Ice cream 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Ice cream was a status-y elite thing, and they showed off their good taste with flavors like carnation, cucumber, sherry and daffodil.

By the 1850's it became available to commoners as the "Penny Lick." "Street vendors would sell a small glass of ice cream for a penny to crowds of joyous customers. This light-hearted contraption ended up having deadly consequences.

"The Penny Lick was banned in 1898 after it was directly linked with an outbreak of tuberculosis. TB is an airborne disease and is spread by the “cough, sneeze or spit” of an infected person. It is therefore not surprising the glass, that would be licked, cleaned with a dirty rag, and then reused, would be infested with germs."

Ice cream is common place today because of trial and error, innovative progress building on new refrigeration technology and advancing medical discoveries. What was available a couple of centuries ago only to the rich is everywhere now. Ice cream is only a tiny example of the prosperity of our society as compared to human history.