ice cream first appeared as a sweet made by flavoring the snow and ice stored in cellars with fruit or molasses. In some sources the first such ice cellars are encountered near the banks of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia where the inhabitants consumed fresh snow brought from down the mountains after mixing it with fruit and honey. This was perhaps the forerunner of the delicate ‘sorbets’ served between courses in French cuisine today. In terms of technique anyway the making of sorbet is similar to that of ice cream. In western sources, the development of sorbet is said to have been inspired by the fresh fruit syrups of the Turks. The use of sugar in any case is known to have originated in the Middle East, from which we might deduce that all the natural conditions for ice cream actually came together in this region. For some reason however the sources fail to provide sufficient evidence of this.
In certain western sources the story of ice cream in Europe dates back to the renowned traveller Marco Polo. These sources claim that the Chinese stored snow in cellars in the 6th century,