Celebrate History with National Hot Fudge Sundae Day, July 25

(Gerry Furth-Sides) Popular says that the name “sundae” was created in response to the “Blue Laws” mandating ice cream sodas not be sold on Sundays because they were too “frilly.”  This was because the “righteous” were very much against what they called “sucking soda” (especially on the Sabbath and the clergy started preaching against them).  The dish has even gone by other names at various time, most notably “sundi” and “sondhi” to avoid offending the sensibilities of the devoutly religious.

Each city seems to have its own origin.  We were so happy to learn that at the turn of the 20th Century, our own favorite CC Brown on Hollywood Boulevard is credited with starting Los Angeles history of the hot fudge sundar though we preferred the caramel.  And the homemade caramel of our friend @table conversation these days!

The biggest rivalry is between Two Rivers, Wisconsin and Ithaca, New York. The two cities have sparred in a good-natured “Sundae War” since the 1970’s.  Famed writer, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), in his 1945 book, The American Language: Supplement 1, while writing on the suffix “DAE” as in sundae, wrote that the “most plausible of their theories ascribes the introduction of the ‘sundae’ itself to George Hallauer of Marshall, Illinois, and the invention of its name to George Giffy of Manitowoc,  Wisconsin” because it predated all others.  Supposedly it was here that the first ice cream sundae was served by accident in 1881.  Druggist Edward Berners (1863-1939), owner of Ed Berners’ Ice Cream Parlor was asked by a George Hallauer asked for a ice cream soda.  Because it was Sunday, the Sabbath, Mr. Berners compromised and put ice cream in a dish and poured the chocolate syrup on top (chocolate syrup was only used for making flavored ice cream sodas at the time).  Ed Berners sampled the dish and liked it enough to begin featuring “ice cream with syrup” in his shop for the same price as a dish of ice cream.  This ice cream concoction cost a nickel, and soon everybody wanted some.

The concoction cost a nickel and soon became very popular, but was sold only on Sundays.  One day a ten year old girl insisted she have a dish of ice cream “with that stuff on top,” saying they could “pretend it was Sunday.”  After that, the confection was sold every day in many flavors.  It lost its Sunday only association, to be called ICE CREAM SUNDAE when a glassware salesman placed an order with his company for the long canoe-shaped dishes in which it was served, as “Sundae dishes.”

Edward Berners closed his ice cream parlor in 1927.  Today, the Washington House Hotel Museum in Two Rivers includes a replica of Ed Berner’s ice cream parlor.  The Wisconsin State Historical Society recognizes Two Rivers, Wisconsin as the birthplace of the sundae and in 1973 erected a historical marker in Two Rivers Central Memorial Park that reads: