The empress of ice cream

Carlo

Even plain white rice makes a surprisingly delicate ice cream.

The Book of Ices

‘Is there anything you need.>’ Louise asked me.

‘In what way.^’

‘I am making a list. After all, I can ask for anything I like now. I am going to bring over a whole retinue of painters and musicians . . . Even a philosophy tutor. If there is anything you want, you may as well throw it in as well.’

‘There is one thing, as it happens.’

‘Yes?’

‘There is a man here in England who knows about ice. Boyle, his name is. A chemist. A member of the Royal Society.’

‘And?’

‘I think he can help me make an ice cream for the king’s feast. An ice that is truly worthy of its recipient.’

She gave me a strange look. ‘And that is really all you want? You were instrumental-in this, you know - you could ask for anything. Any favour or gift. Even,’ she hesitated, ‘even your passage back to France.’

I had not thought of it like that. But of course I could not leave her now.

‘Boyle’s help is all I want,’ I said. ‘At least, that is the only thing it is within King Charles’s power to give.’

‘I was wrong, wasn’t I?’ she said quietly. ‘When I said that you were just a libertine, and a maker of tidbits ... I had not realised

at the time that a man can be so serious about the pleasures he creates. I will make sure you get your chemist.’

She was as good as her word. What inducements were necessary I do not know, but a few days later I received a message from Boyle inviting me to his laboratory, where, he promised,♦! would make the acquaintance of two other men of experiment - Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke - who had agreed to help us in our task, all under conditions of the strictest confidence.

Of that day, and the experiments we undertook, I will write little. This is not because I could not understand the methods of the virtuosi-^ on the contrary, they were admirably clear, and differed from common sense only in their great diligence and thoroughness. Nor was there any rank or distinction between us as we worked. Boyle, I knew, was the son of the Earl of Cork; Hooke, it turned out, had been a penniless orphan; Ejt Wren was the son of a mercer. Yet although they deferred to Boyle in philosophical matters, I believe that was only because of his superior knowledge; when it came to mathematics, it was to Wren they turned, while for anything practical or experimental, Hooke was the undisputed master.

We made over a score of different ices; varying the cream, little by litde, and then the sugar, and then the temperature, and finally the eggs. As we worked I told them what I knew, but could not necessarily explain, such as the way that'a pan of milk, left to steep overnight, makes a thicker ice than does milk that is fresh. From these scraps of information they hypothesised^ as Boyle liked to call it: each hypothesis was then handed over to Hooke for him to devise ati experiment which would prove or disprove its truth. And—

There was no great moment of illumination, such as schoolboys are taught of Archimedes may have once leapt naked from his bath, Isaac Newton (who was not of the company on that occasion, although the others spoke admiringly of his work with

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telescopes) may have seen a falling apple — although Hooke claimed that this was a fable created by Newton to disguise the fact that it was he, Hooke, who actually discovered the forces governing the rotation of the earth: the Fellows of the Royal Society were nothing if not disputatious about such matters - but in my case it was simply a time of quiet but remarkable discovery, as one who sails to a new land does not suddenly arrive at his destination, but must first glimpse it on the horizon, and then wait patiently for the various features of the country to make themselves more visible, and only after many hours seek a suitable spot for landing. It was a voyage, indeed, that took more than one day to complete. Even with the virtuosi^ remarkable powers of concentration, experimenting in the cold of the ice laboratory became too much for them after a few hours. After that they insisted it was time to repair to a coffee house, and took me to Garraway’s, where they cross-questioned a sea captain about the best method of propagating cabbage trees; then to Will’s, where there was a fierce debate about whether the Dutch would open the dykes if the French invaded; and then to Scott’s, where they joined a competition to create a new mill wheel for London Bridge. And everywhere we went - not only the coffee shops, but the streets and places between them - people came up to my companions to ask them about the progress of this or that building project, or to enquire after an experiment, or to press an observation on them. I began to see why they generally preferred coffee to wine or ale, for they habitually moved and spoke and thought, these virtuosi^ with a lively but good-humoured impatience which coffee seemed only to exacerbate, quite unlike the stupefaction that I had experienced with mum.

By the end of three days, we had made such progress that it was with some surprise that I looked back and saw just how far we had come. It was apparent that eggs were, in one sense, the answer, for we could now consistently produce an ice cream made with eggs or hen’s testes, as Wren insisted on calling them - that was so

smooth and rich, it seemed to contain not a single crystal of ice. But my friends were not content with this as a solution: they wanted to know why eggs produced this effect, and whether it could be replicated with other ingredients. First we tried substituting the eggs of geese and gulls (the former were very good, the latter less so), then we separated the eggs into whites and yolks to see which part of the egg was responsible; then we gradually reduced the eggs altogether, and started working once more with cream.

