Neapolitan Cakes

While people may know about the tri-colored Neapolitan ice cream (past post HERE) there once was a notable layer cake.  Neapolitan Cakes were showy multilayer cakes of bright colors, different flavors and icings for each layer. Same name, but an 1846 cake of 12 thin layers with whipped cream up the center was created by Queen Victoria's chef Francatelli, left.

Neapolitan or Harlequin ice cream

The tri-colored Neapolitan ice cream was/is generally white, pink/red and chocolate like the 1806 Naples flag or other colors.  Add pistachio ice cream to make Harlequin ice cream.

Selling Ice Cream in 1850s Philadelphia - Street criers, Saloons, Parkinson, and Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton - not the Sir Isaac one - was a farmer, owned an ice cream saloon, and later became the first Commissioner (Director) of the Dept. of Agriculture in DC, created by Lincoln in 1862. He was a competitor of the more famous Parkinson family: Eleanor wrote a cookbook in 1844 and opened a saloon in 1818, and her son James a famed restaurateur, created a $1000 dinner, and for 20 years wrote in the Confectioners' Journal.

Moravian meals... "the piece" in the morning

Moravians started a community in Bethlehem, Pa. in 1741.   The members gathered several times a day to eat: breakfast at 6, "the piece" or mid-morning lunch/snack at 9, dinner at noon, vespers at 2, and supper at 6.  In 1906 Pennsylvania "the piece" was still kept and reluctantly allowed in the coal mines.

Nesselrode Pudding (ice cream) created by Careme... or was it Mony?

The story goes that the renowned French chef Careme created this ice cream for Russian statesman Nesselrode in 1814 after Napoleon's defeat.  In 1828 Careme tried to gain credit saying his boiled chestnut pudding inspired a Parisian chef Mr. Mony (or Monni, Nesselrode's cook).  It worked and Mony was forgotten for 30 years until his recipe was in Gouffe's cookbook; and now is mostly forgotten.