An Egg Cream Manifesto

The Egg Cream is dying. Unless you’re a person of a certain time and place – New York before the 1950s – you probably don’t even know what an Egg Cream is.

An Egg Cream is essentially a chocolate soda. It’s made with chocolate syrup – Fox’s U-Bet the preferred brand – whole milk and seltzer water. This bubbly favorite was made famous during the era of soda fountains and soda “jerks,” the name for those young men behind the counter who would “jerk” the soda fountain handle to add the soda water.

But hardly anyone goes to a deli and orders it anymore. Mostly I think deli owners are to blame for this. The Egg Cream gets little notice on the menu, usually stuck on the last page in the beverages section under coffee, tea, and Dr. Brown’s. And if somebody by chance orders an Egg Cream, they make it in the kitchen then bring it to the table with no fanfare whatsoever, a total stealth mission. I can imagine a waitress serving an Egg Cream to a patron and whispering “here’s your Egg Cream but don’t tell anyone about it – we wouldn’t want to sell many of these. If you could act like you’re not enjoying it that might help too.”

Is this any way to treat an icon?

When I was a kid, I remember going to Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour. The place was pure fun: a red and white striped facade with waiters and waitresses inside wearing garters on their arms and straw hats on their heads. Farrell’s billed itself as an old fashioned soda fountain shop and every kid wanted to have his birthday party there. And we all wanted the same thing: The Pig’s Trough.

The Pig’s Trough, or “The Trough” for short, was a double banana split served in an stainless-steel pig’s trough. Whenever anyone ordered one, the waiters would bring it out with great fanfare, ringing bells throughout the restaurant to celebrate its arrival. One of the waiters might even don a gorilla mask and carry a bunch of bananas since that was one of the main ingredients.

The best part about The Trough was because of its name you were allowed to throw all etiquette to the wind and devour it like a pig. Maybe you started with a spoon but by the end, when what remaining ice cream had melted into liquid, you’d put your face directly into the trough and lick it all up it like a pig. Heck, it was your birthday and your friends were egging you on, so who could complain?

Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour Restaurants were incredibly popular in the 1960s and 1970s and grew into a nationwide chain of 130 locations under the watchful eye of its founder Robert “Bob” Farrell. Bob sold out in 1985 and the new owners changed the concept and the chain died, although they’ve recently brought it back.

What does this have to do with the deli? Deli owners gripe that their clientele is too old, that the deli doesn’t attract the young. They also complain that margins on food, especially popular items like pastrami and corned beef, are too slim. The solution to both of these problems: bring back the Egg Cream!

If I were running a deli, every time someone would order an Egg Cream, I’d ring a bell and every waiter would simultaneous yell “Egg Cream.” Then I’d have someone bring out a tray with all the fixings for an Egg Cream. With great fanfare, the waiter or waitress or maybe even a special “Egg Cream Specialist” would place the tall frosted glass on the table, put the long stirring spoon into the glass, then dramatically pour an inch of Fox’s U-Bet syrup from high above into the glass. Then he’d do the same with the inch of whole milk. Then he’d take the seltzer, preferably from an old-fashioned seltzer bottle if they could get one, and slowly yet artfully pour it three quarters of the way up the glass. Then, in front of everyone at the table, he’d rapidly stir the mixture so that the carbonated seltzer would create the foam head that typifies a well-made Egg Cream. After that, the waiter or waitress would slide the Egg Cream in front of the patron. It would be a Broadway show at your table.

I think if delis did that, not only might someone else at the table order an Egg Cream, but a few more tables might also. And any youngster who was in the restaurant would be begging his or her parents for one. After all, an Egg Cream appeals to the child within all of us.

If deli owners did this, not only would their profit margins increase (a $2.50 Egg Cream can’t cost more than 50 cents to make, if that) but they’d also be creating a new, younger generation of deli aficionados. Kids would be begging their parents to take them to the deli. All it would take would be one order of an Egg Cream and the youngsters would be hooked.

Deli owners, it’s in your hands.

Copyright 2010 The Jewish Zodiac, LLC.

Seth Front is the creator of the Jewish Zodiac®, a deli food parody of the Chinese zodiac, and a screenwriter (“Nickel and Dime”) who writes about his seriocomic Jewish life at blog.jewzo.com.