Archive for September, 2005

    I think you have read my previous post about the East meets west right? That one is a good example with what traditional food can be when they meets different culture. the weired things about this is that is that the mooncakes are not from east but made in malaysia buatan malaysia .

Yesterday i saw another creative mooncakes, this one is an example of the east meets east. Guess what, pastry skin icecream mooncake. But this moocakes comes a little bit late because icecream is originated from China. Some of you might not know that icecream is originated from China. Let me gives you some indepth information about icecream.

There are several popular legends surrounding the discovery of ice cream. Saltpeter was used for the production of gunpowder in China, and the Chinese discovered that saltpeter in water caused the water to absorb heat, thus creating ice in summer. The Chinese put sugar in the ice and sold them as food during the summer. It is believed that the Song dynasty (??) was the time when people began putting fruit juice in the water used to create the ice; milk was beginning to be used in the Yuan dynasty (??). Marco Polo supposedly saw ice cream being made on his trip to China, bringing the recipe home to Italy with him on his return. From there, Catherine de Medici‘s Italian chefs are said to have carried the recipe to France when she went there in 1533 to marry the Duc d’Orléans. Charles I was supposedly so impressed by the "frozen snow" that he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative. There is, however, no historical evidence to support this legend, which first appeared during the 19th century and was probably created by imaginative ice cream vendors. Ice cream most likely did originate in China, but it is unknown how and when the idea made its way into the Western world.

While it was not yet ice cream per se, some examples of early pre-planned, ice dishes include the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who is said to have ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings, and King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of the Shang Dynasty who is said to have had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions. People living directly alongside snow and ice have probably always put sweet things like honey and fruit juice on frozen water for variety, as some still do to this day. Snow-cones, made from balls of crushed ice topped with sweet syrup served in a paper cone, are consumed in many parts of the world.

Even earlier, in 400 BC Persia, a special chilled pudding-like dish, made of rosewater and vermicelli, working out as something like a cross between a sorbet and a rice pudding was served to the royalty during summers. The Persians had already mastered the technique of storing ice inside giant naturally cooled refrigerators known as yakh-chals. These storages kept ice brought in from the winter or from nearby mountains well into the summer. The storages worked by using tall windcatchers that kept the sub-level storage space at frigid temperatures. The ice was then mixed in with saffron, fruits, and various other flavors. The treat, widely made today in Iran, is called "faludeh", which is made from starch (wheat, probably), spun in a kind of sieve-like contraption which produces threads or drops of the batter, which are boiled in water. The mix is then frozen, and mixed with Rosewater and lemons, before serving. 1 (http://www.krysstal.com/inventions_06.html) 2 (http://www.mmdtkw.org/VAncientInventions.html)

Contemporary western-style ice cream, however was probably “discovered” in the 1600’s, and was introduced to the United States jointly by Ben Franklin (who brought the idea from France), George Washington (who bought the first ice cream maker in the US), and Thomas Jefferson (who enthusiastically served it at parties and included a recipe in his published cook book). This was followed in the mid 19th century by the invention of the ice cream soda, then the ice cream sundae later in the century to placate religious conservatives, and both the ice cream cone and banana split in the first years of the 20th century. [ Source from Wikipedia.org ]

You can get the Pastry Skin Icecream Mooncakes at Swensen’s Cafe Restaurants.