The snowball as a frozen dessert originated in New Orleans in the 1930s, when two inventors independently built the first electric ice-shaving machines that could turn a block of ice into something fluffy enough to soak up flavored syrup. If you’re asking about the other kind of snowball, the one you throw, that story goes back at least a thousand years. Here’s what we know about both.
The New Orleans Snowball
The modern snowball traces directly to two New Orleans inventors: George Ortolano and Ernest Hansen. In the 1930s, both men separately designed electric machines that could shave a block of ice into fine, snow-like particles. Before these machines existed, vendors sold flavored ice that was chipped or crushed by hand, producing a coarser, crunchier product. The new machines changed the texture entirely, and that texture is what defines a snowball.
Ortolano’s invention became a commercial product. His descendants still manufacture and sell a version of his original design through the company SnoWizard. Hansen, on the other hand, built machines primarily for personal use. He filed a patent for his ice shaving machine in 1946, and it was granted in 1950. His design used a motor-driven rotary cutter that shaved a block of ice into “substantially fine particles” discharged through a spout into a waiting cup. Hansen’s family went on to open Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, a snowball stand in New Orleans that still operates today and is considered one of the city’s iconic food landmarks.
What Makes a Snowball Different From a Snow Cone
The distinction matters because the two are often confused. A snowball uses finely shaved ice, which creates a light, almost cotton-like texture. That fine shave dramatically increases the surface area of the ice, allowing it to absorb flavored syrup throughout rather than just on top. A snow cone, by contrast, uses crushed ice: chunkier, crunchier pieces that don’t hold onto syrup nearly as well. With a snow cone, you tend to get a pool of syrup at the bottom of the cup and plain ice at the top. A well-made snowball is evenly flavored from the first bite to the last.
New Orleans snowball stands typically offer dozens of syrup flavors, from simple options like cherry and grape to local favorites like nectar cream, wedding cake, and spearmint. Many stands also offer toppings like sweetened condensed milk or cream, which turn the snowball into something closer to a full dessert. A standard serving with syrup alone runs about 70 to 80 calories per ounce of syrup used, nearly all of it from sugar.
Shaved Ice Around the World
New Orleans perfected a specific version, but humans have been shaving ice and adding sweet toppings for centuries. Japanese kakigori dates back to the Heian period (roughly 794 to 1185 AD), when blocks of ice stored from winter were shaved and served with sweet syrup to aristocrats during summer. The tradition is referenced in “The Pillow Book,” a collection of court observations from the era.
Nearly every warm-climate culture developed its own variation. Sicily has granita. Taiwan has tshuah-ping. Korea has bingsu. The Philippines has halo-halo, which actually evolved from Japanese kakigori. Mexico has raspado, Malaysia has ais kacang, and Hawaii has its own shave ice tradition brought by Japanese immigrant workers. Rome has grattachecca, sold from street kiosks along the Tiber. What New Orleans contributed wasn’t the concept of flavored shaved ice but a specific machine-driven texture and a neighborhood stand culture that made snowballs part of daily summer life rather than an occasional treat.
The Other Snowball: Packed Snow
If your question is simpler than all that, the thrown snowball is ancient. Artworks and tapestries depicting people in snowball fights date back to at least the 11th century. One of the more famous early snowball incidents in American history occurred in Boston in 1770, when colonists pelted British soldiers with snow and ice, an escalation that contributed to the Boston Massacre and, by some tellings, helped spark the American Revolution.
The physics of why snow can be packed into a ball at all comes down to a process called sintering. When you squeeze snow in your hands, the pressure slightly melts the surface of individual ice crystals. When you release that pressure, the thin film of water refreezes, bonding the crystals together into a solid mass. This is the same basic mechanism that, over years of accumulated weight, transforms layers of snow into glacial ice. It’s also why very cold, dry snow is harder to pack: there isn’t enough surface melting to create that bond. The best snowball snow is close to freezing and slightly wet.