Thank goodness for ice cream

from my garden

On today's date, June 15, in 1851 in Baltimore, Maryland, a man named Jacob Fussell did something very important:  he opened the first commercial ice cream factory.  Fussell ran a multi-route delivery service for milk and cream.  He was asked if he would take over a small local catering business which was producing small quantities of ice cream as part of its operation.  Fussell looked at the market and saw that with the surplus volume of milk and especially cream that he often had, he could produce high volumes of ice cream and sell it for less than half of the typical market price at the time.  Consumers got a lower price, ice cream became more readily available, and his factory became very profitable.  

So in these early days of summer as the heat is starting to build towards its apex in July and August, when you feel like heading out to the store for a pint or a quart of ice cream, just remember that our modern-day wide availability of ice cream on demand in high volumes all goes back to 1851 in Baltimore.