Matt Katz: It's the Bryan Lehrer show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Matt Katz, reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. Our final segment is a continuation of our WNYC centennial series called 100 Years of 100 things. I scream, you scream, we all scream. For number 10 on our list, ice cream. It may be rainy today, but New York has been sweltering hot, so what better time to learn about everyone's favorite frozen treat? Joining us today to give us the scoop on the history of ice cream is Laura Weiss, journalist and author of Ice Cream: A Global History. Laura is a lactose intolerant ice cream expert. Hi, Laura. Welcome to WNYC.

Laura Weiss: Hi, Matt. Thanks for having me on.

Matt Katz: Listeners, let's talk about ice cream. Do you have fond memories of Fudgie the Whale cakes, Mister Softee trucks or Jahn's in Jackson Heights? Let's hear your history with New York ice cream. Have you scooped ice cream or did you or your family have an ice cream parlor? Want to shout out a favorite flavor that's fallen out of favor, or a new find for the next century? Give us a call. 212-433-WNYC. You can also text us at that number, 212-433-9692.

Laura, the history of ice cream, specifically in New York, give us some context. What's the origin story there?

Laura Weiss: The origin story actually goes back to ancient China, where the Chinese emperors had made, for their delight, goat or buffalo milk ice cream that was flavored with camphor and additionally, had dragon eyeballs incorporated into it, not sure what that tasted like. Then the Greeks and Romans flavored ice with juice and with wine, so we had the first sorbet. Then fast forward to around 1700 in Italy, where chefs to the nobility were experimenting with sorbet, and one of them, named Latini, added cream and said, or must have said, wow, this tastes great, and that was really the official launch of ice cream as we know it.

Then ice cream arrived in America very early. As we segue into New York, Wall street was a hotbed of ice cream shops. You can go back and look at old newspapers, and look at ads of some of these confectioners who sold candy alongside ice cream.

Matt Katz: This is when the Hokey Pokey come into play/

Laura Weiss: This was earlier. This was around the time of the revolution, and one famous tale about that time is New York, as people probably know, was briefly the capital of the United States. George Washington spent, I mean, the figures vary, but somewhere around a couple of $100 in one summer on ice cream. He was our first President ice cream fan.

At this point, ice cream was pretty much a treat for the wealthy. Sugar was extremely expensive, so expensive and so difficult to obtain that it was locked up in a special sugar safe. If you fast forward to the 19th century, around, I would say, 1840 or so, there was an influx of Italian immigrants, and they started selling ice cream on the street. These vendors were called Hokey Pokeys. It was mostly men. I'm sure there were a few women mixed into that, and the term Hokey Pokey nobody really knows what the derivation of it is.

Some say it was a mispronunciation of hocus-pocus. Some say it was an English interpretation of the Italian phrase oche poco, or oh, so little, but these vendors, they spread like wildfire. They continued to sell ice cream on the street until probably at least beginning of the 20th century. It's possible they sold it later than that. They were the forerunners of Mister Softee, basically, except you literally took your life in your hands if you ate their ice cream.

Matt Katz: Why is that?

Laura Weiss: This was way before the The Pure Food Act, which was passed in 1906, and the ice cream itself was not necessarily very sanitary. Plus, you would go up to your local ice cream seller and ask for a Hokey Pokey, and the seller would put some ice cream in a dish, and you'd eat it, and then the seller would put ice cream in the dish for the next person who was, let's say, me, and I would eat it. The passing of germs must have been phenomenal, and newspapers and public health departments went wild about the issue of contamination. In fact, people got very sick, and people even died.

Matt Katz: Wow.

Laura Weiss: This is the underside of ice cream people don't know about. But people love these vendors, and this was the first time that ice cream was affordable. It would cost about a penny and was accessible to children. This was also a new trend, so it was basically impossible to shut these vendors down. They were just too prolific and too popular.

Matt Katz: You said it was the Hokey Pokey carts, these vendors became a forerunner of Mister Softee. When did we start hearing Mister Softee coming down the street?

Laura Weiss: That took a little while. I believe Mister Softee began in Philadelphia, I don't know, in the '60s or the '70s, I can't quite remember. But way before Mister Softee, there were mobilized ice cream trucks Good Humor being among the most famous, and that launched in the beginning of the 20th century, really around 1920. The man who started the Good Humor purposely painted his trucks white and had white uniforms for his drivers, and the reason was to communicate that his ice cream was pure, and would not make you sick.

Good Humor trucks were everywhere, especially in the '50s and '60s and then they started to die out. Meanwhile, companies like Mister Softee got a start, and now, I just bought ice cream a couple of weeks ago from a truck near Central Park. It wasn't Mister Softee, it was just some random trucks, so ice cream trucks are everywhere.

Matt Katz: We have callers with their own New York ice cream memories who are calling in. Let's see, who do we want to go to? Lisa in Manhattan. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi, how are you?

