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Ho-hum.
The elderly gentleman in front of me was obviously a bit bored with the long line too because he turned around and started to examine what was in my shopping cart.
What was in my cart, you ask?
Nothing much as I don’t buy a whole lot at the grocery store. As I recall, there was a bag of organic Fuji apples, sparkling water in glass bottles, gourmet butter in foil packaging, and several bags of epsom salts.
Yes, just about one of the most boring shopping carts you’ve ever laid eyes on. No colorful bags or boxes of GMO processed foods to be seen anywhere.
This gentleman fixes his gaze on the seltzer and starts telling me a story about when he was a child in Queens, New York and this yummy drink he and his brothers made out of club soda.
Do people like to spontaneously start talking to you when in line? Happens to me all the time. I think I have “one of those faces” if you know what I mean.
Curious, I took the bait and asked him what kind of a drink he made.
Iced Chocolate (Egg Cream)
With a twinkle in his eye, he tells me that they mixed club soda, milk, and chocolate syrup and that it tasted so great on a hot summer day. He told me quality food was hard to come by and this drink made the milk stretch a bit further during the Depression.
Even more curious as this drink did not at all sound yummy to me, I asked how much club soda and milk were used.
He said the drink was mostly club soda with just a bit of milk and chocolate syrup.
He assured me that my kids would love it and that I should try it.
After I arrived home, I told my kids the story and asked if they wanted to try out the drink. They all thought it sounded disgusting too but were game to give it a go since it came so highly recommended from someone who had obviously remembered it fondly for many, many years.
All three kids agreed after trying it that it tasted great! We decided to name it Fizzy Iced Chocolate. Below is the recipe we used.
I recommend using homemade chocolate syrup for this recipe. If you decide to buy, it is best to choose organic to avoid the GMO sugar used in conventional brands.
Traditional Egg Cream Recipe (with nondairy option)
This recipe for an egg cream, or fizzy iced chocolate, is the perfect refresher for a hot, summer day. This old fashioned beverage is making a comeback even being featured on a popular TV drama series.
Ingredients
- 6 ounces (177 ml) sparkling spring water or plain seltzer
- 2 ounces (59 ml) whole milk
- 1 tsp chocolate syrup preferably organic
Instructions
Mix all ingredients together in a large glass.
Stir and serve very cold. Add ice if desired.
Refrigerate leftovers (if there are any!).
Recipe Notes
Substitute store bought or homemade coconut milk for dairy milk for a nondairy egg cream if desired.
This is a nice drink to try if you are out of kombucha or other healthy, homemade fermented beverages loaded with probiotics and want something fizzy on your throat and (hopefully) don’t keep any soda around the house.
I later learned that fizzy iced chocolate is also called an Egg Cream and is popular in parts of the Northeast USA.
In fact, two of my children have asked me to pack fizzy iced chocolate, aka Egg Cream, in their lunchboxes once in awhile.
The moral of this story is to chat up the folks in the grocery line. You never know what kind of crazy stuff or Depression Era recipes like the Egg Cream you are going to learn about!
And lest you think an egg cream is a beverage only for the frugal, I saw it on a recent episode of of the television drama seris Billions!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Cool Stuff You Never Knew About Breakfast
The real name for this drink is an “egg cream” even though there’s no egg in it. And they are yummy!
Egg cream?! Wow, I never would have thought that! Thank you for solving that mystery 🙂
Isn’t that so funny?? No egg in an “egg cream”! We just moved to New England and had started seeing these egg cream sodas on menus around town, especially near the beach. I wondered what the heck that was but Matt (from PA) knew and said he’d seen them at the Jersey shore when they used to vacation there. It’s definitely a NY thing…and where NYers vacation! 🙂 We haven’t tried them because they are typically made with icky ingredients, but I never thought of trying it at home…thanks!! And, I love talking to people at the store- people usually remark on my cart and ask questions, and I find it’s a good way to get a convo going about healthy real food eating. I always talk to the cashiers about grassfed meats and butter and tell them it’s a shame they don’t carry raw milk at the stores. 🙂 (Well, SOME stores do actually- one local grocery chain, the natural foods stores and then if we go into Maine we can find it many, many places!)
That is so amazing I have never seen them having gone to grad school in Philly and spending the summer weekends between my 2 years there at the Jersey shore (with cousins of my Sister in Law) all the time. Food was not important to me at that point in my life though. I basically lived on scrambled eggs as that was all I could afford to eat (sometimes I lived on $10 from Sunday to Friday when i got paid for my 20 hour a week internship). I guess eggs weren’t such a bad thing .. I couldn’t even afford fast food !!!
