for ice cream store through Mexico.

One thing I would like to add, during WWII ice cream was so crucial to troop moral that they converted an entire ship to a floating ice cream production facility. American aircraft carriers had their own ice cream makers and smaller vessels that didn’t have such facilities would fight over rescuing downed pilots because they would hold them hostage for an exchange of ice cream. There were even Marine pilots who modified aircraft components and flew high altitude excursions to freeze a mixture of condensed milk and cocoa powder into an ice cream mixture. There’s even a hilarious story about when the US had to borrow a British aircraft carrier while theirs were being constructed. The crews would swap between the ships because the British had rum and beer rations, and the US had ice cream. The Americans initially got a kick out of having a weekly booze ration but came to miss having their ice cream and were requesting to swap back.

Took my English-learning students to the grocery store, and asked them to guess what flavor the green-with-chocolate-flecks was. They guessed melon and tea and pear. So, of course we bought some to try. They were very sad that it was "toothpaste" flavor. (More for me, I guess. 🤷‍♀️)

As a European I literally never heard of pecans before this video. Always learning something new with JJ

I'd love to see a video on foods that become popular because of, or in conjuction with, other forms of entertainment. Popcorn and cinema, hot dogs and amusement parks (or baseball games), funnel cakes and fairs, etc. Always fascinated me how some of those foods seem to be everywhere now and some are only thrive in their native environments.

In Mexico the most common flavors are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and of course mexican fruity classics: lime and mango (people obviously add hot sauce on those last two flavors) PD: apparently pecan flavored stuff (including ice cream) is sold in Mexico as walnut flavored, i personally didnt knew what a pecan was until now and thats probably why they are advertised that way

I would love to see one for cookies, how chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, and snikerdoodle came to be

As I kid I always thought vanilla was the “base flavor” of ice cream. I would mix in cocoa powder or strawberry jam with vanilla ice cream to make it into those flavors. Then I discovered ice cream made with actual vanilla and my little mind was blown. Edit: Now that I think about it I basically ended up just adding more sugar. No wonder I loved it.

I love this! Thanks for taking the time to make this 🍨

Small corrections/clarifications: While chocolate was indeed domesticated in South America, it's use as a crop spread up through Central America and Mesoamerica, and it is the Mesoamericans whose use of it was most extensive, and indeed, I believe that's a Kieth Henderson piece showing an Aztec lord that you used. Also, the practices and customs of who could drink chocolate and in what context and how it was prepared could differ from culture to culture or even city to city: A lot of primary sources assert that chocolate drinks limited to royalty or nobles for the Aztec, but excavations in the Aztec city of Yautepec have found chocolate goblets in the homes of commoners ("Aztec" itself is a bit of a horrifically imprecise term). I'm less familiar with the history of evolution and domestication of Vanilla then I am chocolate, but a cursory look at some scholarly papers and the genetics of vanilla seem to only mention cultivated varieties in Mesoamerica and Central America (as well as then varieties in Asia after the Columbian exchange), with no mention of South America, so tentatively it seems like it was at least first domesticated in those areas (originally in the Maya area, not amongst the Totonac civilization as oft claimed) not South America; and a search online also seems to yield sources which specifically state it's (at least Vanilla planifolia specifically) is native to Mexico... but again, this is a cursory look from me.

Never stop doing these food history videos

JJ, you really must do cake flavours. Why is it chocolate and vanilla, but not strawberry? Why is there no minty cake? Carrot cake is an oddity. Fruit flavours are rarely seen, apart from of course "fruitcake". Banana bread: cake or not? The possibilities are endless.

A bunch of folks have made comments about vanilla being the “base” flavor. Now, I don’t know how widespread this is, but there’s such a thing a Sweet Cream ice cream. Cream, sugar, that’s it. Nelson’s Dairy in Royersford, Pennsylvania makes it. Truly “plain” ice cream. Never tried it, but I imagine a dollop in the coffee or tea would be good.

I made Pecan Pie here in Germany for friends. They loved it but finding the pecans was difficult and expensive...and no, walnuts and pecans are not the same. Now, I can find pecans in pretty much any store here.

Here you go, JJ: 🏆 You now have an award winning series.

