You Got Some Crumbs Around The Mohawk There…..Mind If I Dig In?

Author Michael Turback, who was trained as a restaurateur at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and operated Turback's of Ithaca in New York for nearly three decades, has yet another vision, after already taking us on a mystical journey into the history and origin of the Banana Split and sharing over 150 versions of this dessert that “also reflects our genius for invention, passion for indulgence, and reputation for wackiness.“ and is “like no other dessert in the world--a grand idea that could only be conceived in a place as grand as America." through “The Banana Split Book” and revealing the finest wineries, blueberry farms, maple syrup companies and tea rooms flickering about the Great Lakes in “Greetings From The Finger Lakes”.



Now, Turback is back with a vengeance. Only this time, he’s out to prove that you can tell a little bit about what part of the country you're in by the sundaes on the menu.



According to Turback, as with the banana split, which he even praised as "the Liberace of desserts." the ice cream sundae is as much of an American tradition as baseball, apple pie and whistling underwater. Our history lesson begins in the 1700’s, when this cold culinary concoction finally became what is commonly known as the ice cream we know and love today, centuries after the fifth century B.C when ancient Greeks sold snow cones mixed with honey and fruit in downtown Athens, long after the Persians invented chilled pudding made from rosewater and vermicelli, before the raspberry cream ice recipe was stamped into the 1751 edition of The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy by Hanna Glasse. Back then, it used to only be sold in the richest of households, and it was then-ambassador-to-France Thomas Jefferson's obsession with ice cream that brought new versions of the dessert across the Atlantic. Little did Sir Jefferson realize that resistance was futile, and the colonists seized upon the silky succulence and spread it all across the country, which Turback retraces the footprints from sea to shining sea.

When this book is getting praise from subscriptions as different as Good Housekeeping and Playboy Magazine, you know it’s gotta be good. In fact, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of the term sundae is obscure. Thomas Jefferson is said to have enjoyed maple syrup on a dish of vanilla ice cream, which is similar to a sundae but before the name was said to be invented. However, one popular belief is that the Ice Cream Soda was notorious for its “sinfulness” and there were many calls for a substitute to be made for consumption on Sunday. In fact, Gretchen Sachse of Tompkins County, New York and the DeWitt Historical Society claimed that one hot Sunday afternoon in 1891 in Ithaca, New York, John M. Scott, a Unitarian Church pastor, and Chester Platt, Platt & Colt Pharmacy partner, created the first known sundae, which became known as the “Cherry Sunday“, where Mr. Platt covered dishes of ice cream with syrup and candied cherries on a whim, which this soda fountain made sundaes with this very recipe shortly after, where the first documented advertisement for a "Cherry Sunday" was placed in the Ithaca Daily Journal in 1892 by Chester Platt. Then, the spelling of this dessert developed in 1892, when the name was forced to be changed to "sundae" when Methodist leaders in Evanston, Illinois objected to such a frivolous use of the name of “the Lord's day.” (Despite the name change, ice cream is still eaten on Sunday more than any other day of the week)



The sundae, Turback writes, is an "authentically American ... symbol of our abundance and appetite, our ingenuity, our never-lost youth. In a nation of fickle tastes, it has shown remarkable durability." We eat more ice cream than people in any other country, averaging 15 quarts per person each year, and many of our national heroes became soda jerks at one point in their long, rich lives.



In fact, Ithaca, New York and Two Rivers, Wisconsin are still flinging goop at each other with Zeroll ice cream scoops arguing each town is the official birthplace of the ice cream sundae, trying to put an end to the other’s SMD’s (Sundaes of Mass Deception). Last week, after Ithaca Mayor Caroline Peterson made a proclamation that Purity Ice Cream on Rote 13 in Ithaca had proof to call the sundae its own, and claimed July as National Ice Cream Month and announced the Sunday Sundaes promotion, in which nine participating Ithaca restaurants will offer free Purity ice-cream sundaes to patrons who order an entree at their respective establishment on Sundays in July, Two Rivers has fought back by mailing 30 postcards from Two Rivers residents claiming their city — not Ithaca — as the rightful birthplace of the ice cream sundae.



