If you wish to prepare ice-cream at an hour’s notice, you cannot do
better than to purchase the best patent freezer you can procure. I had
one once which would freeze cream admirably in half an hour. I have
forgotten the patentee’s name, and perhaps this is well for him, since
truth would oblige me to record an unlucky habit his machine had of
getting out of order just when I wanted it to do its best. My earliest
recollections of ice-cream are of the discordant grinding of the
well-worn freezer among the blocks of ice packed about it—a monotone
of misery, that, had it been unrelieved by agreeable associations of
the good to which it was “leading up,” would not have been tolerated
out of Bedlam. For one, two, three, sometimes four hours, it went on
without other variety than the harsher sounds of the fresh ice and the
rattling “swash” as the freezer plunged amid the icy brine when these
were nearly melted; without cessation save when the unhappy operator
nodded over his work, or was relieved by another predestined victim of
luxury and ennui—a battalion of the laziest juveniles upon the place
being detailed for this purpose. I verily believed in those days that
the freezing could not be facilitated by energetic action, and used to
think how fortunate it was that small darkies had a predilection for
this drowsy employment. I shall never forget my amazement at seeing
a brisk Yankee housewife lay hold of the handle of the ponderous tin
cylinder, and whirl it with such will and celerity, back and forth,
back and forth, that the desired end came to pass in three-quarters of
an hour.
That day has gone by. Time has grown too precious now even to juvenile
contrabands for them to sit half the day shaking a freezer under the
locust-tree on the old plantation lawn. Machines that will do the
work in one-tenth of the time, with one-fiftieth of the labor, are
sold at every corner. But, so far as I know, it was reserved for a
nice old lady up in the “Jersey” mountains—the tidiest, thriftiest,
most cheerful bee I ever knew—to show her neighbors and acquaintances
that ice-cream could be made to freeze itself. For twelve years I
have practised her method, with such thankfulness to her, and such
satisfaction to my guests and family, that I eagerly embrace the
opportunity of circulating the good news.