They say “necessity is the mother of invention,” but sometimes Lady Luck also deserves the credit. At the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, where the ice cream cone became a lasting tradition, both ingenuity and good fortune were at play. An estimated 20 million people attended this remarkable exhibition, which boasted over 50 concessions serving ice cream.
patent number 1,342,045 on June 1, 1920, for his “edible cone shaped container for ice cream.”
They say that at one point an ice cream vendor ran out of serving dishes. However, as luck would have it, located next to the ice cream vendor was Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian merchant. He was selling zalabis -crisp, waffle-like pastries. Hamwi saw an easy solution to the ice cream vendor’s problem. They say he quickly rolled one of his wafer-like waffles in the shape of a cone, or cornucopia, and gave it to the ice cream vendor. Once cooled, the vendor scooped in the ice cream. The novelty was a great favourite and instead of thousands of disappointed customers, the World’s Fair had a hit, and ice cream cones became a business.
They say when Howard Johnson served his first chocolate and vanilla ice cream cones in 1925, all-natural ingredients were used, together with twice the normal amount of butterfat content. Adding local fruits and berries he eventually developed 28 varieties, which were featured in his chain of restaurants across the USA.
In the previous century, ice cream had been served in cups, rolled in paper or served on wafers. With wafers shaped like coronets, the ice cream cone industry was established. One of the first US patents for a “mold to make an edible cup with handles” was submitted in 1903, and in 1923 a patent for an “Ice Cream Cone Rolling Machine” was on the books. Mr. Hamwi was issued
They say the first soft ice cream cone, developed by John McCullough and his son Bradley, was sold in Kankakee, Illinois in 1938. Together with storeowner Sheb Noble they opened the first Dairy Queen in 1940. One of the first successful franchises, Dairy Queen had opened over 1,400 stores by 1950. Canada’s first Dairy Queen was opened in Estevan, Saskatchewan in 1953. Sixty years later a number of specialty cones have been developed, making choosing ice cream more complicated than ordering a coffee at Starbucks. Eating ice cream also led to a huge moral dilemma for me at the tender age of nine.
We kept the food freezer across the hall from my downstairs bedroom, and it was not uncommon for my mother to send me to the basement to bring up the ice cream to be served for dessert. Nor was it uncommon for me to send myself to make an ice cream cone when no one was home. As I did the fetching and serving, I could successfully cover my unauthorized scoops. One day, I went to get my personal serving, but when I opened the lid of a newly purchased tub of ice cream, there were several scoops already missing and an ice cream scoop left in the container. If I told my mother that the food had been tampered with, I’d have to admit my secret excursions to the freezer. But we could get sick if the ice cream had spoilt. My conscience pricked, I brought up the ice cream and confessed. My mother insisted I tell my story to the store manager. To my surprise, not only were we given a new tub of ice cream, I was allowed to pick a second one. They say “honesty is the best policy’” and I agree.
They Say… “We All
Scream
Ice
For Cream” By Jocelyn Burgener
culinairemagazine.ca
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