I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream!

Let's Celebrate: The Ice Cream Cone Was Invented 103 Years Ago Today!

In junior high, my friend Cheryl and I rode our bikes everywhere. It seemed like the suburbs were smaller back then, so pedaling to the corner store for a Slushee® or to the local mall was a safe, practical endeavor.

And in the summertime, there was only one place to be­–The East India Ice Cream Parlor!

It was home to the best ice cream I have ever had! The waffle cones melted in your mouth and the ice cream was thick with home-made ingredients like milk, butter, cocoa, vanilla bean, fresh strawberries and chunky peanut butter! Sprinkle on some crushed pecans, colored candy dots, white chocolate or drizzles of hot fudge, and you were looking at the mother of all sugar highs!

With all the cones I devoured and dribbled down my shirt (from that pesky hole in the bottom you never notice until it's too late), you'd think I knew where these scoops of heaven came from.
Turns out, the origin of the ice cream cone we know today goes all the way back to The St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904!

Accounts vary as to who, exactly, concocted it, but its genesis came about when ice cream vendors sold so much ice cream on that hot July afternoon that they ran out of dishes. Coming to their rescue was a pastry vendor named Ernest Hamwi, who sold a wafer-thin delight called a “zalabia,” which the ice cream merchants hurriedly rolled into cones, filled with their cold creamy treats, and served to parched patrons who fell in love with the crunchy-creamy combo!

The East India Ice Cream Parlor is long gone now, but my love of the ice cream cone lives on. Whenever the mood strikes us, my family fires up our Soft Serve Ice Cream Maker which does all the work for us while we fill lots of bowls with nuts, sprinkles and other decadent delights. We unwrap some store-bought cones, fill ‘em with freshly-made ice cream and spoon on the extras! There’s always a moment of collective silence as we take that first delectable crunch...followed by all four of us saying,“Ahhhhhhhh!”