Ever wonder how ice cream was made back in the days of our Founding Fathers? Now you can find out. This Saturday, the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pa. (just outside Philadelphia) is hosting an event called “18th Century Ice Cream.” According to the announcement, attendees will “learn how to make ice cream the old-fashioned way—from harvesting ice to molding ice cream (…) using original recipes and documented 18th century flavors.”
Unfortunately, they probably won’t be making any Moose Tracks or Rocky Road, but whatever they make will probably be just as delicious. Check out all the details here.
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If you’ve got a technical question about the ice cream making process or some other inquiry about the nuances of America’s favorite treat, chances are Ernie has the answer. He might not be able to answer all questions, but he’ll try his best and some may be featured on the Ice Cream Journal.
I’m really not of an ice cream person but when it comes to Turkey Hill I could eat it every day. As far as I’m concerned it’s the ONLY icecream! When I was a little girl my Dad made homemade icecream. I remember how much fun it was. My little sister and I would take turns sitting on the top while Daddy cranked. The anticipation was part of the fun, but when it was finally “ice cream” that was like christmas in your mouth.
This sounds like so much fun!!!
Many years ago, we cranked and cranked to get our special treats. Later they came out with electric motors on the ice cream makers. We were thankful for those… it meant we got our ice cream faster! But as good as that ice cream was, it didn’t come near the great taste of Turkey Hill ice cream! It’s still my favortie treat and I love having more choices of flavors!
I’ve never made homemade ice cream. I should try it with my girls this summer.
I am a Ice cream junkie!!! I never had Turkey Hill until I moved out to this side of PA and boy when I did I was hooked!!! I love the peanutbutter pits and the bananna split. I have other favorites as well but those two are the best!
JEN (and anyone else who hasn’t had homemade ice cream) – You should definitely try it! Sure, it’s not as creamy or “perfect” as store bought ice cream, but there’s something about homemade ice cream that just makes it taste great!
If you want to make ice cream at home and have fun while you do it, check out this gadget we posted about earlier in the year: http://icecreamjournal.turkeyhill.com/index.php/2007/03/19/having-a-ball-while-making-ice-cream/
By the way, it’s nice to see so many new readers. Welcome to the Ice Cream Journal. We hope to hear more from you in the future!
I know that Graham Slam will not be had at the Mercer, but being a Bucks County resident, I’ll be there for sure on Saturday. My father had something similar to the ice cream maker pictured and also made his own water ice in it as well
I remember using the old crank machines. The kids would do the early cranking until our arms were sore and we could hardly move the handle. Then my Dad would take over to finish. Mom would make it with either fresh strawberries or peaches. I think it tasted so good because we were so hot and sweaty from all the effort!
Thank you for the post about the ice cream event at the Mercer Museum. We’re only about 15 minutes from there, so we’ll have to definitely check them out!
As I am reading about Turkey Hill ice cream, my mouth is watering! There is nothing like the creamy taste of all the wonderful flavors and I will be going to the store as soon as I’m done with this because I’m out of ice cream and my taste buds are yelling at me!
Happy eating to all.
Wow, do I remember the “Good O’le Days”! My Dad would get the wooden ice cream maker out of the basement, fill the canister with cream, sugar, and berries, then pack it in the bucket with ice and rock salt…and away we go! This was an activity to keep all us kids occupied at a family reunion or birthday party. No self respecting family had a party without ice cream. Today, we start the car and go to the store’s freezer department and bring home Turkey Hill. What is not to love?
We had a machine just like the one you posted. My Dad was the “chief” ice cream maker. He was very creative, dreaming up many flavors (to Mom’s amusement) UNTIL he made Frozen Pudding
which contained assorted fruits and ample amounts of Rum. It was yummy but he only made it once!!
We love Turkey Hill and have 3 cartons in the freezer at this time.
What a great idea, posting info about ice cream. It is my favorite food and TH ice cream is awesome (specially moose tracks!) Being from new England, I understand we eat more ice cream than others in the nation. All I can say is glad I was raised here in ice cream heaven!!!!!
Turkey Hill is definitely the best Ice Cream, It is all my family will eat at home. But boo, the Rocky Road is my favorite, too bad they won’t be making it! But whatever they make I’m sure it will be delicious!
I wish we lived close to this! Maybe one day it will become a touring event!
When I was little my Mom used to sing a little jingle, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.”. I guess that became imbedded in my subconscious. Because I could eat Turkey Hill ice cream every meal of every day. I have not found a flavor I dislike…except coffee because I don’t like coffee flavor in any thing. So, now this grandma’s taste buds all scream for Turkey Hill Ice Cream
They say Vanilla is the favorite of real ice cream lovers – I guess it’s true cause I am an ice cream lover and vanilla is my favorite!
I remember when I was a kid – we would go to the local ice cream shop for homemade ice cream – It was soooo much better of course than most the commercially manufactured ice cream of today – Turkey Hill is the exception – it makes me feel like a kid again! Thank you!
