10 Incredible Things You Didn’t Know About Ice Cream

Check out some of our favorite ice cream facts below!

1. Neapolitan ice cream wasn’t always the strawberry, chocolate and vanilla trifecta we know today. Originally, it was made up of vanilla, cherry and pistachio, in honor of the Italian flag.
2. Long before she was the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher’s work in chemistry helped perfect soft-serve ice cream.
3. It’s not just an old wives’ tale. Ice cream is one of the most common food cravings during pregnancy.
4. How much do we love ice cream? A whopping 9 percent of cow’s milk in America is used to make the dessert.
5. Unlike a Tootsie pop, it takes about 50 licks to finish a single scoop of ice cream.
6. Back in the day, ice cream was a popular luxury dessert. The Italian noblewoman Catherine de Medici introduced the frozen delicacy to the people of France in 1553.
7. At any given time, 87 percent of Americans have ice cream in their freezer.
8. Ice cream was first served in the United States in Maryland in 1744, when Governor Thomas Bladen gave it to his guests for dessert.
9. As a way to pass the time, American fighter pilots in WWII attached pairs of 5-gallon cans of milk and cream to their planes. The cans were fitted with a small propeller that spun the mixture as the planes flew, and the higher altitudes froze it. By the time they landed, ice cream was ready!
10. Chocolate ice cream was invented about 50 years before vanilla and was inspired by hot chocolate.