Did a failed romance fuel a patriot's culinary adventure?
Women aren’t the only ones who can be led into a pint of ice cream by a broken heart. Indeed, if he hadn’t been jilted by the comely (yet married) English painter Maria Cosway during his prepresidential travels to France, Thomas Jefferson might never have discovered the healing powers of the confection. Some of his more open-minded biographers claim that Jefferson’s despair fueled his fervent tour throughout Southern France and Italy, where he studied classical Roman architecture (which informed his design of Virginia’s new capitol at Richmond) and acquired an elaborate recipe for ice cream that some credit for popularizing the dessert in America. Jefferson was so committed to sharing this procurement that on July 4, 1806, the president’s Independence Day celebration included a servant whose sole job was hand cranking ice cream. Jefferson sometimes had the dessert served in a somewhat Baked Alaska style. Wrote one visitor to the presidential manse: “Ice creams were produced in the form of balls of the frozen material enclosed in covers of warm pastry, exhibiting a curious contrast, as if the ice had just been taken from the oven.” Below, a version of the recipe for those without ice-cream-cranking servants on call.
Thomas Jefferson’s Ice cream
2 quarts heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
1 vanilla bean
1 cup sugar
1 Bring heavy cream and vanilla bean to a simmer in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about five minutes. 2 Whisk egg yolks in bowl until smooth. 3 Whisk sugar into eggs until thick. 4 Slowly beat 1 cup of hot cream into egg mixture. 5 Gradually stir egg-and-cream mixture into saucepan of hot cream. 6 Stir constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, about five minutes. 7 Strain mixture into a bowl through a double layer of cheesecloth; remove vanilla bean. 8 Stir until slightly cooled. 9 Refrigerate until chilled, at least an hour or overnight. 10 Freeze in an ice-cream machine, or in the freezer, until set but slightly soft.
11 Spoon ice cream into a three-quart mold, or several smaller molds, running a spatula through the ice cream and tapping the mold firmly to remove air bubbles. 12 If using molds, cover and freeze for two to four hours. 13 Dislodge molded ice cream by dipping mold briefly into hot water. 14 Run knife around the top edge to separate ice cream from mold. 15 Invert mold over serving dish and gently lift from ice cream. (If not molded, simply serve in small scoops.)
Women aren’t the only ones who can be led into a pint of ice cream by a broken heart. Indeed, if he hadn’t been jilted by the comely (yet married) English painter Maria Cosway during his prepresidential travels to France, Thomas Jefferson might never have discovered the healing powers of the confection. Some of his more open-minded biographers claim that Jefferson’s despair fueled his fervent tour throughout Southern France and Italy, where he studied classical Roman architecture (which informed his design of Virginia’s new capitol at Richmond) and acquired an elaborate recipe for ice cream that some credit for popularizing the dessert in America. Jefferson was so committed to sharing this procurement that on July 4, 1806, the president’s Independence Day celebration included a servant whose sole job was hand cranking ice cream. Jefferson sometimes had the dessert served in a somewhat Baked Alaska style. Wrote one visitor to the presidential manse: “Ice creams were produced in the form of balls of the frozen material enclosed in covers of warm pastry, exhibiting a curious contrast, as if the ice had just been taken from the oven.” Below, a version of the recipe for those without ice-cream-cranking servants on call.