Matt Katz: Good. Thanks for calling in.

Lisa: I am so excited that you mentioned Jahn's in Jackson Heights. I have a story I tell my kids about Jahn's in Jackson Heights. I was in fourth grade, my boyfriend was in fourth grade. He took me to Jahn's on 37th Avenue. It was a big deal. We sat down, we had ice cream. The waiter came over, he said to us, we're both smiling, we both had braces. He said to us, "Do you make sparks when you kiss?" We were in fourth grade. I died.

You can imagine how this felt. I was so embarrassed, so exposed. How did he know I kissed? To this day. I'm shaking. I'm 75 years old.

Matt Katz: Oh my goodness.

Lisa: This is like the most embarrassing sex story I ever told. Anyway, I love the ice cream, the kitchen sink, the whole Jahn's experience. It's ice cream, I love ice cream. I'm a chocolate person, not a vanilla person, and when we used to go to, which one was it, Howard Johnson's, my dad would go up to the counter and say to the guy, what was it, 31 flavors? He would go, "What kind of ice cream do you have today?"

Matt Katz: Thank you so much for calling in and taking us down a memory lane. Laura, do you know about Jahn's? I imagine. Can you--?

Laura Weiss: I do. I actually grew up in Rockville Centre on Long Island, and I have very vague memories of Jahn's because I was pretty little, or maybe somebody told me about it. But yes, the kitchen sink was famous. It was a combination of many flavors of ice cream, many sauces, cherry on top, whipped cream, and people would have them for birthdays. You'd have your birthday party at Jahn's and everyone would gather around with their spoons, and dig into this dish. I hope they still have it. I'm going to have to go to Jackson Heights.

Matt Katz: Yeah, for sure.

Laura Weiss: And see if they still have the kitchen sink.

Matt Katz: We're getting shout outs over text for Shraffs and the Karl Drudge brand, and days in Ocean Grove, people are really remembering their favorite spots. Wellington in Brooklyn. Hi, Wellington. Thanks for calling in.

Wellington: Hey. Thanks for having me.

Matt Katz: Sure. What's your story about ice cream?

Wellington: I'm Brazilian. We grew up eating childhood favorites, which was a fresh corn ice cream pop, which was sweet corn blended with cream and sugar, and they served it in a pop, and the famous Romeo and Juliet, which was cheese ice cream mixed with guava ice cream, which was like a childhood staple on the table. You'd eat cheese and guava with bread. That's my story. I just grew up eating those and really hard to find it out here, except in Newark, New Jersey, and maybe certain parts of Queens. I just can't remember the place right now.

Matt Katz: Cool. Thanks for telling us about those unique flavors. Really appreciate it. Laura, we only have a couple minutes left, and I want to hear the story about Carvel, which I did not know was created in Westchester?

Laura Weiss: Yes, it was created in Westchester, and the story goes that Mr. Carvel was driving his truck around on a very hot day, and he got a flat tire, The ice cream melted, and people somehow or other sampled this ice cream, and they loved it, and so he created this Soft serve business. I do want to say that as notable as Carvel is, and I love Carvel and my father loved Carvel, we would go together to get chocolate cones, and I just adored Carvel, and there may be one opening near me, and I'm very excited. I just wish they would open. They were not the first. The Kohr Brothers were the first to manufacture soft ice cream.

They came up with an elaborate machine. They took it to Coney Island. This was in, I believe, 1919, and on that very first weekend, they sold 18,000 cones. 18,000 cones.

Matt Katz: Wow.

Laura Weiss: They charged a nickel a piece, so it's a pretty good deal. Then later, they decided that the formula for the ice cream made it too runny, so they added eggs. That's how you get the custard version of soft serve, which is very popular, I think, on the Jersey shore and other places.

Matt Katz: Laura, we want to know your favorite flavor and your favorite spot before I let you go.

Laura Weiss: My favorite flavor is chocolate.

Matt Katz: Great.

Laura Weiss: My favorite spot is whatever ice cream shop I'm near.

Matt Katz: So you are impartial, you'll take whatever ice cream, the random truck by Central Park, whatever?

Laura Weiss: That's right. It has to have vegan ice cream, which is now fantastic. It wasn't for a long time.

Matt Katz: It tastes just the same, the vegan ice cream?

Laura Weiss: Not quite, but one of the most important parts of ice cream is what's called mouthfeel. It has to have that ice cream mouthfeel. People these days, ice cream producers these days are getting very close to creating in vegan ice cream the same mouthfeel that you get with regular dairy-based ice cream.

Matt Katz: Awesome. My guest has been Laura Weiss, journalist and author of Ice Cream: A Global History. Laura, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing your stories about ice cream.

Laura Weiss: My pleasure.

Matt Katz: I'm Matt Katz and this is the Brian Lehrer Show. Thanks for listening, everybody. Go get some ice cream and stay tuned for All Of It.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.