Cool: The Story Of Ice Cream

by Marilyn Powell

In this delicious story of ice cream, we are taken on an exotic journey from the old world to the new, from ice harvesting in ancient China to birthday celebrations in the age of Louis XIV to ice-cream cones painted by Andy Warhol in the twentieth century. It's a story filled with history, adventure, myth, and intriguing facts about ice cream. Did you know that the Scots believed ice-cream parlours were dens of iniquity? Or that there are more than seven hundred flavours and that the flavour you prefer expresses your personality? In all its many forms, ice cream has become one of the oldest, most popular, and democratic of pleasures. "The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream,"writes poet Wallace Stevens. A wonderfully surprising, entertaining, and intelligent book, Cool is about the dessert itself and how we regard it. As Marilyn Powell reveals, ice cream is the dessert of memory, a perfect food for the imagination. Containing illustrations, anecdotes, and famous recipes, Cool will delight ice-cream lovers around the world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Food History, Cooking, Food

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 2005

Reviews

[Deborah]

This book should be entitled "everything that me or my friends have ever thought about ice cream strung together with a combination of loose and often incoherent fact and stereotypical fiction." Honestly. It was like she was holding all of "her" interesting facts for ransom: "You will read my semi-intelligent blathering and rambling before you learn anything interesting! Bwa ha ha ha". I say, read the people she references, not her. Yikes.

Ok, ok, but she did explain what the hokey-pokey was all about.

[Jane Deaux]

Badly written fluff. Almost incoherent at times. The author's inferences are shaky at best, straw-grasping at worst. Her description of the liminality of ice cream is laughable. And I can't believe that any book that contains a sentence beginning with the words "An extremely interesting fact is that...." was published.

I can't believe this book was compared to _Salt_.

[Aaron the Pink Donut]

I couldn't even finish this. It is amazing that the author took such a fascinating subject and made it incredibly boring.

[Hayley]

I love Marilyn Powell's voice in this book. I can almost hear what she's like in person. The research, details, stories and the local Toronto kulfi recco were the chocolate sauce on the ice cream cone. Would recommend this to anyone to spark interest in food history. Pretty neat.

[AeRi]

I started reading this solely on what the cover (paperback) looks like.

[Buddy Scalera]

Great cover and title. That's it. The rest of it was unreadable. In such a tiny book, how did the writer manage to make each chapter feel so long?

Seriously, nice cover. Kudos to the designer for creating a cover that made me buy the book.

[Diana]

This was a fun book to read with lots of stories and anecdotes about the history of ice cream including a few recipes to try out yourself.

[Steve]

For a topic that could have been fascinating, it wasn't really a history book. It was just a ramble of incoherent thoughts.

[Suwitcha Chandhorn]

เล่าเรื่องเกร็ดประวัติไอศกรีมในหลายแง่มุมไปเรื่อย ๆ โดยแบ่งหมวดไว้กว้าง ๆ ไม่เน้นลำดับเวลาของเหตุการณ์ ให้ความรู้สึกว่าไปนั่งฟังผู้เขียนเล่าเรื่องในวงสนทนามากกว่าจะเป็นการอ่านหนังสือ หนังสืออาจกระชับได้กว่านี้ถ้าไม่มีอารามภบทและการแสดงความรู้สึกเกี่ยวกับความหลงไหลในไอศกรีมของผู้เขียนที่ออกจะฟุ่มเฟือยไปหน่อย ผู้แปลเลือกใช้คำแสดงเพศเช่น ค่ะ ในการลงท้ายประโยค ส่วนตัวอ่านแล้วรู้สึกสะดุดเนื่องจากไม่ชิน

[Backyard]

I want to read " Ice Cream History" not the author "opinion" about ice cream history and daily life of the author. I don't care about your life, your friends, your favorite, how to research and so on. you (the author) should not write about it. this make this book is one of the worst book I have ever read.

[Jiraporn]

ได้รู้ความเป็นมาของไอศกรีมแบบละเอียด แต่ก็สนุก
อ่านทีไรอยากทานไอศกรีมทุกที

[Rogue Reader]

Everything you always wanted to know about ice cream along with some truly delicious reminiscences of enjoying the sweet treat. A couple of recipes add

[Simon]

Will review shortly.