Recipes are primary sources, and like other primary sources, they can tell us many things about the past: what resources were available to a particular group, that group's economic status, what daily life was like in that time period, what was valued by a particular cultural group and so much more. In this lesson, students read and analyze an 18th-century ice cream recipe and use critical thinking, inferences, and prior knowledge to answer a variety of questions that require reading, math and historical knowledge, in flexible, cooperative groups.  More

Most ice cream molds were made of pewter. Molds in the shapes of other foods, such as fruits, asparagus, and fish, were very popular. Some molds were more non-descript ornate shapes. Ice cream would be packed tightly into the mold to form the shape. More