The little sound bits that JJ has all over his videos are really satisfying

I think a rundown over the "fast food cultural canon" (i.e. the standard American fast food menu items, burgers, fries, onions rings, chicken nuggets etc) would be really interesting

The week after my wife got her green card and emigrated from Switzerland to Texas I bought her some cookie dough ice cream. She thought the idea was crazy and didn't want to try it. Now she averages three pints (1.4 liters) of it a week!

Actually, ginger ice cream is very tasty. Of course, it is full of sugar, but the same could be said of chocolate ice cream. By itself, chocolate tastes a bit like black coffee (mocha coffee actually mixes both flavors). I'd give ginger ice cream a try. Ginger certainly gives ginger ale, ginger beer, gingerbread cookies and a bunch of other desserts their bite.

For Germany, I'd guess the most popular ice cream flavours are probably chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, Stracciatella, pistachio, coffee, and lemon. Spaghetti ice cream is also incredibly popular, though it is more a way to prepare ice cream than a flavour (vanilla ice extruded into spaghetti shape, topped with strawberry sauce and sprinkled with white chocolate so it looks like spaghetti with tomato sauce and parmigiano)

I had no idea other countries didn't eat pecans. This just like finding out non americans don't know what lemonade is. :')

My great grandfather ran a grocer store in regional Australia. He was the first in the region to get a freezer, and people would travel 3 or 4 hours just to get a scoop of icecream as a special day out.

I am glad cookie dough made the cut. I am an American living in Korea. When I try to convince my Korean friends that cookie dough is a common flavor in the US, they do not believe me.

The tangentially related thing that still blows my mind a little: 3 Musketeers was originally neopolitan too. Hence the 3 in the name. Around WWII, they realized that chocolate was the only good flavor and haven't - aside from the odd limited edition - look back.

Gosh, I absolutely adore your editing. Always wonderful use of sound effects along with some great prop usage this episode. And your art! Consistently appealing every single time. You really are a fantastic RU-vidr, J.J. Keep doing the amazing work that you do!😊

I've always found it curious that some Westerners find cheese-flavored ice cream strange, but think cheesecake is perfectly ordinary. They're pretty much the same flavor profile, just with a different texture.

Here in Argentina we are very fond of ice cream, and we produce one of the best in the world. In part because of our huge Italian immigration. Anyway, our typical flavours are pretty much the same like in the US: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, "crema americana" (american cream=cream), and DULCE DE LECHE. We love dulce de leche, we put dulce de leche in everything: chocolate with dulce de leche, dulce de leche ice cream with dulce de leche, cream with dulce de leche, flan ice cream with dulce de leche. Even at McDonald's the ice cream flavours they sell are: vanilla and dulce de leche (yes, we don't have chocolate ice cream in McDonald's and I've never try it in my life).

It deserves mention that, despite Italy being a poor country (or maybe because of that, since labour was cheaper), in Naples Ice Cream was relatively cheap in the XIX century. We have testimony of foreign visitors reporting this and stressing how more affordable it was compared to the rest of Europe and could be regularly consumed by city bourgeois (doctors, lawyers, merchants). So it was pretty typical, at least in Naples, to see Ice Creams. Same goes for pizza. And, as it goes for pizza, it was not the US that made pizza or gelato popular in the rest of Italy, but the assumption, during the late XIX century, of a lot of culinary habits from Naples as national standards (another example is spaghetti). Even to the disdain of some. In general the cultural influence of Italo-Americans on Italy only became a relevant thing after the Second World War. Before that communication was minimal, migrant communities send letters and money, but rarely came back and not to open a business.

Lately, there's been a big boom in Mexican/Latin American ice cream flavors in America due to large amounts of Mexican/Latin American immigrants coming into America. A big ice cream flavor that has took the ice cream industry by storm is mango flavored ice cream due to the fruit being uber popular in Mexico/Latin America. Great video!

When I was young, I remember my Mom making snow ice cream on those rare occasions when South Carolina got enough snow to do something with. As I recall it was a mix of some snow, milk or cream , sugar and vanilla flavoring. Beaten for a short time and voila - ice cream. Actually it was pretty good. [FYI - your pronunciation of pecans is spot on]

I love that the man who teaches us about American culture is Canadian! Love your videos man. Glad to see you take off!