It was the avowed intention of Wren, as a geometrist, to come up with a mathematical formula to express the solution. ‘For only by mathematics,’ he said, ‘can recipes be recovered from the chaos and superstition of cooks. When I go to Garraway’s, I insist that my coffee be made with sixty-eight beans; when I eat a beef steak, I demand that it has been on the grill for exactly four minutes. Your ice cream, signor, may be more complex in its constituents, but it is surely no more impervious to the laws of the physical world than motion or light.’ It was because of this gentleman that I subsequently got into the habit or recording exacdy what quantities and methods I had used to make my ices, thus enabhng me to replicate each one without relying on my recollections.

Flooke, conversely, was more interested in devising a practical machine to make the process more efficient. Having watched me prepare the first batch, he announced that we would be here all winter if we were to proceed in this manner. Taking my paddle from me, he drilled half-a-dozen large holes in it, ignoring my protests that the implement in question had been specially made for me in Paris. ‘Now try,’ he said, indicating the sahotiere. I did so, and immediately found - of course! - that the mixture passed through the holes as it thickened, thus speeding the movement of the paddle, and working the ice cream more effectively.

Nor did he stop there. While Boyle, Wren and I performed the next batch of experiments, Hooke repaired to his workshop ‘to run something up’, as he put it. What he returned with was a lid

for the scihoticre through which was inserted a simple crank. Turning the handle of the crank caused the paddle to sweep around the inside, maldng the labour easier.

‘It will not be of much use to you,’ he pointed out, ‘since you make your ices in tiny quantities. But for us, having to make so many for these experiments, it will make the work quicker.’

When it became clear that he meant me to have the apparatus as a gift, I asked how I could ever repay him.

He shrugged. ‘If anyone asks, say that Mr Hooke invented it. That is all that I, or anyone, could ask.’

What, then, was the result of all our deliberations.^ It turned out to be no secret formula, no magic ingredient or incantation, but simple exactitude and balance. We found that ice cream is like a triangle with three equal sides: the sides being the fruit, the sugar mixture or custard, and the stirring. When all three were in perfect proportion, you made an ice cream that was as smooth and creamy as freshly churned butter.

I recalled the words Hannah had spoken, about more sugar setting the custard. As it turned out, she had been right, although it must have been a lucky guess, since she could not have understood the process as I now did.

‘We are done,’ Boyle said at last, setting down his spoon. ‘Gentlemen, to Garraway’s. I have heard there is interesting news of a peace treaty in the Rhine.’

We went to Garraway’s, where we were joined by a man who had invented a more efficient cider press, and another who drew pictures of the disturbances of the heavens. The talk then turned to alchemy, and whether there was a fundamental difference between it and the New Method. Hooke and Boyle differed on this point, Boyle, that fine and gentle man, being of the opinion that God had made nature deliberately mysterious, while Hooke who despite his personal generosity to me, I could not help disliking, for he was a difficult and prickly individual - took the view

that the universe was no more than a mechanism, a kind of giant watch whose cogs and purposes we were only now beginning to discover. But what intrigued me was that they engaged in the most furious debate, neither giving ground, for over half an hour; although each thumped the table, neither thumped each other, and five minutes after they had finally agreed that neither could prove their hypotheses, they were back to examining a strange dead beede that someone had brought in from Epsom, once more the best of friends.

We made space for the serving girl to set down another round of drinks. Most of us were drinking coffee, but Boyle and I were having chocolate, for our health.

‘Now there would be a fine fashionable flavour for your ices, Demirco,’ Kit Wren said, turning to me. ‘A plate of ice cream that tasted of coffee.’

‘Indeed, it would be very easy to prepare,’ I replied. ‘The beans being excellent at infusion in water, they would surely do so just as easily in milk.’

‘I should prefer mine to be chocolate,’ Boyle said. ‘Coffee disagrees with me even more readily than Hooke does.’ He smiled at Hooke to show there had been no offence intended. I mention this exchange both to show how readily these gentlemen shared their ideas, and where the origins of two of my most curious recipes came from. The public, I am aware, think that those particular confections prove I am a little, mad, and there was much joking and adverse comment when they became known; all I can say is that those who sneer at their strangeness have not tried them, and that as well as being fashionable they are remarkably good.

Soon it was time for them to repair to a meeting of their Society, and to my great pleasure they invited me to accompany them as their guest. I have to say that I could not understand much of what was discussed that night. There was a debate about whether

an opaceous or foggy air was heavier than a clear one; Hooke passed around some beautiful drawings of snowflakes, which he had caught on the felt of his new hat and observed with his microscope; there was a letter read by Henshaw on the unravelling of a dormouse’s testicle, and a lengthy discussion about why a door that does not stick in summer sometimes sticks in winter. Wren described a way to make a smoking chimney sweet, and they debated a paper on motion. Finally, they performed an experiment, devised by Hooke, to blow air into the lungs of a flsh; to my surprise, the king himself was present for this part of the evening.

‘Signor Demirco,’ he said, catching sight of me. ‘I was not aware that you were a philosopher.’

‘Sir, some of the Fellows of your Society have been helping me to create a better ice cream.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘This is the dish for my feast, I take it? The one that is to be dedicated to Mademoiselle de Keroualle?’

