Braden Hall

And we still get that period in that sort of early modern period where there's this really fine dividing line between magic and science.

So we get this book called Magia Naturalis by Jean-Baptiste de la Porta.

in Italy in 1568, and he's describing how you can use potassium nitrate, which is saltpeter, which most people think about with, let's say, gunpowder.

And you put that into ice, and then suddenly you get much lower temperatures.

So your ability to freeze things without having to have enormous amounts of ice

suddenly becomes available to you.

And so suddenly he figures out that technology.

You fast forward to 1690 and suddenly people are saying, this is great, but you know what?

You could even do it with salt.

And suddenly the ability to freeze things on demand becomes really easy.

And now we start to get things like the first gelato.

Absolutely.

So the prices of sugar dropped dramatically during the 17th century as the Atlantic sugar colonies come online.

Obviously a great cost to humans as enslaved Africans are the workforce.

But with that,

sugar prices start to drop.

So something that was limited to like the apothecary, the pharmacist, and as a medicine for the very rich, suddenly becomes within the reach of more middling people.

And it plays a big part because sugar is an antifreeze.

So just like we know that alcohol is an antifreeze, but sugar is also an antifreeze and helps prevent crystallization.

So it starts to give you a much smoother texture than anything that was made before with honey.