The "Vanilla Ice Cream 🍦 Day" Goodies Vault 🪄✨BONUS PAGE ✨— voilà❣️

🍨 You're In! Welcome to TFG’s “Vanilla Ice Cream Day Digital Goodies Vault” curated by Tonya Hopkins, aka @TheFoodGriot [this post is still unfolding up and until Vanilla Ice Cream Day 7-23-26]

Thank you for going all in for these extra scoops and not settling for just sprinkles You’re in for a real treat : uniquely American and DELICIOUS vanilla ice-cream history (+ recipe!) you wont find served up like this ANYWHERE ELSE along with a few more toppings and such I've spooned up over the years and assembled here for you to access and enjoy at your leisure…

*********** UP FIRST: The Pièce de Résistance … 🥁 drum roll ….

Chef James Hemings' Vanilla Ice Cream! 🍨

Demo Highlights by Chef Ashbell McElveen in 2016 + the RECIPE by James circa 1793

🎥 1-MIN HIGHLIGHT CLIP 👆🏽 — from when Chef Ashbell McElveen , founder of the James Hemigns Society made James ' vanilla ice cream in the pro demo kitchen at the Free Library of Philadelphia — for WURD's Founders Day back in 2016 . [Watch what he does with six egg yolks! 🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚]

******* Further below you’ll find James’ RECIPE — Based on the 1793 manuscript “penned” by Thomas Jefferson—documenting a recipe masterfully developed by Chef James Hemings — who most certainly had already penned it in both French and English years before Jefferson “captured” it with a sense of anxious entitlement — but we wont go into that here here. What matters most about all this is that —this is ( another drumroll please 🥁 : THE very FIRST ever vanilla ice cream recipe recorded in America’s history! 🇺🇸 I’d say that’s a fairly exciting piece of BFD trivia during this nation’s birthday month as we continue to recognice it’s 250th Anniversary year, huh?!

That’s right what we have right here remains the the true genesis point for vanilla ice cream entering the United States. and earliest physical proof of any American(s) writing down instructions for making the cold confection’s flavor that would ultimately become this country's favorite. [DARE I TOUCH ON THE IGNORANCE & IRONY THAT (A CENTURY?) LATER IT’D BE AN UN OFFICIAL LAW THAT BLACK PPL COULDNT EVEN EAT VANILLA ICE CREAM?? — FACT CHECK THAT BUT DONT DWELL AND SLIP AWAY AFTER “I DIGRESS”

Chef Ashbell was the first to bring to my and many others attention that Before James Hemings, American ice cream was, to put it kindly, a milkshake with ambitions. He came home from France (1784–1789) classically trained, and the ice cream we all expect now — firm, rich, actually scoopable — starts with him.

i deleted a bunch of jibberish in a voice that is not mine. IN MY VOICE SIMPLY SAY HOW JAMES WAS LITERATE IN BOTH french and english — basically building on what i said above about how he most certainly would’ve already penned it in both French and English years before Jefferson “captured” it — but given the reality of “owndership” both then and now all credit is atributed to jefferson

then in an upbeat grateful tone basically ackionwled that we see James ?_ how is it descriibed penmenship in a second document: The 1796 Monticello kitchen inventory — written in James's own hand — where he counts the ice molds among the equipment he was responsible for [what do you mean responsible for? is . Jefferson had shipped four of them back from France in 86 crates of belongings. James catalogued them. James trained in France. James ran that kitchen. [that sounds like a gread scoohler wrote that last part of oddly sequenced sentences ]

📄 [IMAGE: Jefferson's handwritten recipe] • 📄 [IMAGE: James's 1796 kitchen inventory]

Don't skim past that ingredient. In the 1780s vanilla was among the most expensive flavorings on the planet — the orchid flat refused to fruit outside Mexico without its native pollinator. The hand-pollination trick that finally built the vanilla trade in Réunion and Madagascar didn't arrive until 1841, courtesy of a twelve-year-old enslaved boy named Edmond Albius.

THE RECIPE

In Jefferson's hand. From James's head, heart — and very hard work!

Added Bonus: My Observations of Chef Ashbell's adaptations for anyone today to make it

Ingredients List:

  • 2 bottles* of good cream

  • 6 yolks of eggs

  • ½ lb sugar

  • NOTES on the Ingredients:

    Why Bottles and not cups, not quarts —Well, bottles, because in 1784 [YOU LIST THIS DATE AS IF IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH 1793… DO YOU MEAN BY — OR IN 1784 THATS WHEN THIS MEASUREMENT WAS RATIFIED OR SOMETHING????] that was apparently a unit everybody agreed on and nobody bothered to define. Best modern guess: about a quart and a half. Ashbell rounds up to two quarts of heavy cream, which is the correct instinct for anything involving cream. [WHAT DOES THAT LAST SENTENE MEAN??? AS IN QUARTS IS A LOT? WHAT IS THE JOKE B/C ITS NOT LANDING]

  • Ashbell keeps the half pound exactly, and calls for unrefined raw sugar — closer to what was actually in that kitchen than anything white and modern.