I hesitated - and then nodded. ‘Indeed, this will be a fitting dish to dedicate to that lady. For it is a dish, not just of one flavour, but which is capable of being many flavours, depending on what you choose to put in it. One day it might be strawberries, another peaches, and another nuts or posset or tea. Only the texture is always the same: cold and hard in the bowl, it melts on your tongue like the softest of creams—’

‘An ice that is cold in the bowl, but yields in the mouth?’ he said with a smile. ‘Indeed, signor, it sounds very appropriate. I shall look forward to trying it.’

Later, as we left, I expressed surprise to Boyle at seeing the king in that company.

‘Oh, he attends quite regularly,’ Boyle assured me. He was accompanied now by his niece; she had come to meet him, she said, as on Society evenings he was Hable to forget that he was infirm, and spend all night in philosophical debate unless she was

there to fetch him home. ‘Every day, no matter what affairs of state he has to deal with, His Majesty performs at least one experiment. He is an able chemist, as it happens.’

The freeness of the discourse emboldened me to say something further, that had been on my mind recently.

‘I was told,^ I said, ‘before I came to this country, that Charles was a weak-willed and effeminate ruler. I have seen myself how he surrounds himself with drunken oafs and self-interested ministers. And yet he seems to me to be a charming, and indeed a clever, man.’

‘Rochester has the liberty to be offensive, and Harvey has the liberty to dissect the human brain,’ Boyle said. ‘Perhaps they are much the same thing, at heart.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I met Galileo once. I was a young man, studying my way around the universities of Europe, and he was under house arrest in Elorence. I went to see him, but by then he had lost his mind, thanks in no small part to the way he had been treated by the authorities. England has many faults, but that, at least, could not happen here. I don’t think it can be a coincidence that we now have among us scholars such as Halley, Harvey and their ilk.’

‘Not to mention Boyle,’ his niece murmured.

He made an impatient gesture. ‘I might have done some useful work, were it not for my infirmity.’ •

‘You are too modest, uncle. Your vacuum pump—’

‘A start, nothing more.’

We had reached his carriage now, and the footman came round to help him up. ‘Thank you, Edwards,’ he said, settling himself with a sigh. ‘I was not always so frail,’ he added to me. ‘An apoplectic seizure. What they like to call a stroke of God’s hand. Although I had always imagined that His caress might be rather more gentle than this was. Would you'like those pamphlets.^’

It took me a moment to recall what pamphlets he was talking about: earlier he had offered me a copy of his 'own publications concerning cold. ‘Indeed.’

‘Good - I will send them. And when you have read them, perhaps we could resume our conversations.’

I should like that very much,’ I said. ‘There are many things I would like to understand better about what I do. It may take someone like yourself, I think — a natural philosopher — to unpick them.’ ,

He nodded. ‘In my present condition, it is just the sort of investigation I should undertake. We will leave the secrets of the cosmos to others for a few months, perhaps, and eat ice creams. What do you say, Elizabeth?’

Elizabeth was placing a blanket over his legs. ‘I do not think it sounds so very trifling, to be sloshing about in ice-cold water.’

She stepped back, and I noticed that she smiled in a familiar way at the footman, Edwards. To my surprise, he smiled back, equally familiar. It was clear to me that there was some kind of romantic intimacy between them, something that on another occasion would have shocked me. But I had heard, and seen, so many strange things that night that I simply found myself thinking, ‘Why not?’

After Boyle had driven off I walked back towards the river, deep in thought - not least about what he had said. For it was certainly true that there was something the people in this country all had in common, from the Honourable Robert Boyle right down to Hannah Crowe. It was not pride exactly, although it was something they were proud of; it was not stubbornness, although they were certainly capable of being stubborn about it if they chose. Rather, it was a fierce regard for getting to the truth of a matter; a love of disputation, and a refusal to accept another person’s point of view without first robustly testing it against your own, just as a coin might be bitten, bent, and finally flung to the ground to test its metde, before being accepted with a grudging ‘Very well.’ For such a quarrelsome and libertarian people, perhaps government by debate was not such a bad idea after all.

I had noticed, when I began to read books and newspapers in English, that whenever they wrote the word denoting the person giving his opinion - ‘I’ - they habitually used a capital letter, as if to stress its importance. This, of course,'was not something that a Frenchman or an Italian would ever do with je or me. At first this had struck me as just another example, almost an amusing one, of the presumption of the common people here, who each considered their own opinion as good as anyone else’s.

There was a fashion amongst them, I had been told, for writing diaries: not necessarily for publication, but simply to give their fleeting thoughts a lasting form. That, too, had struck me as comical. But perhaps I had been too quick to draw these conclusions. Perhaps an ordinary person’s opinion really could be of as much interest as the judgements of great men: perhaps, indeed, the only difference between great men and others was that great men took the trouble to form those opinions in the first place ... I realised that my head was buzzing, but whether it was from the effects of so much coffee, or so many new ideas, I could not have said.

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