It’s Friday and that means we are talking about food.
The ice cream in the picture is called Neapolitan ice cream in English, but has a noble name in German: Fürst-Pückler-Eis - Prince Pückler ice cream.
So, why do the layers of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream are named after a prince? And who was that guy anyway?
Hermann von Pückler-Muskau was born a Count in 1785, in 1822 he was made a Prince by King Frederic William III of Prussia. (It seems Friedrich Wilhelm III has been part of all my posts recently)
Prince Pückler was an extravagant figure of the early 19th century, he studied for a while, traveled a lot, was in debt, married, divorced, took a ride in a hot air balloon, and is buried in a green pyramid. He was a successful writer and an influential landscape and garden architect.
He designed and built the Fürst-Pückler Park in Bad Muskau from 1815 -1845, inspired by the English gardens he encountered during his travels. Since 2004, the park which lies in Germany and in Poland has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Pückler also designed another park around Palace Branitz near Cottbus after he had to sell Castle Muskau because of debt. This is also where you can see the small island with the burial pyramid covered in grass. Both parks can be visited.
But Pückler was also a successful writer. The book about his travels in England where he tried to find a rich wife to alleviate his debts was an immediate bestseller. When he traveled to North Africa (where he bought a young slave girl in 1837, their relationship doesn't seem to be clear), he wrote about his experiences and his travels. He published these books under the pen name Semilasso. His books about landscape design were published under his real name.
But what about the ice cream? The chef at the royal Prussian court, Louis Ferdinand Jungius, mentions the three layered ice cream in his cookbook of 1839. In it, he dedicated the ice cream to Count Pückler. Jungius worked at the Pückler palace in Muskau from 1817-1819. So, he might have invented the ice cream or rather parfait. It then consisted of whipped cream, sugar, and fresh fruit or jam.
It later developed into the three layers of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry (or raspberry) ice cream. The Fürst-Pückler-Schnitte is the three ice cream flavors between two thin waffles, like an ice cream sandwich. If you make an ice cream cake, you’ll call it Fürst-Pückler-Torte.
The Fürst Pückler I ate as a kid was the Langnese Königsrolle.
In English, this ice cream is called Neapolitan ice cream or sometimes Harlequin ice cream.