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Flashback
To The
Soda
Fountains |
| On hot
summer days, when I was a child, my parents would treat us kids to a
chocolate ecreme at the luncheonette or pharmacy soda fountain.
Just about all of them had one at the front of the store. There were big, glass-covered, footed cake plates, filled with wonderful sweets - pie, cake, donuts, all ready to be washed down with New York's famous ecremes. On a hot day, a malted, milkshake or banana split was heaven. I loved the real seltzer from the fountain - served in a large Coke glass in a stainless steel holder. It only cost a dime. Seltzer, in those days, contained sodium - a big no-no today, but the sodium added to it's unique flavor. I'm still a big seltzer drinker, but nothing compares to the original, sprayed into a big glass, and the feeling of zillions of bubbles exploding in your mouth. There are very few
soda fountains left - they've gone the way of the diner and Mom-and-Pop
candy stores, being replaced by the big boys - Carvel, Friendly's,
designer frozen yogurt bars, etc. The following is a little
trivia and some pics that I hope you will enjoy. |
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If you have never had a New York Ecreme (aka Egg Cream) then you are truly in for a treat. It was a soda produced almost exclusively in the soda fountains of New York (particularly Brooklyn, my native land). There are no eggs in an ecreme. Many "Egg Creams" don't even contain cream. It does contain chocolate, seltzer, and either milk, cream, or both. When made correctly, the taste is absolutely wonderful, and completely different than any soda on the market today. There are other chocolate soda beverages on the market, but they all taste like chocolate milk made with water. These do not even come close to the complex and wonderfully- delightful taste of an Egg Cream. According to an article published in Esquire Magazine in the 1970's, the Egg Cream was invented in 1890 by Louis Auster, a Jewish candy shop owner in Brooklyn, New York. The beverage was extremely popular, and the candy shop (eventually five candy shops) would be standing room only. Lines would form down the street and around the corner, and according to the article, this started a tradition of drinking the egg cream while standing -- never sitting. During
the 1920's (or maybe the 30's), Mr. Auster was approached by a national
ice cream chain, and they offered to buy the rights to the Egg
Cream for a fairly small sum. When Mr. Auster turned them down, one of the
executives called him by a racial slur, and Mr. Auster vowed to take the
Egg Cream formula to his grave. Furthermore, he also instructed the few
relatives that knew the secret formula to do the same -- and they all
did just exactly that. The only surviving member of the Auster family
that still knows the secret is Mr. Auster's grandson, Stanley Auster,
and he too has vowed never to reveal the secret. However, Stanley Auster
has been quoted as saying that the original Egg Other
soda fountain operators began selling they're own versions of the Egg
Cream. Initially, each of the different soda fountains produced widely
different versions of the Egg Cream, but eventually a formula consisting
of seltzer water (3/4 of a glass), chocolate syrup (usually Fox's U-Bet,
or Bosco, 1-2 oz.), and either cream or milk (not too much) was settled
upon. The Egg Cream remained a product sold only through New York soda
fountains for many years. The reason for this was that bottled versions
were impossible to make. The cream, chocolate, and soda had a
tendency to separate and to go bad after a couple days at best, and
efforts to pasteurize or preserve the product ruined the taste. |
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