The Egg Cream: neither eggs nor cream.

Apparently, the egg cream is a beverage whose name fits perfectly to it, but when I explain its etymology, we’ll realize that this name has little to do with it!! The Egg Cream consists of chocolate syrup, milk and soda water (Seltzer), probably dating from the late 19^th century and specially associated with Brooklyn, home of its alleged inventor Louis Auster, who owned a candy shop.
In taste, an egg cream is somewhat similar to an ice cream soda.

The surprising thing is that, although the name of this drink contains “eggs” and “cream”, its preparation lacks of them!! It’s the reason why different theories to explain its origin appeared in order to try to give meaning to its name;

The first one has to do with the classification with respect to the quality of the milk used to prepare it; so, since its quality was “A” this drink was called Chocolate “A” cream. Probably the sound “A” was mistaken for the word “egg”, remaining “Chocolate Egg Cream” instead of its real name.

Stanley Auster (Louis Auster’s grandson) provided us with another theory. He points to this misconception in the name as a corruption of the German (and also Yiddish) word “echt”, meaning genuine or true. This means that what Germans and Jews considered a genuine or good cream, it became “Egg Cream”; nothing related to the conception those people had of the beverage and, at the same time, fact that diverts us from its original meaning.

It’s is said that its name might come from an attempt of capitalizing on the name, as in the late 19^th century there were already many chocolate dessert drinks using actual eggs in their recipes, and it’s possible that its author wanted to do that to make of this drink an special one, and to stand it out from the others. But, around 1885 the author of the book “Fix the Pumps” fall apart the existing theories and made a historical look at soda fountains, claiming that the “New York Egg Cream” was a variation of the original milkshake served at soda fountains throughout America in the late 19^th century but that it was mostly created to keep the price of milkshakes low. He thought that milkshakes were expensive because they contained “eggs” and “cream”, so, this new beverage was created removing these ingredients to make it cheaper! It’s the reason why it became described as “poor man’s soda”.

Another explanation is that the term comes from the request

“chocolat et crème”, expression used by someone who tasted something similar in Paris, and that this changed later into this current version “Chocolate Egg Cream”.

It is also thought that when this drink appeared firstly, it was made with eggs and cream, but that due to the limitations there were in the World War II, they were dropped from the recipe. However, equally looking at the past there are other theories pointing at the name of this drink as a name that has been acquired because of its resemblance with the old term “Egg Cream”, an American concept that refers to beaten egg whites remaining the foam and resembling, to a large degree, this beverage.

Having this information, now it’s your turn! You can think about which of these hypotheses you agree with.

Hope you enjoyed!