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Pittsburgh Egg Cream
Egg creams are like mother’s milk for us New Yorkers and they’re on the beverage menu in every coffee shop and diner in the five boroughs. Yet apparently in other parts of the country this ambrosial comfort drink is practically unknown!
After visiting friends in Pittsburgh years ago, we were waiting for our flight home when we went into an airport coffee shop. My husband Danny asked for a chocolate egg cream and the guy behind the counter looked puzzled.
“I can make malteds, ice cream sodas and milkshakes, but I never heard of an egg cream.” he said, “What is it?”
“It’s a fountain drink made with three ingredients”, Danny explained. “but the key to making a good one is the order you mix them. If you’ll willing to try I’ll tell you how to do it.”
He was willing, and following Danny’s instructions, he took a tall glass, poured in about two fingers of chocolate syrup, mixed in about the same measure of milk, and then poured in seltzer while stirring briskly, leaving a few inches at the top to create a foamy head.
“But what about the egg?” he asked.
And Danny explained, “The term egg cream is really a misnomer. It refers to the foam that LOOKS like beaten egg whites, and by the way that foam makes a white mustache on your upper lip when you drink it.”
Then Danny tasted his Pittsburgh egg cream and gave a thumps up. The counter guy beamed. “It’s on the house!”, he said.
But what about the cream you may ask since the recipe calls only for milk. Well, not always it seems. We’ve had the best egg creams at Silver’s in the Hamptons where we’ve spent many beachy summers. (See The Great Hampton Babysitter Heist and Skinny Dipping)
In fact we once asked the soda jerk what makes Silver’s egg creams so rich and delicious.
“We use cream instead of milk,” he said, “the heavier the cream, the better.”
And it makes a better mustache too!
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Yum! I’ll have to try Danny’s recipe one day when we need some comfort.
Good Laurie, hope you like it!
It’s funny that the egg cream never even crossed the Hudson over to New Jersey.But we did get the Lon Guyland Ice Tea, so all is not lost.
Sorry you Jersey boys didn’t grow up with egg creams, Dave.
As for Lon Guyland ice tea, I wouldn’t know, I’m from the Bronx!
Great story, and thanks for clarifying why it is called egg cream—and supplying the recipe besides. I have never seen this outside of New York, except for an eclipse chaser from NY who always celebrates after seeing a total solar eclipse with his homemade egg cream!
Thanx Khati!
Egg creams are the perfect drink for eclipse chasers as they’re so heavenly!
Another great story, Dana. And thanks for giving us Danny’s recipe. I’ll definitely have to try it! I wonder if it would work with a nondairy milk substitute, for my lactose intolerant family members.
Thanx Suzy.
I don’t know how it would taste with soy or almond milk, you could try!
Fun story, Dana. I knew all about egg creams — and I finally had one when I was in law school at Coulumbia. There was a soda counter/newspaper store right near the Columbia campus (Broadway and 114th, as I recall) named the Mill which was famous for them., so I knew this would be the real deal. It was, but I was underwhelmed and have rarely had any since. What can I say — other than the usual “de gustibus….”
And I knew that there was no egg in egg creams. After having learned in college that Boston milk shakes did not have ice cream in them (you had to ask for a “frappe”), nothing surprised me.
Sorry you had a bad egg cream experience, John, but now you have the recipe from an expert you can try it at home!
Ahhh, egg creams, Dana. You’ve taken me back to my childhood. Where I lived now egg creams would be totally unknown, so thanks for this memory.
No egg creams in California?
But now you have the recipe!
Great story, Dana. I love that Danny taught the man behind the counter how to make an egg cream, then got it “on the house”. I confess, I’ve never had one (none made it to Detroit either) and I didn’t know there were no eggs in them. Now we all the recipe! Thanks.
Thanx Betsy, it still amazes me that egg creams are largely unknown!
Thanks for the eggspert recipe! (sorry, but somehow had to do it!) YUM!!
Good, enjoy!
No egg creams in Boston that I know of. And when in an egg cream town I would shy away from them because I was worried about the raw egg which I assumed was part of the mix (I tend to be shy about everything in NYC), but now, thanks to your story and your husband’s careful recipe, I might try one. Although I might ask the counter person to hold the milk and hold the chocolate syrup, and put a piece of lime in the seltzer.
Aw Jon, take a chance, try the full monte!