Why The Egg Cream Has Such A Misleading Name

Unless you grew up in, or have spent time in New York, or the Northeastern coast, you are probably unfamiliar with an old-timey beverage called the egg cream; One of the many foods and drinks with misleading names. Served in a tall glass, an egg cream looks like an ice-cold chocolate milk with creamy foam on top. It's made with three ingredients: milk, chocolate syrup (or sometimes vanilla), and seltzer (If seltzer water makes scrambled eggs super fluffy, it can surely fluff up a drink). But there are no eggs or cream in sight. It's definitely a curious name for something that contains none of those elements, but of course, there are a couple of theories behind that. 

Now, many egg cream connoisseurs and native New Yorkers will tell you that the trio of ingredients matters. Without exception, the seltzer must be ice cold (and preferably from a soda siphon), the milk must be whole, and the syrup must unequivocally be a Brooklyn-made brand called Fox's U-Bet.

Everything needs to be mixed rapidly to produce the signature layer of bubbles on top, and you shouldn't let the drink sit for too long, lest the soda and chocolate separate. Hugely popular at the beginning of the 20th century, the presence of egg creams in New York has largely dissipated, but there are still some gems that serve up a glass of sweet history.

When it comes to the origin of the egg cream, die-hard fans typically land in one of two camps: It was created in Brooklyn, or on the Lower East Side. As to the Brooklyn theory, the egg cream was allegedly first made at the turn of the 20th century by Louis Auster, a Brooklyn-based Jewish immigrant and candy shop owner. He made his own top-secret chocolate syrup and supposedly sold thousands of egg creams every day. Some believe "egg cream" was a variation of the Yiddish "echt keem" or "pure sweetness" — or that Brooklynites would order the drink by saying, "a cream." As the drink caught on, purveyors began using the local Fox's U-Bet syrup for their versions.

But naysayers believe credit should go to the Lower East Side. Sociologist Daniel Bell recounted to New York Magazine that his Uncle Hymie invented the drink in the 1920s. Blending a drink called a "chocolate cream soda" and a popular tonic, the egg malted, Uncle Hymie created Hymie's Egg Cream, a mixture of syrup, cream, real eggs, and seltzer. The cream and eggs in the drink would disappear in the midst of the Great Depression (when they became scarce and expensive), as fierce local competition eliminated the two pricey ingredients altogether.

Still, another theory speculates that the egg cream came to fruition in the 1880s when noted Yiddish actor, Boris Thomashevsky, requested a Parisian drink called "chocolate et creme," and the soda jerk misheard the name as "chocolate egg cream." Either way, the egg cream is undoubtedly a Jewish specialty (like the bagel-like bialy) and a New York icon.