Of course Turback, being a native Ithacan, believes Ithaca is the undeniable official birthplace, claiming that about eight other towns also claimed the sundae as their invention but calls them “the great pretenders.” while Bruce Stoff of the Ithaca/Tompkins County Convention and Visitors Bureau believes Two Rivers’ claim to be an urban legend comparable to “Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster”. Als, Ithaca claims to have a Daily Journal advertisement from 1892 depicting a sundae, which got the city manager of Two Rivers, Greg Buckley, saying, “I'm not aware that we have a smoking gun like a newspaper ad,”

But Two Rivers is sticking to their egg cream kits too, distributing several hundred postcards at Two Rivers' 26th annual Sundae Thursday celebration June 22nd, containing a verse that reads,

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“Ice cream sundaes are sweet,
And they give you the shivers,
Just remember they started,
Right here in Two Rivers!”

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And Buckley intends to “fire a couple more shots in July,” while Ithaca continues its July Sundae Sundays promotion, which started the sundae war and birthplace claim, though he added, “But we might be looking at a more protracted battle — a seven-years war thing.” But I don’t know…..everyone knows it can’t be called a sundae if it has the whipped cream and cherry on top, and there’s well-documented evidence that even if Two Rivers created the rest of it, Ithaca was the first to officially put the fruit on top, so it’s looking like quite an uphill battle for you, Two Rivers, especially when you’re lacking an icon like Michael Turback! (giggles)



Anyway, Turback certainly “burned one all the way” across America, and has documented in “More Than A Month Of Sundaes” how sundae recipes differ from coast to coast, from Keene, New Hampshire, where you can get the one-of-a-kind fruit-salad sundae, to Sweet Home Foley, Alabama, where you can crawl around in Lower Alabama Mud, to Grapevine, Texas where you can get blitzy with “The Ritzy Splitzy” at Ritzy’s, to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where you can stand up against four-alarm fireworks in their green chile sundae (vanilla ice cream laced with spicy-sweet green chile marmalade.), and all the way to Big Timber, Montana for the “Big Timber Sundae” at Cole Drug. Yeppedy-yi-yay, he went shaking one in the hay, documenting 365 sundaes in 50 states, from the quintessential to the preposterous.



And where to go in the Beaver State where they make it cackle, you say?

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Lewis and Clark
Zinger’s Ice Cream Parlor
210 Broadway
Seaside
(503) 738-3939

Much Ado About Fudge
Lithia Fountain & Grill
303 East Main
Ashland
(541) 488-0179

Turtle Sundae
Goody’s Soda Fountain
957 NW Wall St.
Bend
(541) 389-5185

Black and White Sundae
Taylor’s Ice Cream Fountain
296 S. Main St.
Independence
(503) 838-1124

Strawberry Shortcake Sundae
Tillamook Ice Creamery and Restaurant
37 A Ave.
Lake Oswego
(503) 636-4933

Hanna Banana Slug Split
Slugs ‘n Stones Ice Cream Cones
16360 Lower Harbor Rd.
Brookings
(541) 469-7584

Euphoria Hot Fudge Sundae
Prince Puckler’s Ice Cream
1605 E. 19th Ave.
Eugene
(541) 344-4418

Screaming Brownie Sundae
Mike’s Ice Cream
504 Oak St.
Hood River
(541) 386-6260

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So if you doth protest too much of thy toothache not being appeased with syrupy seduction, there’s Much Ado About Fudge in Ashland this summer, where the Oregon Shakespeare festival is in full bloom. Ah, thou art a votary to fond desire indeed! Or inch on over to Slug ‘N Stones ice Cream Cones for that Hanna Banana Slug Split to unleash that cartoon hero centerfold!

From the Tuscaloosa Turtles to the Wet Walnuts among us, the ice cream sundae is indeed “versatility, creative achievement, construction technique, and respect for tradition." to the first degree, monuments of momentous merrymaking and tongue-wagging hacky-sack. The spoon is your scepter; how you decide to divide and conquer the fountain of youth is your destiny.



Driftin’ on down now to Netarts Bay southwest of Tillamook for the weekend…..where my family and I have a beach house for rentle….and alchemy hour awaits…..sort of anyway. (giggles)

XOXO,
Noah Eaton
(Mistletoe Angel)
(Emmanuel Endorphin)