(Jewish Group) What Is an Egg Cream and Why Is It So Jewish?

An egg cream was my father’s kitchen claim to fame. He assembled them with great flourish — Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup, cold milk from a glass bottle, and a long, hard shpritz of seltzer, followed by a vigorous stir. Even today, when I drink or think of it, it takes me back to my family’s Brooklyn roots, and him.

To my surprise, I have discovered that I am not alone in my nostalgic connection to this fancy-named but pedestrian drink. According to Pete Freeman, co-owner, cofounder and chief soda jerk at Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain, nostalgia is at least half of the egg cream’s appeal. There was a time when every New York diner and ice cream parlor offered them. As Elliot Willensky wrote in his book “When Brooklyn Was The World: 1920-1957,” “a candy store minus an egg cream, in Brooklyn at least, was as difficult to conceive of as the Earth without gravity.”

In 2021, there aren’t many candy stores or pharmacies with marble counters where you can still order an egg cream. But those eateries that offer the beverage do so with pride and purpose.

When Matthew Grogan partnered with Patsy and Carol Grimaldi to open Juliana’s Pizza, rated best pizzeria in New York in 2017 by Zagat’s, they crafted a menu that would bring back foods from the Grimaldi’s youth: pizza made with fresh mozzarella in a coal-fired oven; seltzer from glass bottles and egg creams made with U-Bet chocolate syrup. Pre-pandemic, they sold about 40 egg creams a week to customers of all ages, many of them curious tourists.

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