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New York Sundae
Champagne syrup, crushed strawberry. Pour over ice cream, serve in fancy sundae cup, top off with whipped cream.
Fountain recipes of this kind were written for a dispenser who had every syrup and crushed fruit standing ready in the well; the quantities were assumed rather than stated. Here is what the shorthand means.
- Champagne syrup is not champagneFountain "champagne" was a flavoring syrup, generally a sugar syrup with citrus, pineapple or grape notes and a little tartaric or citric acid for bite, meant to suggest wine; published formulas varied, and while most were alcohol-free some called for a little wine or essence. If you want to reproduce it, a tart pineapple-lemon syrup is closer than anything made with actual sparkling wine, which would only water the sundae down.
- "Crushed strawberry" is a preparation, not a garnishFountain crushed fruit meant berries mashed with sugar and left an hour or two until they gave up their juice, sometimes with a spoonful of syrup added; sugaring rates varied from recipe to recipe. Whole sliced berries will not coat the ice cream the way the original intends.
- Working quantitiesThe recipe gives none; a workable serving is two No. 16 scoops of vanilla ice cream (16 to the quart, so about 4 oz total), 1 fl oz of the syrup, and 1½ to 2 fl oz of crushed fruit. Serves one.
- Order of assemblyThe text says pour over ice cream, and that is the hinge — syrup and fruit go on last, not underneath, so the red streaks show against the white through the glass. Fountain men were judged on appearance as much as flavor.
- The fancy sundae cupThe trade term points to a footed tulip or bell glass rather than a bowl; no size is given. Chill it; a room-temperature glass slumps the ice cream before it reaches the counter.
- Whipped creamPeriod fountains used heavy cream whipped by hand or with a mechanical beater, lightly sweetened and quite stiff. Cream from a pressurized can collapses quickly under warm syrup.
- Vanilla is assumedWhen a fountain formula says only "ice cream" the intended flavor is almost certainly plain vanilla. Strawberry ice cream here would double the fruit and flatten the contrast the syrup is there to provide.
Sundaes named for cities were a fountain convention rather than a claim of origin — a New York, a Boston, a Chicago sundae differed by syrup and fruit combination, and the names appear to have traveled with the trade manuals that dispensers bought to stock their menus. The sundae itself is generally traced to the 1880s and 1890s, and the often-repeated story that it arose to sidestep local ordinances against selling soda water on Sunday is traditional and much disputed; several towns in Illinois, Wisconsin and New York have claimed the invention. It also seems that "champagne" and other wine-flavored syrups were a familiar presence at American fountains, letting a soda counter sell the suggestion of a celebratory drink to a public that either could not or would not buy the real thing — a commercial logic that only intensified after 1920.