It was Black Innovators who made ice cream amazing and available for all Americans

Finally sharing this fab article written earlier this year by lifestyle journalist and author, Maria Hunt and featuring some of my "coolest" (get it?) culinary history work:  "3 Black Pioneers Who Made Ice Cream What It Is Today"

In it I got to dish out lots of scoop on three long overlooked (yet crucial!) contributors to America's enduring ice cream scene: James Hemings (America's first Chef de Cuisine -- albeit enslaved at the time -- who intros vanilla ice cream to the states), Augustus Jackson (ingenious ice cream entrepreneur, aka "The Father of Ice Cream") and inventor Alfred Cralle who created the ice cream scoop itself. Read Maria's magnificent piece here (or click the pic below) but be forewarned you might wanna make sure your fridge is stocked with some a that ice cold creamy confection first!)

“Ice cream's one of those ...whitewashed things where they basically wrote Black people out of the history,” says Tonya Hopkins, aka The Food Griot, a food historian in New York. “Before there were mechanical ice cream makers, Black people were literally the ice cream makers!” ~ article excerpt

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Tonya Hopkins, aka The Food Griot, founded the nonfiction story-telling platform, “The Food Griot: Sharing Savory Stories on The Makings of American Cuisine, (Cocktails)…” She has researched and written for several scholarly and consumer publications and appears regularly on radio and television. Her work in culinary history activism aims to help disenfranchised, mostly black and brown food/drink industry professionals achieve greater inclusion, equity and wholesome empowerment. Follow @TheFoodGriot on: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.