Here in Argentina we have similar favorite flavors, with the exception of cookies and cream and pecan. If I had to add one distinct flavor from my country that would be "dulce de leche", which would be translated as caramel milk, we use it in many desserts, candies and pastries, I'd say is the equivalent of what peanut butter is to North Americans

11:09 "marginally easier to get" gets me every time😂

When I used to live in Europe and Mexico, I used to love getting ice cream over there due to the unique flavors only found there. My family's house in Mexico has a Michoacana with a ton of flavors and I always spend time there whenever I visit

I really like mint ice cream, however in Poland they are not really a thing. We don't really have a distinct flavor here, but we have something called "warm ice cream" which is basically a dollop of foam on a piece of wafer which is covered with chocolate. The foam can also be inside a wafer cup. It was invented in the Communist times.

For Turkey, the traditional Maras ice cream is always made from orchid roots (sahlep). It reminds me of an intense vanilla aroma. Also, almost all commercial brands will have pistachio, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours. Even if it is not one of the most commercialized ones, black mulberry is quite popular too.

I just remembered the line from Chicago's "Saturday in the Park": "... A man selling ice cream, singing Italian songs"

I formally give you the McCollough Award for Best Series Now it is officially award winning

The seven distinct ice cream flavours are really interesting. In the UK, we don't really have pecan ice cream, but caramel/fudge flavour ice cream is very common.

Hey JJ, hope you recover swiftly from covid! I'm also sick with it and it's currently kicking my butt, but thankfully I don't have to go to the hospital. Have a good week!

As jj was talking about how ice cream was this reminded me of a scene from Indian movie 'Paan Singh Tomar' in which the protagonist fondly described soft serve ice cream when he went to attend atheletic event in toyko years back in late 1950s. However, he was describing it in 1980s when these soft serve ice cream had made their way to India, he just wasn't aware of this development as he had become a decoit and a maoist in central India by that time.

I would love to see a video on how American coffee traditions have evolved over the years. Like how did espresso only catch on so late in the 1980s but Italians were drinking them all over the US much earlier? And also why do people mostly only get coffee in to-go cups even when they sit down in the cafe?

This guy leaving all his ice cream out on his desk.

15:50 Just to be a bit of a stickler, and I know this probably isn’t even what you meant, but wild strawberries are already more than palatable; having had them before, I’d even argue that they’re better tasting than most farm-grown strawberries. All the bioengineering was required to make them feasible for any large scale cultivation as the wild variety simply has too small a yield due to the size of the individual fruits

I’m glad you enjoy making these. They are so fun to watch.

thank you so much for this!! I've been working at a bakery and ice cream parlor recently, i love your videos :)

The history of artificial flavors would definitely be interesting. I mean so many of them have thier own unique flavors that we all just accept replicate the real thing. You can't tell me you ever had a banana that tasted like banana candy before. And what in the hell is a "blue raspberry"?

11:12 That's because the flavor of vanilla actually is chemically more simple than a lot of other flavors, as it has one major flavoring component: vanillin. Although real vanilla beans have a lot more chemicals which contribute more to its full flavor, vanillin has most of the vanilla flavor, making it easily replicable. The same cannot be said for flavors like strawberry, which rely on a multitude of different chemicals for flavor, which is partially why strawberry flavored foods tend to not taste like actual strawberries.

For those interested, the UK most popular are as followed: 1. Vanilla 2. Chocolate 3. Strawberry 4. Mint choc chip 5. Caramel/salted caramel 6. Rum and raisin 7. Pistachio 8. Raspberry 9. Coffee 10. Cookies and cream

i am obsessed with your videos lmao. i've been binging them for the last few days. my canadian boyfriend recommended you to me!! i did not expect to learn so much of my own american history by watching you lol 😭

Of the thousands of things that weren't around when my grandparents were children, I never thought of chocolate chips as one them.

In Denmark, I’d say the “basic” ice cream flavors you can always expect to find are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, nougat and pistacchio. Caramel, stracciatella and liquorice are also pretty common, as are various fruit sherbets.

As a Brit my most common encounter with pecans are maple and pecan danish pastries, which are really nice btw

I want to eat that huge ice cream cone! Hope it didn't go to waste... Also, it's hard for me to imagine thinking that Pecans taste the same as Walnuts. Pecans are delicious, while Walnuts taste like dirt.

