It happened in Ithaca...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 6:14pm.
Why don't they call it an "ice cream Tuesdae?" Glad you asked. It was April 3, 1892, and the Rev. John M. Scott paid his usual after-sermon visit to the Plate and Colt Pharmacy in downtown Ithaca, New York. Chester C. Platt, who co-owned the drugstore and was the church treasurer, and the Rev. Scott, often occupied seats at the soda fountain after services to chat.
You might think that church members in 1892 might have been scandalized by the fact that two of their leaders frequented a commercial establishment every Sunday morning, but these were Unitarians. They were allowed.
The story goes that Platt asked his soda fountain clerk to fix them up two bowls of ice cream. And instead, of two bowls of plain vanilla, the clerk, DeForest Christiance, topped the bowls with cherry syrup and a candied cherry. The trio declared it divinely good, named their discovery after the day of the week it was concocted, and the rest is history. Except that they couldn't get patent rights to "Sunday" - and you don't really want to mess with the guy who really owns Sunday anyway - so they called it "sundae."
This kind of story normally is accorded folklore status, but this one comes with all kinds of documentation. You can read about it here:
"Cooperatives are doing whatever they can to help their members through tough times," according to two officials of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Yours truly stopped by the NCFC for a chat on a recent visit to the Capital, and there's a report on the visit in the issue due in your mailbox on Saturday.
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