Preface to the First Edition

The almost invariable response when people find out that I am an ice-cream scientist is: “What a great job! But is there science in ice cream? Do you invent new flavours?” As a physicist I don’t invent new flavours, but my job does involve, amongst other things, inventing new textures. To explain this I normally briefly describe what ice cream is made of and how this relates to the texture you experience when you eat it. Fortunately, almost everybody likes ice cream, so, unlike most other areas of research in which I have worked, I usually manage to finish explaining the science before the listener’s eyes glaze over. In fact ice cream is a great vehicle for talking about science. My colleagues and I regularly receive invitations to speak to schools, science societies and at events such as the Cambridge Science Festival and National Science Week. These talks have proved popular (I hope not only because of the free samples), and as a result I have received requests to write articles for journals such as Education in Chemistry and Physics Education, and to help with material for the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. So when the RSC asked me whether I thought there would be a market for a book on The Science of Ice Cream I felt confident enough that there would be to agree to write one.

The aim of this book is to show that there is lots of science in ice cream, and in particular to demonstrate the link between the microscopic structure and the macroscopic properties. It is naturally biased towards physics, physical chemistry and materials science as these are the areas in which I trained. The book is aimed at schools and universities, and a scientific background is required to understand the more technical sections. I have attempted to make it readable by 16–18 year olds, and many sections are suitable for adaptation by GCSE science teachers. I have unashamedly made reference to giants of chemistry and physics such as Newton, Einstein, Boyle, Gibbs, Kelvin, Laplace and Young where the laws and equations that bear their names are relevant. I hope that as a result teachers reading this book will find in ice cream useful illustrations of a number of scientific principles. Some sections could be used with younger pupils, especially Chapter 8, which describes experiments on ice cream that can mostly be performed without specialist equipment in a classroom or kitchen. This book should also provide a useful introduction to ice cream for someone who has recently joined the food industry but I nonetheless hope that it will be accessible to any interested reader who is prepared to skip the most technical sections. I have included a glossary to explain the technical terminology.

I could not have written this book without the assistance of a large number of people. Firstly I would like to thank Unilever for permission to publish it. My colleagues at Unilever Colworth have provided data, images and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Laurie Bender, Allan Bramley, Deryck Cebula, Bruno Chavez, Andrew Cox, Paul Doehren, Viki Evans, Dudley Ferdinando, Dick Franklin, Andy Hoddle, Martin Izzard, Danny Keenan, Mark Kirkland, Linda Jamieson, Dan Jarvis, Jean-Yves Mugnier, Tricia Quail, Andrew Russell, Susie Turan and Paul Trusty. Javier Aldazabal from CEIT, San Sebastian, Spain, WCB Ice Cream, and the London Canal Museum kindly supplied images. Elsevier Science, IOP Publishing Ltd, Microscopy and Analysis and The Royal Society of Chemistry gave their permission to reproduce previously published material. Finally I would like to thank my wife Alexandra for reading the draft, my mother Lorrie and my niece Charlotte for trying out the experiments and my son Theo, whose arrival nearly provided sufficient impetus for me to finish the book!