Does anyone have a good idea which was first between ice cream and iced cream?

OED says iced cream was earlier.

What dates does it have?

Entering :"Ice cream” history: in your web browser will bring up a host of sites offering what purport to be historical data. Few are as meticulous about citations as the OED. Many are, nonetheless, interesting.

I can no longer write “googling”, when I speak of using a search engine: Google pages have, in recent days/weeks, begun to appear (regardless of what I do) on my computer screen written entirely in a non-European language. I don’t recognize it offhand, but I think it may be Thai. Or some Indian language. I have to use, for search, what the computer offers me in English: something called “Bing” (my computer’s a Mac, my browser—Safari; myself, all but computer illiterate)

(EDIT) On second thoughts, I suppose I should have posted that second paragraph in “Meta Discussion” - or perhaps, not at all. My apologies if anyone takes my confusion amiss.

Here’s the entry for “ice cream”:

A compound of flavoured and sweetened cream or custard, congealed by being stirred or revolved in a vessel surrounded by a freezing mixture. (Earlier term, iced cream.)

1744 in Pennsylvania Mag. Hist. & Biogr. (1877) I. 126 Among the rarities..was some fine ice cream, which, with the strawberries and milk, eat most deliciously.

and “iced”:

1. Covered with ice; cooled by means of ice.

1673 J. Ray Observ. Journey Low-countries 267 Many..with a barrel at their backs and glasses in their hands, crying Acqua ghiacciata, or Acqua nevata. i.e. Snowed water or iced water.

1688 London Gaz. No. 2383/2, All such Fruits, Iced Creams, and such other Varieties as the Season afforded.

lionello - 28 June 2012 10:52 PM

Entering :"Ice cream” history: in your web browser will bring up a host of sites offering what purport to be historical data. Few are as meticulous about citations as the OED. Many are, nonetheless, interesting.

I can no longer write “googling”, when I speak of using a search engine: Google pages have, in recent days/weeks, begun to appear (regardless of what I do) on my computer screen written entirely in a non-European language. I don’t recognize it offhand, but I think it may be Thai. Or some Indian language. I have to use, for search, what the computer offers me in English: something called “Bing” (my computer’s a Mac, my browser—Safari; myself, all but computer illiterate)

(EDIT) On second thoughts, I suppose I should have posted that second paragraph in “Meta Discussion” - or perhaps, not at all. My apologies if anyone takes my confusion amiss.

You may have fallen prey to a search hijacker. If so run the free version of MalwareBytes and it will fix it in a jiffy. Alternatively, if malware isn’t the culprit, try changing your Google search settings manually. Run any Google search, doesn’t matter what it is or the language it’s using. On the results page you’ll see a cog on the top right hand of the page. Click that and in the popup menu that appears click Search Settings.  On the page that comes up you’ll see a Languages option on the left. Click that and then choose English.

Thank you, aldi. It wasn’t malware - only ignorance on my part. Yuor suggestion worked like a charm.

I’ve no idea, though, why my language choices wandered from their original settings in the first place. Perhaps during one of the cat’s occasional promenades across my keyboard (she does this when she’s hungry).

1744 in Pennsylvania Mag. Hist. & Biogr. (1877) I. 126 Among the rarities..was some fine ice cream, which, with the strawberries and milk, eat most deliciously.

Is this a now-defunct usage of eat, or is there something missing there?
It could also simply be a usage I’m not familiar with, I suppose.

I think this is eat, v. 5, in OED.

5. intr. with pass. force (chiefly with adj. or adv.): To have a certain consistence of flavour when eaten.

1607 E. Topsell Hist. Fovre-footed Beastes 46 Being dressed they eate like Barbles.
a1616 Shakespeare All’s Well that ends Well (1623) i. i. 158 Like one of our French wither’d peares..it eates drily.
1682 J. Collins Salt & Fishery 6 A Chine of this Beef..Eat with a savour like Marrow.
1766 O. Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield I. xvi. 158 If the cakes at tea eat short and crisp.

No modern cites there and it certainly has an archaic feel.

[edit: I see I was pipped (more or less) by aldi, but I’ll leave what I wrote in FWIW.]

I think it is a largely defunct usage.  Wordnik has, as one of the many meanings of eat, the following: to taste; relish, as, it eats like the finest peach.

This particular definition was culled from the “century dictionary and cyclopedia.
I have no idea when, if ever, this particular usage of “eat” was common, but it is certainly not common today.  However, one can run across it every now and then.  I seem to recall that Campell’s had a slogan along the lines that its soup “eats like a meal”, in this expression, it is the soup, not the soup-taster, that"eats", even though we know that the soup is being eaten.  Whether this slogan was a “call back” to an older sense of the word, or an independent, modern, coinage is something that I couldn’t begin to say.

[Further edit: it also occurs to me that the “eats like a meal” usage is a bit different than the others.  In the others, eat refers to the taste or flavor of the food.  In the soup slogan, eat refers to being filled up or satisfied as if one had eaten a meal.  But the usages are broadly analogous in that “eat” refers to experiencing something as a result of the act of eating rather than directly to the act of eating.]

Before this thread wanders too far astray I’ll thank lh, Lionello, and the estimable Ms D for their contributions.

I can no longer write “googling”, when I speak of using a search engine: Google pages have, in recent days/weeks, begun to appear (regardless of what I do) on my computer screen written entirely in a non-European language. I don’t recognize it offhand, but I think it may be Thai. Or some Indian language. I have to use, for search, what the computer offers me in English: something called “Bing” (my computer’s a Mac, my browser—Safari; myself, all but computer illiterate)

For now, “to google” seems to remain the only common verb of that kind. Is anyone saying “to bing”? There’s nothing you can bing that can’t be bung.