July has been National Ice Cream Month since 1984, when it was designated as such by then-President Ronald Reagan. He also made sure it got its own day: the third Sunday in July, which this year is on the 19th. President Reagan then added the oddly cautionary caveat that National Ice Cream Month and Day should be observed with “appropriate celebrations and activities.”
If it’s made in the old-school way, with hand cranks and churns, it can be a backbreaking and time-consuming — but delicious —process. For example, National City’s Neiderfrank’s, which has been using the same equipment for nearly 70 years, estimates they put out only about 200 gallons per eight-hour day, hewing to the same basic recipes that the shop started out with in 1948, but they swear by the results.
By the way, while ice creams and sorbets have been part of the world’s culinary history for ages, waffle cones are a relatively new invention: they made their debut a little more than a century ago, at the 1909 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Mo. And as much as the United States loves its ice cream, it has some catching up to do: it’s only number 2 in yearly per capita consumption, just behind New Zealand.
