From Daily Northwestern, I'm Mika Allison. This is Everything Evanston, a podcast about the people, businesses, and goings-on in Evanston, Illinois. And I'm Lindsay Byman. Today, to celebrate Evanston's 160th birthday, we'll be diving into the debate over the origins of the ice cream sundae.
Evanston is one of multiple towns claiming credit for the sundae. And while we may never know who first decided to douse ice cream with syrup and toppings, let's discuss the matter with historians and to the owner of a local ice cream shop. To get the full picture, we started at the beginning. Here's Evanston historian Chris Harsel with a backstory of how ice cream sundaes evolved from ice cream sodas.
In the 1800s, what sort of evolved is commercially produced soda water. These get served as a treat in soda fountains. So they started putting in all kinds of fun fruity flavors or whatever, and they would put ice shavings in it. And then somebody decided to put ice cream in it.
Ice cream sodas became really popular a treat, and then they were served in drugstores. While ice cream sodas were increasing in popularity, so was the temperance movement, which promoted Christian values and limited alcohol consumption. You can't do anything fun or sinful or temptation from the straight and narrow. And somehow soda water got lumped in with things you shouldn't do on Sundays because it's too fun.
And so the story is that the Sunday was invented the Evanston story by a druggist an owner of a drugstore in Evanston who wanted to be able to have a trade on Sunday So he just left the soda water out and then kicked up the toppings a notch since he isn putting colored flavored soda water in Now he putting syrups straight on the ice cream And his drugstore was called Garwoods. That was his last name. And it was right on Fountain Square. In 1972, Evanston stopped being a dry city and began selling alcohol.
Marsha Hardigan, the owner of Hardigan's ice cream shop in Evanston, said she remembers Northwestern still being relatively dry when she was an undergraduate there in the early 1980s. That is why, to my understanding, that Evanston feels very strongly that they created the Ice Cream Sundae or that they created the name of the Ice Cream Sundae because the Women's Christian Temperance Union was so prominent in Evanston compared to other places. However, not everyone buys this story. At least six other towns in the U.S.
claim to be the birthplace of the sundae, one of which is Two Rivers, Wisconsin, according to Roadside America. Here's Hardigan's take. I've always thought that it's probable that both places created the idea of putting chocolate syrup over ice cream and leaving the seltzer water out. Is it funny to say that I just think it's a nice story that we both share.
It's not really important to me that we win the story. I just think that the story around the story is what's interesting. Hardigan pointed out that Two Rivers has a large plaque boasting its city created the Sunday. Evanston resident Rochelle Pierre Lott said she would support erecting a similar plaque in Evanston Well that sounds like a legit story and Evanston is not one to make up stories So I definitely believe we the ones who have made up the Sunday If it is indeed true which I saying it probably is let put a plaque up Sounds great Northwestern sociology professor and food historian Miri Eliao said the debate reflects a broader aspect of American society.
In the U.S., it's kind of different because we live in a very affluent society. There is a history of immigration, so this is kind of like a melting pot or a hodgepodge of a lot of different cultures and a lot of different foods. Not all of them become popular. Some of them disappear.
Some of them transform and change through a process that's called food diversity. Since the U.S. is made up of many different cultures and doesn't have a singular deep-seated tradition with food, Americans have long experimented with what they eat. Hartzell says the story we tell about the Sunday is also rooted in a love of stories, but the reality may be more complicated.
It's kind of human nature. We want there to be this catalytic moment when this happened. And sometimes they just sort of evolve. If it's a cultural reaction, it might evolve simultaneously in more than one place.
It might be the logical place to go when confronted with a certain set of circumstances. So was there one place in which this happened? Maybe, maybe not. But again, like I say, given the nature of Evanston at that time and what was happening confectionary wise and just in the food cultures at that time, I'm quite sure that we would have been a prime candidate, a leader in that movement to go create a sundae.
Elia says she agrees She says the story of the ice cream sundae may tell us more about American culture than who was the first to think up the idea When we emphasize what we are eating we trying to tell the story of what we are And I assuming in this case it kind of like we are innovative because we invented this to make up for some sort of need right And I assuming that why they so proud of inventing the Sunday, even though there's no copyrights on it. I'm assuming for them, it's a source of pride because now they're part of the collective history. Though we may never get an answer to the Sunday debate, it depicts the evolution of both food and social movements in America. And so no matter who was the first to leave the soda out of an ice cream soda, we still get to enjoy the creation today.
I think it's kind of cool that Evanston feels that they did it and Two Rivers feels that they did it and both have very probable stories and maybe both created it unknowing that it was happening in another state away and all in all the ice cream sundae was a great invention no matter who did it. I kind of want to know who then decided leave out the soda water, put the ice cream in, put the chocolate syrup in and add milk instead of soda water for a milkshake. That's even more important. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Mika Ellison.
And I'm Lindsay Beiner. Thanks for listening to another episode of Everything Edmondson. This episode was recorded and produced by me and Mika Ellison. The audio editor of the Daily Northwestern is Mika Ellison.
The digital managing editors are Ava Mandoli and Erica Schmidt. And the editor-in-chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to the Daily Northwestern's podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.