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.