You can find “livestock” raw milk sold at farms all over NH and Maine. I live in Maine and buy my “livestock” raw milk just over the border in NH. I’ll be breeding my Oberhasli in the fall, so I’ll have my own supply in the spring. 🙂 I can’t wait.
Yes, I used to drink them in soda shops as a child in Brooklyn!
Yes, Egg Cream Soda!” On my first trip to The Big Apple I had to have one, a Black and White Cookie too, and I watched it made. They didn’t use milk though, but real cream, or maybe half and half? It was very cold and hit the spot on a hot August day in NYC. The key I was told to make it authentic is a special soda in one of the soda bar type seltzer bottles, you know, metal with a spritzer or squirt top? Anyway, thanks for reminding me of Egg Cream Sodas; might try one but using the good ingredients Sarah used. Cheers!
Yes, in New york – you can still get the old fashioned egg cream – some of the fancier places though charge a ton.
Can you write down how to make the Egg Cream Soda?
Yes, indeed, egg cream and anyone from New York would have recognized your description immediately, LOL! We are in South Florida and there are a few places here that still make them, but they are easy to make at home. Yummy!
Sounds worth a try! Sometimes I wonder what the cashiers think when I check out… I buy a lot of butter, sour cream, some produce, lunch meat, larabars, tortilla chips, and sprouted bread. And I hardly ever have any coupons! After being so used to the couponing craze, they always ask, “any coupons?” and I just have to say, “Not for this stuff…” (I guess real food isn’t a big rebate/coupon/money-maker for the stores, huh?)
Egg creams were still popular when I grew up in NYC in the 70s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_cream
I LOVE looking in other people’s shopping carts at the checkout! Fun post 🙂 And thanks for fixing it so we can right-click on links!
I was going to say…that’s an egg cream! Love them, but totally forgot about them until now. Thanks for the reminder!
Hey sarah, buying seltzer water by the bottle is pretty expensive here when we have filtered water through a reverse osmosis system at home, would you suggest purchasing a sodastream to make our seltzer at home or is this a different thing? Maybe its called something different here in aus 🙂 sounds like you use seltzer often tho!
This post made me smile! A lot of older folks here still remember the unpasteurised milk in the 50’s where it would be delivered at your door with a bucket and they all talk of that yellow cream floating on the top. Living in dairy-Holland it’s the same story almost every time: How those were the times… 😉
Years and years ago I accidentally poured 7-Up into a cup that had a little milk at the bottom. Since I was a guest, I felt like I should just drink it and not say anything. To my surprise, I loved it. Who would think that a bit of milk in watery fizz would be delicious?? Thanks for the reminder–seltzer water is on the grocery list!
Yum!
My parents called it an “Egg Cream”. They were raised in Brooklyn during the Depression/WW2 years. And–sorry!–they had no idea why it was called an egg cream when it had no eggs. 🙂 I grew up drinking these.
Since I am new to the Tampa area, and don’t really know anyone yet, I have become one of those people who will start chatting with people in lines. I’m glad you spoke with him. A lot of the time, people just stare at me for a moment and then look away. I get comments from the check out folks about “only buying healthy stuff” at the store and no coupons. I’ll have to make some homemade chocolate syrup and give this a try!
Those are now generally called Italian Iced Sodas. They’re awesome.
That looks like an egg cream!
=) we bought an old-fashioned ice cream vending booth last year that we set up at local events. We added ice cream floats and old-fashioned sodas (made from seltzer water we make in a seltzer bottle). My husband found a recipe for a Boston Egg Cream soda which is exactly what this is. I came across recipes for Italian sodas that are similar (seltzer and milk), just different flavors. We added those to the menu, too!
Thanks for sharing Sarah I’m gonna try this too…with a healthy coffee added. Yum! or Tea! Yum! the possibilities!
I’ve always known it as a Chocolate egg cream.
Sounds yummy for Florida summers. Thanks for sharing!
A lot of great folks in that era!
Sarah, what brand of seltzer water do you buy? Are they all created equally?
Yay! I love New York chocolate egg creams – that’s what they are called, but no egg. ALL of the old school delis sell this, like Katz’ Delicatessen and Carnegie Deli, etc. I love ordering them when I go to NYC.