Spotlight: National Ice Cream Month

On July 9, 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed Presidential Proclamation 5219, designating July as "National Ice Cream Month." President Reagan noted, “Ice cream is a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over ninety percent of the people in the United States. It enjoys a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food.” Born in Tampico, Illinois and moving to Dixon where he spent the first 22 years of his life, Ronald Reagan and the ice cream we eat both have ties to the State of Illinois. 

Ice cream traces its roots to ancient times. By 200 B.C. the Chinese were enjoying a frozen dessert consisting of a mixture of rice and milk which they packed in snow to freeze. In the first century A.D., Roman Emperor Nero would flavor snow with fruit and honey and serve it as a treat at his extravagant parties. European colonists brought ice cream to America as early as 1744. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both enjoyed ice cream and made and served it at their homes. In the late 1800s, the United States saw many innovations relating to ice cream. Ice cream sodas, consisting of soda water, syrup, and a scoop of ice cream, became popular drinks at soda fountains across the country. Some cities deemed these fizzy concoctions too frivolous for the Lord’s Day and enacted “blue laws” banning the sale of ice cream sodas on Sundays. The ice cream sundae was invented as a way to skirt the ban, although just where it was invented is subject to controversy. Both Two Rivers, Wisconsin and Ithaca, New York claim to be the birthplace of the sundae.

The ice cream cone was first widely introduced at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, when a 16-year-old Syrian immigrant rolled his Middle Eastern waffle-like pastries into funnels to use as a hand-held edible ice cream container. Soft serve ice cream arrived on the scene in the mid-1930s, with both Dairy Queen and Carvel claiming credit for its invention. According to Carvel company history, on Memorial Day 1934, Tom Carvel’s ice cream truck got a flat tire in Hartsdale, New York. As Carvel rushed to sell his melting ice cream to customers, he realized that many preferred the softer texture. Carvel developed a freezer that allowed him to make his own soft serve ice cream. Meanwhile, father and son duo J.F. and Alex McCullough were developing their own version of soft serve here in the Midwest. In 1938, the McCulloughs partnered with ice cream shop owner Sherb Noble to offer the product at his store in Kankakee, Illinois. Rumor has it that it was such a hit that they sold 1,600 servings in the first two hours of sales. Sherb Noble opened the first Dairy Queen store in Joliet on June 22, 1940.

Another iconic ice cream treat, the Dove Bar also has ties to Illinois. It was created by a Greek immigrant, Leo Stefanos, in Chicago in 1956. The chocolate-covered ice cream bars were originally sold in the Chicago area for 15 cents a piece. By the 1970s, Dove Bars were being sold from coast to coast and in the 1980s they entered the grocery store market. Today the company produces 92,000 hand-dipped bars a day in its Burr Ridge plant. 

According to the International Dairy Foods Association, ice cream makers in the U.S. churned out 1.31 billion gallons of ice cream in 2024.The average American eats about 4 gallons of ice cream per year. The top 5 favorite ice cream flavors in the U.S. are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, butter pecan, and cookie dough. Hot fudge is the most popular ice cream topping, followed by whipped cream and caramel sauce.