When the product which we call ice cream first made its appearance in the English language, around the year 1673, it wasn't called ice cream, as we know it today. By what two word phrase was it called?

The name for this frozen (Review) dessert, when it first appeared in the English language in the late 17th century, followed a simple and logical grammatical pattern. The term described exactly what the product was: cream that had been "iced." This construction acts as a past participle modifying a noun, a common practice we still see today. Think of how we order an iced tea or an iced coffee; we are asking for tea or coffee that has been chilled with ice. The original name for our beloved frozen treat used the very same logic.

This sweet confection was the height of luxury at the time. Without modern refrigeration, the process of making it was incredibly labor-intensive, requiring ice to be harvested in the winter and stored in insulated ice houses for use in warmer months. Because of this difficulty and expense, it was a delicacy reserved almost exclusively for royalty and the very wealthy. One of the earliest recorded mentions of the dish was at a feast held for King Charles II in 1671.

Over the following centuries, as the treat became more accessible, the language naturally evolved and simplified. The two distinct words, "iced" and "cream," began to merge in popular speech and writing. For a long time, it was commonly written with a hyphen as "ice-cream," but eventually, the hyphen was dropped, leaving us with the familiar, consolidated term we all know and love today.