Egg cream

Egg cream
Type Fountain beverage
Country of origin United States
Ingredients Flavored syrup, milk, soda water

An egg cream is a beverage consisting of milk, carbonated water, and flavored syrup (typically chocolate or vanilla). Despite the name, the drink contains neither eggs nor cream.

The egg cream is almost exclusively a fountain drink. Although there have been several attempts to bottle it, none has been wholly successful, as its fresh taste and characteristic head require mixing of the ingredients just before drinking.

Origin theories and speculations

The ingredients of an egg cream: chocolate syrup, seltzer, and whole milk

Most writing on the egg cream assumes that it originated among Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. This has led to a variety of theories to explain the widely noted paradox that the New York City egg cream is made with neither eggs nor cream.

Stanley Auster, the grandson of the beverage's alleged inventor, has been quoted as saying that the origins of the name are lost in time.[1] One commonly accepted origin is that egg is a corruption of the German word echt — also found in Yiddish, meaning "genuine" or "real" — and this was a "good cream".

Food historian Andrew Smith writes: "During the 1880s, a popular specialty was made with chocolate syrup, cream, and raw eggs mixed into soda water, In poorer neighborhoods, a less expensive version of this treat was created, called the Egg Cream (made without the eggs or cream)."[2]

Another explanation comes from reports that it grew out of a request for chocolat et crème from someone, possibly the actor Boris Thomashefsky[3] who had experienced a similar drink in Paris, which name morphed phonetically into the current version.

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.

In Indonesia, a soda gembira (literally, "happy soda") consists of soda water, sweetened condensed milk, and grenadine. It can use cola instead of soda water as a mega mendung ("Rain Clouds").

Milkis, a beverage made by the Korean Company, Lotte Chilsung, is also a sweet-soda-milk drink. It is a citrusy soda base mixed with a little milk. Milkis comes in a variety of flavors, including strawberry, orange, and muskmelon.

A Smith and Curran (or Smith and Kearns) is an alcoholic beverage, developed in North Dakota during the mid-20th-century oil boom, made of coffee liqueur, cream, and soda water. Other alcoholic cocktail variants that make use of eggs include the sour, the fizz and the flip. Rompope is a similar type of beverage from Mexico.

Celebration

To celebrate the egg cream and the many handmade drinks of the soda fountain, a group of independent soda fountain operators have declared March 15 as National Egg Cream Day.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John F. Mariani (1999), Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, Lebhar-Friedman:New York
  2. ↑ p. 111 Smith, Andrew F. New York City: A Food Biography, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014
  3. ↑ p. 203 Gould, Jillian Candy Stores and Egg Creams in Jews of Brooklyn UPNE, 2002
  4. ↑ "www.eggcreamday.com". www.eggcreamday.com.
  • Egg cream on h2g2
  • Michael and Jane Stern (Jul 10, 1985). "Egg Cream is a delicacy at candy store in Bronx". The Evening Independent. p. 3B. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  • Wharton, Rachel. "The Return of The Egg Cream (radio episode)". Brooklyn Eats. Heritage Radio Network. Archived from the original on 14 January 2011. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
  • Origins of the Egg Cream
  • "The True Origins of the Egg Cream," by Daniel Bell
  • Egg cream recipe from H. Fox & Co.
  • Egg Cream recipe
  • "Gerritsen Beach
  • National Egg Cream Day
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