Hand-cranked ice cream freezer (Nancy Johnson)
Heladora de manivela (Nancy Johnson)
- Date
- 1843 · confidence high
- Place
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
- Credited to
- Nancy Johnson
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A bucket with a hand-turned paddle inside another bucket of ice and salt, which chills and whips the cream to avoid large crystals. It allowed ice cream to be made at home and, with Fussell's production (1851), at industrial scale.
Ice cream is much older (flavoured Persian and Chinese ices, 17th-century Italian ices); the novelty is the hand-cranked freezer. William Young patented it again in 1848, likely by buying Johnson's patent.
What it led to
- commercial ice cream (Fussell, Baltimore 1851)
- ice cream parlours and industrial ice cream
- ice cream as a mass consumer product