The part about ice cream not being as Italian as Americans think kind of blew my mind because I definitely always thought it originated somehow in Italy

Never stop making these videos, my guy. Rough coupla days and these are gold. Love the kind of a nice and lighthearted history bits like this.

It’s absolutely insane to think about how much the world has changed in just the last few hundred years. Great video as always JJ, all the best with your covid recovery.

My favourite has and always will be Mint Choc Chip. I remember being on holiday in France as a child, seeing the green ice cream in the chiller and then being crushingly disappointed when learning it was actually pistachio, which was more popular in France than mint.

Really interesting video! The most common icecream flavours in India are: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, butterscotch, black currant, pistachio and mango

I love how JJ poses questions in his video titles that I had never thought about before and yet still desperately need to know the answer to

Loved the ice cream cone build bit and the video overall!... I need ice cream now!

Nice video! Hello from Spain! I figured I might as well tell you about ice cream flavours over here, it seemed like a good idea. Also, I'll be showing Spanish translations in case I get some English translation wrong, and for anyone who is learning Spanish. Ice cream in Spanish is «helado» (the «h» is silent). So... the most common ones you can find in all ice cream shops (heladerías) are the following: Strawberry (fresa) Cream (as in the dairy product) (nata) Vanilla (vainilla) Chocolate (chocolate) Lemon (limón) Nougat I think (turrón) (I doubt you have this flavour in the U.S. or Canada, turrón is a somewhat local product) Cream with chocolate/stracciatella (stracciatella/nata con chocolate) Strawberry sorbet (sorbete de frambuesa), as well as mandarin orange sorbet (sorbete de mandarina), have been gaining a lot of popularity lately Then, every shop has its own flavours. There's always some sketchy flavuor like chewing gum (chicle) too I think I've seen cookie flavour (galleta), but cookie dough (masa de galleta)? That's not really edible, is it? Also... why is lemon not common in Angloamerica? It's like... one of the most refreshing; it's so nice, and it combines so well with chocolate! Anyway, I hope this was informative, I gotta go to sleep, it's 1:24 a.m. and tomorrow/today I have to wake up at around 7:30...

It is amazing how fast some of these went from being specialty flavors to being part of the North American flavor canon. I am gen-x so I remember a time before cookie dough was a thing. In the 80's or so they started marketing premixed cookie dough. There was an episode of the Simpsons that referenced the fact that people were just eating the dough right out of the package (not the best idea but some did it anyway). Then I remember hearing about a new brand of ice cream so outrageous that they had a raw cookie dough flavor (Ben and Jerry's). My mom has a similar story with mint chocolate chip and Baskin Robbins. Now these are just regular flavors and brands.

Vanilla is an underrated great flavor that we've been trained not to notice because it's so good it's put in everything. Including chocolate ice cream. On an ice cream lid you get little bits of ice cream stuck there that dries out to be extra-concentrated vanilla flavor.

you deserve awards for these videos.. ive learned so much and always look forward to new videos

hey J.J What are your methods for speed reading, if you do your own searcher? thanks for the series, I hope you continue to enjoy making the videos as much as we do.

Mint chocolate chip seems to be the 'default' the same way vanilla is in some places in new york. My childhood was filled with mint chocolate chip and chocolate ice cream cakes, vanilla was extremely rare and considered bland despite being my favorite flavor.

A follow up on savory ice cream would be interesting. As an American, I remember a time before soy bean and green tea ice cream were relatively popular.

In my town we still have a drugstore ice cream parlor. Going in there makes you feel like you time traveled. This was an interesting video! Stuff I never really thought of but that's why I watch you

A really nice thing about ice-cream is how it varies between countries. Here in Argentina dulce de leche is one of the most popular flavours, up there with chocolate and vanilla, and I remember going to Brazil and being surprised at them having condensed milk flavour, which is something I'd love to have here.

One flavor you missed, that's actually one of the 3 first flavors of ice cream, is coffee. Though coffee isn't nearly as popular as a flavor of ice cream now as it once was, it's still notable as one of the first commercially sold ones.

