July 23 - Ice cream cone

July 23, 1904, is the generally accepted date for the introduction of the ice cream cone in the United States. It was served by various vendors along the entertainment midway known as “the Pike” at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, known as the World’s Fair, in St. Louis, Missouri. The cone consisted of a waffle rolled into an edible “cornucopia” shape (pictured). Paper and metal cones had been used in Europe to hold ice cream, and edible cones were known to have been served in England prior to 1904. A vendor named Charles E. Menches is credited with filling a cone with two scoops of ice-cream, but history indicates that more than 50 purveyors of ice cream operated at the Fair, and several may have concocted the cone at the same time. Ice cream itself may have originated with the Chinese, who may have developed freezing techniques to make both sorbets and ice cream. Today, it takes about 12 pounds of whole milk to make one gallon of ice cream. Americans consume an average of about five and a half gallons of ice cream annually.