Author:
I'm looking for a story that I probably read on this site.
Mankind has just started to get time travel reliably working. A university professors team goes back to France then England to do some research on an English war, maybe around the 17th or 18th century. One of the university techs pulls a stupid prank and has the professor, who will pose as the wife, materialize with HUGE breasts.
Two people are sent back, posing as the cousin of a noble (count?) in London who gambles like crazy and is about to be foreclosed on, plus his wife. They travel to London. Their stagecoach is robbed, but the couple takes out the band of thieves. When they arrive in London they purchase the house, assume the count's debts, etc. The house only has a few servants and the counts wife and daughter at that point.
I could rattle on for quite a bit more. But one distinctive bit of the story is that the professor teaches the cook to make ice cream making use of salt to provide cooling. The ice cream is served at a party where the new count and countess great the other nobles of London.
Can anyone tell me the title and author of this story?
Comments
Interesting Times by Dawn Natelle Maybe?
Was it this one?
Interesting Times
Yay. You found it for me.
I have long lost track of how many times I have read Dawn Natalie's A Second Chance but I have also frequently read Interesting Times.
I am surprised I couldn't spot it in my long list of BCTS books I might want to read again. I have now added a description to the story to trigger my memory.
Not sure of the story…….
But I just wanted to explain that salt is not “used for cooling”. The salt lowers the freezing point of water - it doesn’t make it colder.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Using salt for the cooling process to make ice cream
Here is how it is described in the book. It looks like the process would work to me. Do feel free to comment. I have a B.Sc. in physics and if you don't think the described process would work I would love to know why. I love learning stuff like this.
Abigail was up fairly early in the morning, planning her first ‘At Home’ when a delivery was made to the kitchen. Delilah came up and told her that her order from the tinsmith was here. Abi hurried down to the kitchen, and decided that what she had received was perfect for its intended use. She immediately had half the kitchen staff go to the icehouse and break off blocks of ice, enclosing the blocks with cloths, and then using hammers, heavy pans, or other implements to smash the ice.
Meanwhile, Delilah and another undercook started making a mixture in the smaller tins. Cream, some milk, sugar, and a berry flavoring were put into the tins in what Abi hoped were the right proportions.
“You cannot add ice to this,” Delilah said. “I understand that this is river ice, and it will contaminate the food.
“We will only use the ice to chill the mixture,” Abi said. Put the lids on the tins, and give them a good shake to mix them up well. Then put them into the big pot, which we need to move into the icehouse.
The crushed ice was poured into the big pot, and came a third of the way up the sides of the tins. A heavy layer of salt was then poured onto the ice, and the staff went back to crush more ice. Another layer of ice, then another layer of salt, to the dismay of Delilah at the expense of the salt. Finally a third layer of ice went on top, taking the ice to the level of the mixture in the tins.
“Now we leave it,” Abi said. “Every hour have someone go in to stir the contents of the tin, until you no longer can. A couple hours after that it will be ready. Hopefully in time for my ‘At home’. Make sure you have some other goodies for the ladies, in case I got the mixture wrong, or it doesn’t turn out.”
“What is it?” the cook asked.
“Have you heard of ice cream?” Abigail asked.
Delilah gasped. “I thought only the king’s cook knew how to make that,” she said. “How did you ever learn to make it?”
“In Italy, but they call it gelato there. I was lucky enough to make friends with a cook in a chalet, and he showed me the secret.”
Not only have I made ice cream before……
But I also have an MS in Chemical Engineering. I would say that trumps your BS in physics.
I never said that it wouldn’t work - what I said is that the salt does not reduce the temperature. The ice does that. The salt merely reduces the freezing temperature of water, which helps the ice to chill the ice cream. Basically, under normal circumstances, a mixture of ice and water is at 0 degrees C, or at the freezing point. By adding salt, you lower that freezing point which enables the ice/water mix to get colder.
It is basically the same reason why roads are salted in the winter - to melt the ice and snow by lowering the freezing point of the water. Many locations use liquid urea to do the same thing now, but rock salt is still the primary means utilized for this. It is also why ocean water (which is salt water) does not freeze at the same temperature as fresh water.
Most modern ice cream makers are designed to be placed in your freezer while working rather than using ice and salt, using the freezer to cool the mixture while an electric motor turns the churn. But when I was a child my father and I would make ice cream the old fashioned way with a crank ice cream maker which required you to add ice and salt to chill it while cranking the churn by hand.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Have you noticed how much
Have you noticed how much better the ice cream seems to taste after you have spent your time and effort turning the crank to make it? The electric ice cream makers I have seen were quite noisy and obnoxious.
I agree……
There is just something special about knowing you put in the effort to do it yourself!
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus