By Diane Forrest
My cousin's son
recently celebrated his 17th birthday.
Part of his celebration was to go out for brunch on a beautiful Friday
morning. The restaurant they went to
served him a wonderful ice cream soda, along with a fluffy Belgian waffle. I wouldn't have been able to eat for the rest
of the day after a meal like that, but he is a growing young man, and was ready
to eat again a few hours later! He is
pictured above with his chocolate soda.
Ice cream
sodas, or floats, are a product of accident.
In 1874 while celebrating the sesquicentennial (150 year) celebration in
Philadelphia, PA, Mr. Robert Green ran out of ice for the sodas he was
selling. So to keep his drinks cold, he
used ice cream from a neighboring vendor.
He used a selection of 16 different flavors of syrup, soda water and
vanilla ice cream, and the new tasty treat was an immediate sensation. Teens loved them, however many adults hated
them, and some towns even banned them on holy days because soda was marketed as
a "miracle cure" much like alcohol or other controlled substances
that could not be sold on Sunday. This
action spawned the invention of the Sundae, a soda less ice cream treat.
My grandfather
lived in Gulfport, Mississippi. After
WWII he returned home and began working for Mr. Barq, one of the originators of
Barq's root beer. Growing up, every time
we went to visit there was always rows of bottled root beer in the fridge, and
wooden crates full of bottles out in the shed.
My grandfather must have still believed in the evils of soda, because I
was always "too young" to drink one.
To make matters worse my grandfather and father would sit on the back
porch and have black cows.... right in front of me and my brother!
A black cow is
another name for root beer float. It was
sheer torture watching them slurp down those delicious treats on those hot
summer nights. Later I remember going
out to Dairy Queen with my dad one afternoon.
We went in and he ordered a strawberry soda. Since I was feeling grown up, I ordered one
too. That was the prettiest drink I ever
saw. It was in a tall clear plastic
glass, large around the top and smaller at the bottom. It was filled with a creamy pink liquid,
topped with whipped cream and a bright red cherry on the top. It was incredible!
Now that I'm
all grown up, all I drink is Barq’s root beer, and a black cow is the only kind
of soda I will get because it was forbidden for so long. Some people like a foamy head on their soda,
I don't like digging through all that foam to get to the good stuff, so I make
mine by pouring the root beer in the glass first. Next add 1 or 2 scoops of vanilla ice
cream. (If you add chocolate ice cream
it is called a brown cow) However if you
like the foam, just add the ice cream to the glass first, and then fill with
cold root beer. Or you can go down to
your local Dairy Queen and try any number of flavors and invent your own
favorite soda. Then grab a spoon and a straw and enjoy one today on National Ice Cream Soda Day!
