Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 07:10:51 -0400

From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: Ice cream cone; Dutch "highway"; "America" Papers; Stamp Acts



ICE CREAM CONE



Paul Dickson's THE GREAT AMERICAN ICE CREAM BOOK (1972) gives a

delicious treatment of "ice cream cone" and will be tough to lick. On pages

66-73, he presents "The Somewhat Confusing Saga of the Ice Cream Cone."

Ernest A. Hamwi came from Damascus, Syria to St. Louis in 1903. In the

1904 St. Louis World's Fair (the same fair where the hot dog bun was NOT

invented), he obtained a concession to sell zalabia, a crisp, waferlike

Persian pastry baked on a flat waffle iron and served with sugar and other

sweets. An ice cream concession was close by his stand. When the ice cream

stand ran out of dishes, Hamwi rolled his wafer and put a scoop of ice cream

in it. The ice cream cone was born.

The very year (1954) that the 50th anniversary of the ice cream cone was

celebrated, the New York Times ran an obituary of Italo Marchiony on October

19, 1954, stating that Marchiony had been making cones and selling them as

early as 1896. He applied for a patent on his cone mold, which was issued on

December 13, 1904.

Two other contenders emerged. In 1965, the New York Times ran an

obituary of David Avayou, an Atlantic City, New Jersey ice cream shop

operator who claimed that HE invented the ice cream cone at the 1904 World's

Fair. He got the idea from paper cones in France. Abe Doumar, who hawked

Holy Land souvenirs at the Fair, claimed that HE gave the idea to the waffle

man there. His son published this version in THE SAGA OF THE ICE CREAM CONE.

There are others. In August 1947, a Chicago Sun story on Max Goldberg

of the cone giant Illinois Baking Company stated that Goldberg had first sold

cones in 1903. Nineteenth century France supposedly had its paper and metal

cones, and Dusseldorf also put in a claim to edible containers.

Can I beat ("lick" if you will) Dickson on the ice cream cone?

This has to be investigated further, but it is from Variety obituaries

for 8 December 1931. We now have a circus theory:



Chas. E. Menchez, Creator Of Ice Cream Cones, Dead

Charles E. Menchez, 72, died from a heart attack at his home in Akron,

O., Dec. 3. He was the creator of the ice cream cone, a circus acrobat, park

operator and picture theatre exhibitor.



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