[re: Untouched for 240 years — WHAT’S YOUR MATH???] . [HOW ABOUT] : Over time, everything in this recipe drifted — but the 6 egg yolks never budged. Until another African American ice cream innovator named Augustus Jackson (date) comes up with an eggless and now signature (new) american vs. classic french custard style — It was the eggs what makes this early custard based (style?) icecream set instead of slosh — and it's what that one-minute clip establishes out the gate….

Instructions / Steps:

  • Mix the yolks & sugar….

  • Put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of Vanilla. When near boiling take it off & pour it gently into the mixture of eggs & sugar. Stir it well.

  • Put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon to prevent it's sticking to the casserole. When near boiling take it off and strain it thro' a towel.

  • Put it in the “Sabottiere”, then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. Put into the ice a handful of salt... turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes... open it to loosen with a spatula the ice from the inner sides.

  • Put the mixture in “moulds”, justling it well down on the knee... to withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it will come out & turn it into a plate.

  • This inext part everyone drops, and it's the part that tells you what this dessert was. It doesn't get scooped into a bowl. It gets unmolded onto a plate. That's architecture. That's the signature dish of the night.

    FYI a sabottiere is the ice cream maker — a lidded metal canister you bury in ice and salt and turn by hand, scraping the frozen edges back in as you go. An hour of it. Ashbell's mercy: a churn, an electric machine, or freezer trays. Note that the salt in this recipe is for the ice, never the custard — a small pinch in the custard is a modern habit, and optional.

    NOTES on the Instructions:
    "Near boiling" is doing heavy lifting there. or to put it the Ashbell's version of that instruction is DO NOT BOIL, in caps, and he means it.

  • Ashbell’s twist on the original recipe dials ups the flavor for real: “pull the bean out, split it, scrape the seeds, and stir them back into the hot cream. Yum.

  • Ashbell’s swaps for ‘open fire’ is a double boiler — gentler, and far more forgiving if you're not a trained 18th-century hearth flame-taming chef. “Cook until it coats the back of a wooden spoon, then let it cool completely”.

[define or clarify “moulds” simialr as weiththe sobboteiaeree. ]

Actually it was Ashbell who broguththe recipe bakck to its roots ?origin point. vs. overly modernize it — it was put it back. HERE IS WHERE YOU HAD AND MISSED YOU ROPPRTUINITIY TO CONTRAST AGAINS THE 1938 KIMBALL VERSION THAT TOO K TOO MANY LIBERTIES TO MODENRISIE. : James Hemings Recipe.

🍨 MORE SPRINKLES

[Extra clips are on their way! ]

*********

🍦 Addendum Some Comprehensive, Annotated Scoop

As a Bonus to the bonus , here’s a semi-comprehensive list of various and sundry media outlets and content I've created or contributed to on the origins of American ice cream — annotated so you know whhere to find it . Enjoy!

🟣 TFG Podcast episode → the origins of ice cream in America, told in full — the hidden history I scoop up start to finish.

🟡 "Chasing Flavor" with Chef Carla Hall — the Ice Cream episode (streaming on HBO's MAX) → I'm the on-camera Culinary Historian, serving even more ice cream insight.

🟠 Milk Street Radio summer episode → I serve host Christopher Kimball other pieces of the (previously) hidden origins of American ice cream.    ➕ the Milk Street mini-video — the story of James Hemings & Vanilla Ice Cream.

🟢 The James Hemings HUB on LinkTree → even more scoop — plus why I started calling this month #JamesHemingsJuly.

🔵 An Ice Cream–themed Culinary History Talk (& Tasting!) → an example of one I did at Lefferts Historic Housea summer or so ago.

🇺🇸 While You're Here, a few thingks to keep in mind

July 4th only marked the start — the official, formalized spark. Commemorate & celebrate America's 250th and its many milestones with Revolutionary Food & Drink…

🖇️ Explore my full LINKTREE to see everything at a glance.

🍽️ Work With The Food Griot Applied Culinary History — cultural intelligence & strategic capital for the hospitality and food & beverage world. I partner with restaurants, brands, museums, media, and events on talks, tastings, consulting & research. → Hire me / inquire →For more SCOOP check out:


T Hopkins