In WABE’s new series “Atlanta’s Savory Stories,” our food contributors Akila McConnell, a food historian, and chef Asata Reid explore our city’s culinary history while spotlighting a few local restaurants that correlate with that topic. This month’s episode: ice cream. Reid and McConnell began their conversation by rewinding the clock to 1870 in Atlanta.
“There was no air conditioning or even electric fans,” said McConnell. “Fashion dictated that women wear full dresses with numerous petticoats, and men wore jackets over their clothing. And just like any other Atlanta summer, it was hot — super hot.” The three staple ingredients for making ice cream — cream, sugar and ice — were generally easy to find in the South, but getting ice was a challenge in Atlanta, as McConnell explained.
It’s easy to forget that ice was simply inaccessible to people living in year-round hot climates for most of history. But everything changed in the mid-1800s. “The ice trade was the brainchild of Massachusetts entrepreneur Frederick Tudor, who was known as the ‘King of Ice,’” McConnell said. “Men would cut ice from the frozen lakes and rivers in Massachusetts … They would pack the ice blocks between sawdust, and then they would ship it all across the world, including places like Hong Kong, India, South America and the Southeastern United States, like right here in Atlanta.”
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