01 Jul, 2021
Believe it or not, ice cream sundaes may have originated as a way to get around doing something illegal. The general idea goes like this: Ice cream sundaes are the direct result of Blue Laws; religious laws in the United States that restrict activities that could be considered sinful. One example of a Blue Law is the ban on the sale of liquor in certain places on Sundays. In the late 1800s, there was another Blue Law on the books that made it illegal to sell soda on Sunday. Some religious groups were against what they called “sucking sodas” and felt that this activity should be banned on the Sabbath. This ban on Sunday soda sales was a big problem for anyone who enjoyed root beer floats or other ice cream sodas. At the time, pharmacists were doing a booming business in ice cream sodas at their pharmacy counters and needed another way to sell ice cream to their customers on hot Sunday afternoons. Their solution was to put the ice cream in a dish, replace the soda with chocolate sauce and put a cherry on top. Now drizzling chocolate sauce over ice cream and topping it with a cherry seems like a simple, intuitive decision, however, the spelling of Sunday also had to be changed to sundae to avoid offending the devoutly religious who still took a dim view of a pile of ice cream and syrup being named after the Sabbath. Then comes the debate over the actual birthplace of the first real ice cream sundae. With more than a century of colorful history, this dessert is actually a pretty big deal among historians and ice cream lovers alike. Over the years, a handful of cities have claimed to be the proud originators of the ice cream sundae, but two cities in particular, Ithaca, New York and Two Rivers, Wisconsin, have actually engaged in a decades-long feud about which one first invented the sundae. The folks of Two Rivers, Wisconsin claim that Ed Berners, a soda fountain owner back in 1881, had a customer named George Hallauer, who dropped in and wanted an ice cream float on a hot summer Sunday. Because it was the Sabbath, Berners had to compromise and put the chocolate soda syrup on top of the ice cream. Hallauer liked it, and the ice cream sundae was born.” At the same time, a certain crunchy college town in upstate New York begs to differ with that claim. Officials in Ithaca, New York say that on Sunday, April 3, 1892, the Reverend John Scott of the local Unitarian Church dropped by the Platt & Colt Pharmacy after services to enjoy a bowl of ice cream with the shop’s owner, Chester Platt. Instead of the usual unadorned scoops of vanilla, Platt decided to add cherry syrup and a candied cherry to each serving of ice cream. Platt named his creation the “Cherry Sunday” in honor of the day. Realizing he had a hit on his hands, he advertised the dish in the local newspaper, but changed the name of his dish to “sundae” to avoid offending the good reverend and the church. The folks in Ithaca maintain that their story trumps Two Rivers’ for one big reason: evidence. A pair of local high schoolers rooted around in the town archives and came up with a solid paper trail that includes an 1892 newspaper advertisem*nt, a newspaper article about Platt’s Sundaes, a letter from the shop’s clerk, and a store ledger proving Platt had all the ingredients necessary. But, despite a lack of solid evidence, the folks of Two Rivers remain staunchly convinced of their claim. One resident was even quoted as telling The New York Times in 2006 that: “Everybody knows Two Rivers invented it, that’s why we’re all so fat here. We eat a lot of them.” Luckily, a definitive answer isn’t required to enjoy one!