Turkey Hill tastes like old-fashioned ice cream. It is the favorite of everyone in my household.
If you have never been to the Mercer Museum, this would be a perfect time to go. The museum is awesome and anything having to do with celebrating my favorite food would make it even better! We have an ice cream maker similar to the one in the picture but we have never used it. We have another that is a little more ‘modern’ that we have used and the ice cream is always delicious!
Homemade ice cream brings back great memories. My mom was so horrible at making it, so my father always made a new batch while she was at church without her knowing and all the kids would help him. And boy it was great. My mom used to say,”Boy, you kids don’t like my cooking, but you sure like my ice cream!” My father would just smile and tell us to tell he she did a great job. We’d say anything he told us to, as long as we got to eat it. Turkey Hill is the only ice cream that would come close to the homemade kind we would enjoy so much as kids.
Keep up the GREAT work!
Ann A.
Turkey Hill is by far the best- you guys are so far ahead of the curve on feature flavors it’s not even funny.
While four generations chopped and iced, and turned the handle on the same old ice cream maker in our Family, this was finally sold in1971 at our farm sale. I was 18 and was not looking forward to putting all the time, effort, and keeping fingers crosssed to made this delicacy.
Now, at 55, I am sorry I did not take the tools and do what has to be done
to taste that wonder – if only one more time.
Do not miss the opportunity to see that salt, ice and know this taste of Vailla Bean Ice cream…..
I remember my mother making ice cream in a similar ice cream maker and nothing could compare to it until Turkey Hill. I like Turkey Hill peach in the summer.
I like Turkey Hill better than other ice creams
Turkey Hill is the best, Turkey Hill is the best
when we made our own ice cream it was worth the wait. a time to talk take turns on the crank and watch that churn get frosty.
it was worth the wait.
My mother used to tell the story how her teenage uncles would take her along to the hospital kitchen to sit on the ice cream maker while they turned the crank. The ice cream was for the patients but they did get to lick the beater.
Turkey hill is the best. We can skip dinner and dine on turkey hill instead. Love the butter pecan. Although any flavor of turkey hill fills the bill.
ICE CREAM “hmmm Good”
I will try this one more time, hoping your site won’t label me as spam!! I love Turkey Hill ice cream sooo much & would be thrilled to pieces to win some for every week. Don’t understand why I am ‘spam’, as I write those two words to differentiate myself from spam. But, thanks~ Marsha
I remember as a kid we would have picnics and make ice cream from scratch. I am now allergic to corn syrup and anything made from corn, so my diet is seriously limited. Thank God I can eat Turkey Hill Philadelphia Style because it is literally the only “treat” I can have. It has saved my sanity more than a few times!! Thanks, Turkey Hill, I love you…
My mother turned 95 today and she often talks of making ice cream from scratch and using ice and salt and having to crank and crank. Gfowing up we had a store bought electric freezer and now my family has one of the things you put in the freezer and crank only once and awhile for 20 minutes. How things have changed.
I never, NEVER can get my fill,
When eating a bowl of Turkey Hill!
Home made ice cream is delicious and fun to make too!
We are all addicted to ice cream in my family. Our latest addict is our granddaughter, Alexis who is two. Turkey Hills ice cream is smooth, rich and the best. We especially love Rocky Road, Butter Pecan and the new Duetto!
I am glad that this product is as good or better than homemade..even after going to ice cream parlours that make their own, nothing compares to Turkey Hill!
I have to buy 2 cartons of Turkey Hill ice cream. One for me and one for my son. Then when I finish mine…I eat his!
I had never had Turkey Hill before I married a “Yankee” from Ct and spend a lot of time there now. We actually gas up at a Turkey hill Plaza in West Ha zleton, Pa each trip to Ct from Ga, and also from Ct to Ga. One day at Shop Rite I saw this brand of ice cream and was hooked!!! I love the new Duette, I just bought last week – Lemon!! I was really hooked; plan to try all the flavors!!! Keep up the premium ice creams – they put some of those others to shame!!!! “A Georgia Peach” who has made lots of ice cream in a crank type!!
Thats all we had until a few years ago.
We have an older style crank ice cream maker, and I wouldn’t part with it for anything in world. We still use it, and the ice cream taste better.
I think it is great fun to be able to make fresh ice cream the old fashioned way. We miss so many interesting joys that made this a wonderful place to live.
This reminds me of churning butter.
My grandmother had a Ice Cream Maker just like that when I was a child. We loved when she would make Ice Cream for us. Although it has been 7yrs since she passed away. It feels like only yesterday she had me cranking the Ice Cream Maker.
