Posted on 02/24/2012 2:32:16 PM PST by nickcarraway
A purists hunt for the citys best rendition
These days, New Yorkers are more likely to be able to recommend a place to get a good banh mi than a good egg cream.
The name egg cream is thought to derive from the Yiddish "echt" (sounds like "egg") cream, meaning "genuine" cream. For those of you who claim New York City as your home but were raised in, say, Idaho, allow me to clarify something right off the bat: An egg cream is made with neither eggs nor cream.
Traditionally, an authentic New York egg cream is composed of just three readily available ingredients: Fox's-U-Bet chocolate syrup (no other brand will do and please, don't use vanilla, and, please, not coffee, strawberry, or any other flavor), ice-cold milk, and seltzer (preferably dispensed from a soda fountain or at least a pressurized seltzer siphon bottle).
But, as they say, just because you have uranium, doesn't mean you know how to construct a nuclear bomb. It's the way those ingredients are combined that makes the difference between a gloppy sweet chocolate fizzle and the "echt"-stasy that is a genuine egg cream. The following are my current top 10 spots in New York City for egg cream. (Sammy's Roumanian is excluded only because it is a do-it-yourself version). And, of course, depending on the particular soda jerk (that's a respected professional title, not an insult), your results may vary.
According to Wikipedia, Fox’s U-Bet is even older than I thought (1895), is still made in Brooklyn, and is made with a mixture of cocoa powder and dried milk instead of artificial chocolate flavoring.
Dried milk is almost 100% oxidized. Do more damage to you than eating 5# of bacon in a sitting. Heart attack waiting to happen, enjoy.
Turns out it's just a "soda" without the ice cream of the Brown Cow.
Wow, that is old. Three cheers for tradition!
Drooling on my keyboard...
I still remember the very first egg cream I had... It was at a little news shop with a soda fountain somewhere in The Bronx, near a train station, but I’m not sure where.
All I recall was getting a Spiderman comic and having the most wonderful drink I had ever consumed!
Mark
Me too. They used to make them at Gem’s Spa on the corner of St Mark’s Pl & Second Ave.
The best I’ve had is Ray’s Candy Store on Ave. A. Gem Spa is good too but not close to Ray’s.
Bronx-raised Mrs. F is an expert on these. I’d never heard of them before.
Mmmmmmmmmm I remember them growing up in Yonkers....They were even better then Yoohoo’s......
Gem Spa... that was right around the corner from the Fillmore East, if I am correctly remembering my misspent youth...
Sacrilege
Yes, but was there for years before the Fillmore.
(And what is youth for if not to be misspent).
Have you read the private mail I sent you?
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was there when my grandparents lived on the Lower East Side (all four of them passed through the neighborhood after arriving in America between 1904 and 1914).
Ask her if she ever had a Manhattan Special (an espresso coffee soda). Another esoteric New York beverage (which, despite the name, was manufactured in Brooklyn)-- think of it as the Italians' answer to the Jews' egg cream.
My Father was a Soda Jerk in the late 30’s. We still have, and use, one of the Hamilton Beach Malt Machines he bought from the owner of the Soda Shop where he worked. Art Deco Green with the original Metal Mixing Container. Still works like a charm.
Hersheys works and it is half the price of U-Bet.
However, U-Bet has it's own special something.
In the Obama Economy, (funny how easy it is to make this political), U-Bet is for the 1%, while Hersheys is for the 99%. LOL
You might be on to something, the Long Island Egg Cream.
mmmmmmmm....egg cream!
“Why wouldnt Hersheys work?”
Hersheys is a little too thick I think is what it is. You are only mixing it with a little milk and seltzer and it’s not supposed to be too sweet. The U-bet really makes it an authentic egg cream.
I don’t know if this is in the article but it’s also traditional to have a pretzel rod with your egg cream.
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