Emy, M.

Emy, M., wrote the first book entirely dedicated to making ice cream, L’art de bien faire les glaces d’office (The Art of Making Ices for the Confectionery Kitchen), published in 1786 and written for professionals. Although the book is renowned, its author is a mystery. Presumed to be male (in mid-eighteenth-century France, a woman would not likely have been accepted as a professional confectioner and author), Emy is known only by his surname; his first name and dates of birth and death are nowhere recorded. His writing, however, reveals that he was a perfectionist—serious, opinionated, and passionate.