Growing up in New Orleans, Sunday dinners at my Grandma’s house would inevitably end with a big bowl of freshly made homemade ice cream. The best were always fresh peach/cheesecake (make with fresh chunks of peaches and buttermilk) and frozen custard…kind of a French vanilla/cheesecake combo. Both were outstanding. Turkey Hill’s new Eggnog taste’s like my Grandma’s homemade ice cream and the new Lemon Frozen Yoghurt is fantastic, too! As a resident of Philly for the last eight years, the first tastes I grabbed on to here were Turkey Hill ice creams and iced teas. Nobody else has products like these. Consider me a Turkey hill junkie…really!
I can remember when my girls were young and went to girl scouts camp in the summer. They would love to helped with the old fashin ice cream maker. It was alot of worked cranking but all the girls love helping and could hardly wait to have a taste of it.
Hi. I remember when I was little, going to visit cousins in Philadelphia from our home in Bethlehem, and if my sister and I behaved, and didn’t fight in the car, etc.
we would be taken to this neat place that I think was a restaurant on the highway towards home. It was called Witchwood. Really!!! It had a orange sign with a black silhouette of a witch flying on a broom. Anyway, I always chose the Plum Ice Cream and Jean, my younger sister, chose Tangerine Ice Cream.It really was a treat. I looked for a recipe for Plum Ice Cream a few years ago but it never quite seemed like the genuine Witchwood version. AAAAh the memories. I’d love some right now!
I am a Turkey Hill Ice Crean lover and usually buy your Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. It’s always smooth and creamy and nothing tasts better on a hot summer day than a heaping dish of Turkey Hill. It’s the best.
While I never had the opportunity to experience making ice cream using the hand crank models, I did buy a couple of electric motored ones and found them to be laborous themselves, what with all the babysitting layers of ice and salt. This made me appreciate any ice cream labeled homestyle much more. Turkey Hill fits this bill and is much more convienient than watching those machines at home.
I was raised on a farm that had Angus cattle. I wanted a Jersey Cow to raise for 4H my father let me get one. I named her Gertrude she had great butter fat in her milk. Her milk made the best homemade ice cream and butter. I have to say Turkey Hill Ice cream is almost as good!
I’m almost a Senior Citizen, and can remember making ice cream with the old crank machines. All of the grand-children had to take turns cranking if we wanted any ice cream. It sure was hard. The electric machines are better, but not as much fun. What makes Turkey Hill so great are all the flavor combinations I would never have thought of if making my own. And it tastes almost as good as homemade.
I love homemade ice cream. This is how my grandparents used to do it when we would come over to visit. My brother, sisters, and I would take turns cranking the handle and putting more ice around the maker. It was so much fun and the ice cream more enjoyable.
I love homemade ice cream! My family actually made homemade ice cream the “old fashion way” not to many years ago.
I am from Ohio and am 39 years old. When I was a child, we had a covered bridge right down the road from my aunt and uncle’s house. We kids, would go down under the covered bridge with my dad and uncle who would chip ice. We would then take it back to the house and make ice cream with a crank ice cram maker. We kids would help but when it really started to freeze the cranker would get stuck and dad would have to take over. When the ice cream was done, we would sit in front of the fire and eat it. I can remember making vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and peach (yum, yum). The ice cream that my family made together was the best ever because it was made with love; however, turkey hill is a good alternative.
I was very much surprised to see an old-fashioned ice cream maker. At our family get together for the 4th of July, we made ice cream in an electric one. Well I had a story to tell, as when I was growing up in western PA, we made ice cream in the one on your site. We had Turkey Hill on hand to fill in. Thanks for the old memory. July 8,2007 at 5:50 pm
In the early 1940s when I was a lad, my father invited the whole family of aunts and uncles to an ice cream party. Everyone (or just about) had to take their turn cranking that handle on the old freezer, even if the small ones only had to sit on the burlap bag over the top of it so the lid never, I repeat NEVER accidentaly opened and allowed some salt to creep into the beautiful, creamy ice cream. As time wore on, only the well muscled youths were turning the crank and then, it was euphoria time. I like to think of turkey Hill Farms as being that sort of setting at some time in its history here in lancaster county! I love Chocolate Mint Chip and beg Turkey Hill managers to never change the formula ar mess with the recipe. It is perfect! Mike
Never made ice cream but I did make an ice by sticking a cup of sweetened juice in the freezer and stirring it every 20 minutes or so. It didn’t taste that good but I was pleased that I had managed to make it myself. Hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I stuck sweetened milk in the freezer. Maybe I’d get ice cream?
i really like your ice cream its really good.
thanks
okey i understand it is really good but my question is how do you make it ? any help here?
My late mother made ice cream in an old-fashioned freezer similar to the one in your display. The freezer had belonged to her grandmother, which she inherited along with a recipe. The freezer disappeared years ago when the house was remodeled. Since reading your blog, I will go through my mother’s papers to see if I can find the ice cream recipe she used. What I remember is the creamy texture and rich flavor with tiny flecks of ice that melted as soon as they touched your tongue. And vanilla! It’s like recalling the taste of history. Thanks for that warm childhood memory. Sunny