According to the Met Office, we’re expecting a baking few days, so, without tempting fate it’s time to dig out the barbecue, drive down to the seaside, and indulge in Candy Floss and Ice Cream. Don’t bet your luck. But how about experimenting with new flavours of Ice Cream? Foodie Gay Jenkins has the scoop, literally….

Everyone is getting in on the act.

Bacon and egg from Heston Blumenthal, yoghurt and olive oil care of Anthony Finn, a Newcastle Brown variety (oh please), sesame seed chicken and cuttlefish from Taiwan, raw horse flesh (I kid you not) and the surprisingly delicious if somewhat challenging wasabi flavours from Japan. You name it someone, somewhere has made it into an ice cream.

Little wonder really, ice cream has a long and varied history and there is very little new on the block.

Iced buffalo milk mixed with camphor was a status symbol for the mega rich and powerful in ancient China 1300 years ago.

For generations Eskimo families have eaten a mix of fats and fish mixed with ice and berries – Akutaq, or as non indigenous peoples call it Eskimo ice cream.

Back in the 18th Century innovative cooks were whipping up such tasty concoctions as laurel leaf and parmesan flavoured ices.

Later, the great Escoffier himself, better known for Peach Melba and the delectable ice cream Bombe Nero was responsible for the, arguably, less successful asparagus ice cream.

First served in England at a banquet given by Charles II in 1671 ice cream remained the preserve of the rich and powerful. It was not until the Victorian era with the large scale importation of ice from Norway that it became generally available.

In 1851 the first ice cream stall opened in London outside Charing Cross station and the penny lick – a penny’s worth of ice cream in a glass – became the nation’s favourite. Unfortunately, the unsuspecting public got a penny’s worth of ice cream along with a helping of other people’s spittle and 75 years later the penny lick was banned on grounds of hygiene (better late than never I suppose).

Luckily by then Mrs Agnes Marshall, the doyenne of all things chilly, had invented the ice cream cone. This extraordinary woman was not only an accomplished chef and lecturer but also a talented business woman.

Some of her more unusual recipes include Foie Gras ice cream and a frozen concoction of raw fish, curry powder, coconut and whipped cream.

Ice cream had also taken off in a big way across the pond and became as American as apple pie, peanut butter and the constitution.

In World War II the US government designated ice cream an essential food and commissioned a $1 million floating ice cream parlour to help bolster the morale of US marines serving in the Pacific.

Today Americans eat more ice cream per head than any other nation.

For all our experimentation our tastes both here and in the US remain conservative and our favourite flavours are vanilla and chocolate.

Maybe it’s because ice cream conjures up memories of days by the sea side and kids with more choc on their faces than on the ice that curry and camphor just don’t cut the mustard (now there’s an idea).

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