The Last Show with David Cooper
Dr. Garritt Van Dyk: A Brief History Of Ice Cream - January 6, 2026
07 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The last show with David Cooper. Procrastinate your life away with us. The other day I was walking in the cold and I saw someone who I thought was a schmuck eating ice cream in minus a million weather. But then I realized maybe there's a rich history behind ice cream. Maybe ice cream isn't this new food and perhaps something with over a 2000 year old history.
Well, once I looked it up, I found out I was correct. And we're here to talk ice cream with Dr. Garrett Van Dyke, who's a senior lecturer at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, who knows a thing or two about the delicious snack chip. Welcome to the program.
Thanks, David. Thanks for having me.
Chapter 2: What surprising history does ice cream have?
So do you think the average person would be surprised to find out that ice cream has a rich tradition? I would have just assumed it's one of those foods that like, I don't know, came with the refrigerator and not something with a rich history.
Yeah, I think a lot of people take it for granted. I don't think people necessarily realize that this goes all the way back to ancient Persia. So for me, it's fascinating to look at things that are deeply embedded in our daily lives and stop and think, well, how do we get here? How did this happen? And then I sort of pull on that thread of the sweater and it unravels and unravels and unravels.
And then suddenly it's, you know, 550 BC and I'm looking at a huge dome-shaped structure in ancient Persia that was used to make ice cubes.
Okay, so it wasn't like there was bodegas in ancient Persia with bodega cats and I went in and I opened the freezer and got a drumstick, or as my mother calls it, a nutty cone. It's a much more complicated process getting ice back then, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. Your Korean grocer doesn't necessarily have it. So the ancient Persians figured out that in the desert, you could use evaporative cooling at night in the winter to create ice. And then they would store it in these huge sort of beehive-shaped structures, which had like a solar chimney at the top to pull out hot air. and a place at the bottom to bring in cool air.
And that allows them to store ice year-round. So rather than having to go to your nearest mountaintop and carve out a block of ice, they were able to make it in the middle of the desert, which I think is a pretty cool way to start.
It is. And for people who don't realize evaporative cooling is amazing. I grew up in a climate with relatively, you know, moderate humidity. So I never knew this until I was in a desert and I put a wet cloth on me and like, I don't know, 100 degree weather. And all of a sudden, as the water evaporated off the cloth, that thing dropped like 20, 30 degrees Fahrenheit. It's an amazing effect.
And I guess the ancient Persians figured out how to take advantage of it.
Yeah, so it's fascinating that they figured this out and they exploited it. And then that technology spreads as we get the Arabs coming in and conquering Persia in, let's say, like 650 AD. And when that happens, they bring in their own bit to the equation, which is they go from using, let's say, rose water and honey to make sort of a shaved ice type of deal in Persia.
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Chapter 3: How did ancient Persians create ice in the desert?
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.
Now, I imagine at some point, like the sugar trade comes in, we're getting our dairy from the cows in whatever country, but raw sugar to make delicious ice cream, that had to come into play as well.
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 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, you know, 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. So it starts to make your ice cream really smooth.
And of course, like European colonizing countries like France and Italy, of course, they pretend they invented ice cream at this point, I imagine, or at least they claim to have come up with the first recipe as you would assume they would have.
Absolutely. And there's always in matters relating to taste and food and even wine, you get this battle amongst the Europeans for who was first. So right about 1690, we get two different countries that are battling for it. So we get Alberto Latina and we get Nicolas Odiger in France. And the two of them basically claim to be the first.
So Alberto makes something that's kind of like a gelato with the kind of sort of candied fruits that you would normally associate with like a fruitcake or a Christmas cake. And he's got those in a milk base together with some sugar. And that becomes sort of the first rudimentary gelato. And Nicolas Odige, he was actually formerly like the head of the household and chief cook and chef.
butler for Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who was the chief minister for Louis XIV. He had actually gone to Italy for 18 months to train in making ice cream. And when he came back, he made all sorts of improvements to the techniques that were being used there. So in 1690, he starts publishing recipes for sorbets and ice creams. And these are really, they're much smoother again because
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