ITHACA - Organizers are holding an ice cream sundae giveaway to declare Ithaca's victory in a decades-old frosty feud with a Wisconsin community, saying a pair of high school students have found proof their city is the birthplace of the sundae.
Despite Ithaca's celebration, the city of Two Rivers is sticking to its spoons and its own claim as the sundae's original hometown.
“This new research is incontrovertible and ends the sundae war and the debate that goes back to the 1930s,” said Bruce Stoff, tourism manager for the Ithaca-Tompkins County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“We can now document almost to the hour the first time an ice cream sundae was ever served,” Stoff said.
Historians know that Americans served ice cream with toppings long before the 1880s and 1890s. Thomas Jefferson was known to put maple syrup on his ice cream.
“But it wasn't a sundae until someone began calling them that,” Stoff said.
Ithacans contend drugstore owner Chester Platt served up the first sundae - a concoction of vanilla ice cream, cherry syrup and a candied cherry - to a local minister after church on April 3, 1892. Officials in Two Rivers insist the sundae was really born there in 1881 when Edward Berners served a sundae with chocolate sauce and ice cream at a customer's request.
The dispute has been good-natured, with councils in both cities passing resolutions insisting on their claim to the sundae title. Last year, Two Rivers placed a coupon for a free sundae in the local newspaper in Ithaca and had its residents blitz Ithaca Mayor Carol Peterson with postcards asserting their claim.
Stoff said the facts were in dispute until Ithaca High School seniors Meredith Buchberg and Laura Willemsen unearthed new evidence earlier this year while working as historical researchers. The two discovered original letters, shop ledgers, newspaper clippings and period advertisements confirming the sundae's creation in Ithaca, Stoff said.
They also found evidence that invalidates the competing claim made by Two Rivers, he said.
Two Rivers' claim is based on a newspaper interview Berners did in 1929, Stoff said. Additionally, the students found that Berners' obituary in 1939 dated the first sundae to about 1900.
“We don't have an ad and we will give them credit as the birthplace of the first newspaper ad for a sundae,” said Greg Buckley, city manager for Two Rivers, which holds it own annual birthday celebration in June.
“We are relying more heavily on oral histories, traditions and the recollections of people who remember visiting Berners' ice cream parlor,” Buckley said. “We are sticking to our story. We think Ithaca is certainly part of the proud ice cream sundae history. But we had it first, and we're sticking to it.”
On Wednesday, organizers plan to scoop out more than 3,000 free sundaes, Stoff said. A local company, Purity Ice Cream, is donating 55 3-gallon buckets of vanilla ice cream and providing imported Fabbri Amarena cherries. Those wanting a modern version with chocolate, nuts and whipped cream will have to bring their own toppings, Stoff said.
While the sundae debate is good-natured, Ithaca organizers are using the event for serious business - to help raise money for local food banks and hunger organizations.
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On the Net:
www.visitithaca.com
http://www.tworiverseconomicdevelopment.org/relocation/history-sunda e.htm
AP-ES-07-17-07 1528EDT
“This new research is incontrovertible and ends the sundae war and the debate that goes back to the 1930s,” said Bruce Stoff, tourism manager for the Ithaca-Tompkins County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“We can now document almost to the hour the first time an ice cream sundae was ever served,” Stoff said.
Historians know that Americans served ice cream with toppings long before the 1880s and 1890s. Thomas Jefferson was known to put maple syrup on his ice cream.
“But it wasn't a sundae until someone began calling them that,” Stoff said.
Ithacans contend drugstore owner Chester Platt served up the first sundae - a concoction of vanilla ice cream, cherry syrup and a candied cherry - to a local minister after church on April 3, 1892. Officials in Two Rivers insist the sundae was really born there in 1881 when Edward Berners served a sundae with chocolate sauce and ice cream at a customer's request.
The dispute has been good-natured, with councils in both cities passing resolutions insisting on their claim to the sundae title. Last year, Two Rivers placed a coupon for a free sundae in the local newspaper in Ithaca and had its residents blitz Ithaca Mayor Carol Peterson with postcards asserting their claim.
Stoff said the facts were in dispute until Ithaca High School seniors Meredith Buchberg and Laura Willemsen unearthed new evidence earlier this year while working as historical researchers. The two discovered original letters, shop ledgers, newspaper clippings and period advertisements confirming the sundae's creation in Ithaca, Stoff said.
They also found evidence that invalidates the competing claim made by Two Rivers, he said.
Two Rivers' claim is based on a newspaper interview Berners did in 1929, Stoff said. Additionally, the students found that Berners' obituary in 1939 dated the first sundae to about 1900.
“We don't have an ad and we will give them credit as the birthplace of the first newspaper ad for a sundae,” said Greg Buckley, city manager for Two Rivers, which holds it own annual birthday celebration in June.
“We are relying more heavily on oral histories, traditions and the recollections of people who remember visiting Berners' ice cream parlor,” Buckley said. “We are sticking to our story. We think Ithaca is certainly part of the proud ice cream sundae history. But we had it first, and we're sticking to it.”
On Wednesday, organizers plan to scoop out more than 3,000 free sundaes, Stoff said. A local company, Purity Ice Cream, is donating 55 3-gallon buckets of vanilla ice cream and providing imported Fabbri Amarena cherries. Those wanting a modern version with chocolate, nuts and whipped cream will have to bring their own toppings, Stoff said.
While the sundae debate is good-natured, Ithaca organizers are using the event for serious business - to help raise money for local food banks and hunger organizations.
---
On the Net:
www.visitithaca.com
http://www.tworiverseconomicdevelopment.org/relocation/history-sunda e.htm
AP-ES-07-17-07 1528EDT
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