Ernest Hamwi,
a Syrian immigrant to the US, is
credited as the creator of the ice cream
cone. The widely accepted story goes
that Hamwi was making and selling
‘zalabia’ — a thin, waffle-like snack —
at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, when
his neighbouring vendor, selling ice
cream, ran out of cups. With a bit of
quick thinking, Hamwi proposed that his
waffles be rolled into a cone-like shape
and the ice cream be directly served in
it instead.
However, while
this may be the origin of the ice cream
cone as we most commonly consume it
today, ice cream was being served in
edible, hand-held containers long before
1904. Initially, the containers were
made of glass, called “penny licks”. The
ice cream was served in a glass cup; you
returned it to the vendor when you were
done, and it was washed and reused. Of
course, this wasn’t ideal (supply and
hygiene were both concerns) so “edible
cups” were the natural solution.
Even before
the St. Louis World's Fair, an Italian
immigrant — Italo Marchiony — had
patented the design for an edible ice
cream cup maker in 1903. Over in
England, a year before Marchiony,
Antonio Valvona had registered a machine
that made baked biscuit cups, again for
serving ice cream. Meanwhile, cookbooks
dating to the late 1800s mention baked
“cornets” that could be filled with
fresh fruits, cream and of course ice
cream.
But food
historians believe that the earliest
known pictorial depiction of an ice
cream cone may date all the way back to
1807, to an etching titled “The Interior
of the Café Frascati” by Philibert-Louis
Debucourt.
The
Rijksmuseum notes of the etching: “In
1789 the Italian Garchi Café Frascati
opened near the Paris Opéra. This became
a spot where sophisticated Parisians
went not only to enjoy perfumed ices,
lemonade, punch and tea, but also, and
more importantly, to be seen. On 4
August 1806 the Journal des Dames
observed, ‘Last Thursday, Frascati
glittered as never before. Its rooms
were filled with ladies dressed up as if
going to the theatre.’”
Observe the
bottom right hand corner of the etching,
and you will see one of these
fashionable young woman holding up the
cafe’s “perfumed ice” to her mouth.
While it isn’t clear if the container
she held it in was edible or made of
glass, this is the first depicted
prototype for the modern-day ice cream
cone. (View the image
here.)
Some sources
claim that ice cream cones served at
Frascati didn’t quite take off across
the rest of Europe and that the
proprietor of the fabled café died
bankrupt, just two years after the
etching was made.
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