Hi, Camp Fans!
I scream…you scream…we ALL scream for—well, you know the rest. In fact, I think the entire WORLD knows the rest! Ice cream is more popular than television and it’s commonly coveted the world over. It’s pretty hard to find a soul that doesn’t melt right along with ice cream when enjoying a bite.
Everybody knows that we all scream for ice cream, but what KIND are we all screaming for? Well, we all have different tastes, but vanilla usually takes first place. Chocolate ice 
cream is an extremely close second, though. There’s even a day devoted to it—today is Chocolate Ice Cream Day.
It may take the backseat to vanilla with the popularity vote, but chocolate ice cream surely came around before vanilla became a flavor; it’s actually one of the first ice cream flavors to be created. So how was chocolate flavored ice cream discovered in the first place?
To answer this, we can actually go back to a previous Blog post I wrote about the history of Hot Cocoa in which I talked about the Mayan civilization who first discovered hot chocolate. They shared their drink with Aztec traders who were (many years later) conquered by Hernan Cortes and his Spanish army.
Cortes then took cocoa beans back to Spain with him and the drink of the Mayans exploded with popularity in Europe during the 17th century.
Hot chocolate quickly became a favorite, standing alongside other popular drinks like coffee and tea. Nearing the end of the 17th century, Italians started experimenting with frozen drinks as desserts. They first embarked with their favorite drinks—coffee, tea, and, yes, my friends, hot chocolate.
The day that this dark, delicious drink was frozen, chocolate flavored ice cream was born and became a fast favorite for everyone. It’s even thought to have a variety of medical uses thanks to its chocolate component. So enjoy some chocolate ice cream and think about how people started enjoying this dessert for the first time well over 300 years ago!
Thanks for reading, chocolate fans! Happy Chocolate Ice Cream Day.
- John