Always love to see a new J.J. culture canon videos!

Great video. I also was curious as to what the soundtrack is at 4:28 . You always use it whenever talking about something industrial and I love it.

Fun fact: the original Neapolitan ice cream used the flavors pistachio, vanilla, and cherry, making the three colors of the Italian flag. The practice of combining three flavors of ice cream into one layered treat is called spumoni and originated in Italy’s Apulia region, but the chocolate/vanilla/strawberry variant is an American creation simply because those were the three most popular flavors in America when ice cream was first mass-produced.

Your videos on things we take for granted in culture are always my favorite

Using proper ice cream as a prop was super cute!!! 🥰

You make every subject enjoyable to learn about, and then I want to spread my new ice cream knowledge to everyone around me.

As a York Countian , I thank you for putting your graphic at the correct location on the map. I also lived in Seven Valleys, PA for several years where Fussell opened his first ice cream factory. My mom actually worked in the same building as the creamery but by then it was a sewing factory.

Disclaimer: The Best Way to watch this video is to watch it while eating Ice Cream.

I kind of think of vanilla cream as the base for all ice creams, though it's so funny that it's come to mean "plain" when it's so decadent. We have a local ice creamery that makes a "sweet cream honeycomb" that's to die for. Once you try it you can never go back. As for future videos, I would love to see one on the history of chocolate. Also, I'm a little obsessed with how other countries interpret American foods (or how other countries interpret each other's foods to make the best dishes in the world), so more of those please! Maybe something on the history of street foods? Oh! Or more videos about cultural propaganda. I can't believe how strong the association between Italians and ice cream is considering it's reverse engineered. In Boston, the Italian part of the city is synonymous with the ice cream/ dessert district. Also, I would totally take a whole video on the transatlantic accent.

OH MY GOD the thing about the ice cream maker at the beginning of the video brought up memories! I don't know what the heck happened to it, but way back in my childhood we had an ice cream maker that looked like the historical one but made of plastic and I think there was a button or two on it.

Thank you for being a channel on RU-vid that actually tries to teach me something rather than just depressing me.

A bit disappointed you didn't mention the invention of the waffle/ice cream cone, because as someone who is from St. Louis, the fact that the waffle cone was invented here is one of our very few achievements

Over 18 minutes of JJ? It's a good day.

Awesome video as always. JJ videos are the best!

JJ I love your videos man, you're so informative brotha!!!! Do you do live streams?

I'd love to have an hour to chat with jj about culture and north American history. Sounds like a great time!

Also dont forget the revolution of the "interesting flavors". When the Ice Cream boom happened, the stores like Baskin Robbins, while a wide variety of flavors, but nothing too crazy from a flavoring standpoint. In the 1980s Ben & Jerry's started to innovate with some more unique flavors, leading to others copying (though not as far as B&J), but still they didnt go too crazy. It was an Ice Cream store in NYC called "Max & Mina's" who in 1997 opened up and inspired the crazy flavor craze we know today. Between 1997-1999 they made international news, with TV Crews and media there all the time (and celebrities'), over all their crazy flavors (like Lox and Cream Cheese, Merlot, Beer, Cajun Spice, Pizza, Halva, Corn on the Cobb, and many more. Soon B&J and other big Ice Cream companies went scrambling for crazy unique flavors, and also dozens of copy-cat ice cream stores popped up across the USA, as they tried to each outdo each other for crazy flavors. Today Max & Mina's has a rotation of 6,000 Flavors, with new ones being created all the time (throughout the week as soon as one flavor runs out they swap it with one from the rotation or new flavor, but they also have the core standard flavors always on). It is considered a Ice Cream lovers number one stop when the arrive in NYC, and tour groups visit it all the time. Also some celebs like Kevin James still are seen in there when they are in the area. One little Kosher Ice Cream store in Queens, NY, led a revolution in American Ice Cream. Also when traveling the world you can see what Ice Cream flavors are the standard there, when I visit Israel the fact every place has Banana Ice Cream as a standard flavor, is interesting.

I love all your American culture videos! Please keep them coming

Sure, I can watch people talk about food, but the JJ experience is that he will go get that food RIGHT NOW for a few seconds of the video - just so it's there on screen while he talks about it. That's the JJ Difference.