17. Parmesan Ice Cream Was All the Rage
Ice cream and cheese are two of the most popular dairy items in the west. However, it should be noted they’re popular separately. Unfortunately, to modern senses of taste, Regency English diners enjoyed these two favorites combined. Ice cream was a trendy treat for wealthy Regency people, with large quantities of ice being either being saved in winter and stored in cold houses or imported to create the frozen delicacies. Many of the favorite flavors of the Regency era would not be out of place in a modern ice cream shop, such as cardamom and pistachio. However, rye bread and Parmesan cheese ice creams likely wouldn’t be too popular with modern palates.
A famous ice cream cookbook published in 1789, The Complete Confectioner, by Frederick Nutt contained 32 recipes for various flavors of ice creams. This manual included the famed Parmesan ice cream, which instructed ice cream makers to, “Take six eggs, half a pint of syrup and a pint of cream put them into a stewpan and boil them until it begins to thicken; then rasp three ounces of Parmesan cheese, mix and pass them through a sieve, and freeze it.” Another incredibly unique recipe in the book is for burnt ice cream, in which the cream is scalded until it turns brown and imparts a burnt flavor.