15th June: First Ice Cream Factory

On this date in 1851 Jacob Fussell, a Baltimore dairyman, set up the first ice-cream factory. To celebrate that, and the nice weather we're having (here in South West England, anyway) here are 10 things you may not know about ice cream:

1. No-one knows how ice cream originated, but one popular theory is that the Roman Emperor Nero used to send his slaves into the mountains to collect Snow to mix with Honey and fruit pulp. The Chinese and the Persians were also said to have enjoyed a similar treat in ancient times. It was the Arabs who first started making it with Milk.
2. The country that produces and also consumes the most ice cream is the USA where the average person eats 20 litres a year. Second in the table is New Zealand and third Denmark. The UK doesn't even make the top ten. The average Brit only eats 9 litres. People in Scotland and Northern Ireland eat more ice cream than people in Englandand Wales.
3. The most popular flavour by far is vanilla. Chocolate is second, but is way behind vanilla.
4. 80% of the vanilla beans for making vanilla ice cream come from Madagascar.
5. Ice cream cones were invented at the World Fair in St Louis in 1904. An ice cream seller and a waffle seller put their heads together and came up with an easy way to eat ice cream on the go. The largest ice cream cone measured 2.81 m (9 ft 2.63 in) in height and was achieved by Mirco Della Vecchia and Andrea Andrighetti of Italy.
6. Nobody knows why the popular "99", an ice cream cone with a flake chocolate bar stuck in it is so named, but there are a number of theories: the king of Italy had 99 soldiers and the flake was said to represent a soldier; 99 is top of the house in bingo, and also means "top class" in Italian. A less romantic suggestion is that it is called 99 simply because because it was number 99 on the product list. A 99 can only be called a 99 if the flake bar stuck in it was made by Cadbury's.
7. The ice cream sundae came about because in parts of the US it was illegal to sell ice cream flavoured with soda on Sundays. Enterprising ice cream sellers would sell it with syrup instead, which was perfectly legal. Religious leaders got upset about the name "Ice Cream Sunday" so the last letter was changed to "e". The biggest ice cream sundae in history was made in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 1988, and weighed over 24 tons.
8. Ice cream headaches (or brain freeze) are caused by the sudden change of temperature in the mouth making capillaries in the sinuses contract and then expand. The nearby pain receptors detect this and send signals to the brain, which interprets the pain as coming from the forehead. They typically last about 20 seconds - but if you want relief sooner, you can press your tongue against the roof of your mouth, or tilt your head back for a few seconds, or have a warm drink.
9. Surveys have shown that men are more likely to choose ice cream as a dessert than women.
10. Some wacky ice cream flavours are: bacon and egg; black pepper; chilli; black pudding; Beer; horse meat (in Japan); green tea (in Korea); brown bread and oyster.