Background Agricultural Connections
The journey of milk from cows to ice cream begins on a dairy farm. Cows are milked two to three times a day, depnding on the farm management. The milk is pumped into a cooling tank and then into a milk truck to be delivered to the facility where ice cream is made. There, the cream and milk are separated from each other. The basic ingredients—cream, milk, and sugar—are mixed together and then pumped into a pasteurizer, where it is heated. The hot mixture is shot through a homogenizer where pressure breaks down the milkfat into smaller particles. This allows the mixture to stay smooth and creamy. The mixture is sent to a freezer with spinning blades that force air into the mix which prevents the ice cream from freezing solid. The next step is to add flavorings before packaging the ice cream in containers. After mixing in the flavors and other items like chocolate, nuts, and marshmallows, the ice cream is moved to a hardening room where it is frozen. The ice cream is now ready for distribution to stores or restaurants in refrigerated trucks.
Food engineers apply their knowledge of engineering, science, and mathematics to food processing, production, handling, storage, packaging, and distributing food products. They use the engineering design process to solve problems. Augustus Jackson was a former White House chef who engineered a new process for making ice cream using salt in the 1840s in Philadelphia. The salt lowered the temperature of the ice cream allowing it to be kept cold for a longer time. His ice cream was called "Philadelphia Style." This way of making ice cream is still used today. He packaged his ice cream in metal tins and sold the tins to black-owned ice cream parlors in Philadelphia for $1 a quart. Augustus became one of the wealthiest people in the city of Philadelphia. He is also credited with inventing strawberry ice cream and mint ice cream.2