Egg cream
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An egg cream is a classic New York City beverage consisting of chocolate syrup (usually Fox's U-bet chocolate syrup in New York), milk, and seltzer (soda water), probably dating from the late 19th century, and is especially associated with Brooklyn, home of its alleged inventor, candy store owner Louis Auster.[1][2] [3]It contains neither eggs nor cream.
The egg cream is almost exclusively a fountain drink; although there have been several attempts to bottle it, none have been wholly successful, as its fresh taste and characteristic head requires mixing of the ingredients just before drinking. The drink could be described as a "poor man's ice cream soda," as it has a similar overall flavor, but traditionally sold for only a slight premium over an ordinary fountain soda. Egg creams are sometimes made with other flavors, especially vanilla or strawberry.
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[edit] Name
The origin of the name "egg cream" is constantly debated. Stanley Auster, the grandson of the inventor, has been quoted as saying that the origins of the name are lost in time.[4] One commonly accepted origin is that Egg is a corruption of the Yiddish word echt ("genuine" or "real") and this was a "good cream". It may also have been called an "Egg Cream" because in the late 1800s, there were already many chocolate fountain/dessert drinks using actual eggs (e.g. 'Egg Brin'), and Auster wanted to capitalize on the name.
Another explanation comes from reports that it grew out of a request for "chocolat et crème" from someone who had experienced a similar drink in Paris, which name morphed phonetically into the current version. Yet another plausible answer is that the first version did, in fact, use egg and cream, but due to the food limitations in WWII they were dropped from the recipe. The most likely explanation for the name, however, relates to the fact that the term "egg cream" was a very common term in the past (especially in the United States) for beaten egg whites, and the foam on the top of the beverage resembles these.
[edit] In popular culture
In popular culture, the egg cream is often used to evoke a New York atmosphere, as something New Yorkers would typically drink, as something expatriate New Yorkers would particularly miss, or as something completely alien to people not from New York.
In the children's book Harriet the Spy, set in New York, Harriet orders a chocolate egg cream at a luncheonette. In Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever, egg creams are ordered frequently at Paulie Carbone's candy store in Bensonhurst. In an episode of Who's the Boss, Tony Micelli, an Italian-American from Brooklyn, makes egg creams. In an episode of Hey Arnold! a millionaire loves egg cream so much that he has an egg cream dispensing robot named Mr. Egg Cream. On the long-running children's television program Sesame Street, which is set in New York, Hooper's Store offers egg creams for 25¢.
Jimmy Luxury's I Love Life features a woman reminiscing about the good old days when they used to "..drink egg creams and look at the boom boxes." In William Goldman's novel Marathon Man, Babe longs for an egg cream so much that he leaves his flat, where he is supposed to be hiding from potential attackers. In the film Squirm, a New Yorker has difficulty ordering an egg cream in a small town in Georgia.
On the television show The West Wing, in a scene that highlights a culture clash between the President's New Hampshire and Toby's Brooklyn, the President drinks an egg cream for the first time: "I know it sounds terrible, but trust me, I don't know where this has been all my life." "It's called an egg cream, Mr. President. We invented it in Brooklyn."
On the television show Homicide: Life on the Street, in season 4, episode 9 Detective Frank Pembleton orders an egg cream and becomes upset when he receives what he dubs "not an egg cream."
After the comic book supervillain Black Adam was captured by Captain Marvel, the magic word that gave him his powers was changed from "Shazam!" to "Chocolate egg cream", a phrase he was considered unlikely ever to utter.
Lou Reed, a New Yorker, wrote a song "Egg Cream" for the album Set the Twilight Reeling.
- "When I was a young man, no bigger than this
- A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed
- Some U-Bet's Chocolate Syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk
- Stir it up into a heady fro', tasted just like silk
- You scream, I scream, We all want Egg Cream"
[edit] Similar beverages
Other sweet soda- and milk-based beverages include the Vietnamese soda sữa hột gà, a beverage prepared with sweetened condensed milk, egg yolk, and soda water.
[edit] Sources
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A533792
- ^ http://www.newyorkfirst.com/gifts/1002.html
- ^ http://www.beveragesdirect.com/products/jeffseggcream/
- ^ John F. Mariani, Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, Lebhar-Friedman:New York, 1999.
