Creative Ice Cream Making: Telling Stories With Flavor With Hannah Spiegelman
In this four-part seminar, learn the basics of making ice cream and explore using it as a vehicle for storytelling.
Course Description
A spoon can hold history; if you’re paying attention, intermingling flavors, textures, and colors can bring old stories to life in new, surprising, and delicious ways. Lavender, rose, and balsamic ice cream might twist together to evoke a four thieves remedy from plagues of the past; an olive leaf Greek yogurt popsicle and snake candy can bring to life the mythos of Medusa.
Join historian and ice cream artist Hannah Spiegelman for a workshop on ice cream–based storytelling. We’ll begin by tracing the connections between food and memory, food and experience, and food and public history, exploring the benefits of using ice cream as a storytelling medium. Then we’ll walk through the basic science of making ice cream before mapping out concepts and building flavors. By the end of this course, not only will you have created a narrative ice cream flavor of your own, but you’ll also have a new, interactive way of engaging with what’s on your plate—or rather, dripping down your cone.
Gastro Obscura Courses: delving deep into the world’s culinary curiosities with expert instructors.
Syllabus At A Glance
There are four total sessions included in this purchase, each lasting for 1.5 hours.
Summer Section C: Meets Wednesdays starting September 22.
Session 1 (Wednesday, 9/22, 7:00–8:30 PM ET): Storytelling With Food: Food and memory, experience, and public history
Session 2 (Wednesday, 9/29, 7:00–8:30 PM ET): The History and Science of Making Ice Cream: Materials, ingredients, and basic science
Session 3 (Wednesday, 10/6, 7:00–8:30 PM ET): Crafting a Flavor: Planning and workshopping
Session 4 (Wednesday, 10/13, 7:00–8:30 PM ET): Show & Tell: Sharing our flavors and the stories behind them
Fall Section A: Meets Sundays starting Octover 17.
Session 1 (Sunday, 10/17, 1-2:30 PM ET): Storytelling With Food: Food and memory, experience, and public history
Session 2 (Sunday, 10/24, 1-2:30 PM ET): The History and Science of Making Ice Cream: Materials, ingredients, and basic science
Session 3 (Sunday, 10/31, 1-2:30 PM ET): Crafting a Flavor: Planning and workshopping
Session 4 (Sunday, 11/7, 1-2:30 PM ET): Show & Tell: Sharing our flavors and the stories behind them
Between Sessions
Students will be given recipes, flavor samples and their corresponding stories, and short readings between sessions.
Course Materials
Students who wish to make flavors during class should have, or consider purchasing:
- Ice Cream Maker : $60-80
- Ingredients: $10-30
Pricing Options
If you are unable to pay the ticket price for this course, a limited number of no-pay spots are available to increase accessibility for students, regardless of economic situation. Please note that this option is first-come, first-served, and reserved for those who would not otherwise be able to take this course. To learn more about our approach to pricing, including no-pay options, please visit our FAQ page.
Atlas Obscura Online Courses
This online course is offered by Atlas Obscura. Founded in 2009, Atlas Obscura created the definitive, community-driven guide to the most incredible places on the planet and is now an award-winning travel company that shares the world’s hidden wonders in person and online. Our online courses offer opportunities for participants to emerge with new skills, knowledge, connections, and perspectives through multi-session classes designed and taught by expert instructors. Courses can take one of two forms: Seminars are intimate, interactive classes—capped at nine to 25 students—exploring topics and crafts through discussion, workshops, assignments, and in-class activities. We also offer lecture series that can be attended live, or viewed via a recording that will be shared within 72 hours after each session airs. Class recordings for lecture series will be available with a temporary password for up to two weeks following the final session of the course.
To learn more about our current course offerings, please visit www.atlasobscura.com/online-courses.
For answers to commonly asked questions, check out our FAQ page here.
Once registered, you’ll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite that will provide access to the class meeting. Please save the confirmation email as you’ll use it to access your course via Zoom on each scheduled date and time.
Hannah Spiegelman started A Sweet History in February 2017 as a way to connect her academic background in history and art history with her burgeoning passion for ice cream and love for flavor. Since then, she has been creating ice cream flavors inspired by people and places in the past. By using ice cream as her artistic medium, Hannah’s flavors tell stories that are lesser known or ignored. A Sweet History’s flavors encourage curiosity and learning and can be seen as delicious and edible educational tools. Hannah works on collaborations, museum workshops, and commissions. In 2020, Hannah received her masters in gastronomy from Boston University after spending the first part of quarantine writing a thesis on ice cream consumption landscapes in 19th century America. When she is not thinking about or eating ice cream, Hannah enjoys making cocktails, reading, exploring art museums, and hanging out with her cat, Jo.
Photo credit: Sarah Hummel
This is an interactive, small-group, seminar-style course that meets over Zoom. Students may be invited to participate in discussions, workshop their projects, and receive feedback from the course instructor.
In most cases, instructors will use Google Classroom to communicate with students outside of class. While students aren’t required to use Classroom, instructors will be using this platform to post resources, discussion questions, and assignments, when applicable.
We provide closed captioning for all of our courses, as well as transcripts upon request. Please reach out to us at experiences@atlasobscura.com if you have any questions, requests, or access needs.
There are 25 spots available on this experience.
