Page:The story of milk.djvu/78

 ICE CREAM

Ice cream has fast become the national dessert served on all festive occasions, winter and summer. Originally it meant a frozen mixture of sweetened and flavored milk and cream, but the name has long been applied to all kinds of frozen delicacies in which cream enters as a constituent. Not even there has the line been drawn, but gums, gelatine, corn-starch, eggs and other "fillers" have been substituted or added to thicken the mixtures and give "body" to "creams," which have but little relation to the genuine emulsion of butter-fat from cow's milk. Standardization has been attempted by National and State food authorities with varying success of enforcement. While the application of the name to a great variety of frozen desserts has no doubt become legitimate by long usage it may properly be demanded that as an article of merchandise "ice cream" shall contain at least 8% to 12% butterfat and that no ingredients dangerous to health enter into its manufacture.

Hand freezer

Freezers.—The freezing is usually done by contact of the material with metal cooled on the other side by a "freezing mixture" of salt and ice which produces temperatures far below the freezing point of water