Mary Theresa Rakov, age 10, of Brockport, N. Y., for her question:

Who invented ice cream?

Each Year our dairymen make enough ice cream for every person in the United States to have 17 quarts. Of course, some of us eat more and some eat less than our share. The wonderful thing about ice cream is that it is one of those rare foods that is both delicious and good for growing children.

The recipe for this wonderful food was not invented all at once. The manufacturers are still inventing new and tastier recipes, and perhaps the ice cream, of the future will be eyen better than ours  though this is hard to imagine.

The trick in making ice cream is to freeze the recipe to an icy state. For this reason you might suppose that there was no ice cream before refrigerators were invented. But this is not so. The first step, which later led to the invention of ice cream, began in ancient Rome, perhaps 2000 Years ago.

The rich Romans liked to have their wines and certain foods served chilled. They had plenty of slaves to tend them, and runners were often sent up the mountains to bring down snow for a Roman banquet. Sometime later the Italians discovered that salt added to ice and water made the mixture even colder.

Around 1550, certain chefs in Italy used a salt ice and water mixture to freeze custards, creams and fruit juices. Visitors from other countries were charmed by these cooling desserts, and around 1600 an Italian chef decided to try his luck in Paris. His name was Procopio Culfelli, and he took with him his recipes for making the frozen desserts and opened a Cafe in Paris  which was already famous for its fine foods.  Frozen custards and fruit ices soon became popular throughout evrope, but the manufacturers tried to keep their recipes secret from the public. We do not know who it was, but someone brought the recipes to America in the 1700s. A sort of frozen custard. Was served at the White House by hostess Dolly Madison in the Year 1809. The first United States ice cream factory was started in Baltimore by Jacob Fussel in 1851, and the first ice cream cone made its appearance at the St. Louis exposition in 1900.

Nowadays., our delicious and nourishing ice creams are considered an important item in the nation's food and health. For this reason, the Food and Drug Administration of our government sets down rules for the manufacturing of ice cream. For one thing, a frozen dessert sold as ice cream must contain at least 126 butterfat.