New York’s iconic corner-candy-store drink, the egg cream, has only three ingredients, none of which is eggs or cream. It is chocolate syrup, whole milk, and seltzer. David Fox, whose great-grandfather started Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate Syrup (the only proper chocolate flavoring for an egg cream) suggested that cream may indeed have been part of the original recipe, but too expensive for the average soda fountain customer. A Lower East Side mixologist once told us that his vintage soda fountain used to include eggs in its chocolate syrup, and that is how the drink got its ovarian moniker. It is certainly within soda fountain tradition to plop an egg into a milk shake for extra calories, but it would make no sense to add such ballast to this elegant drink. It is much more likely that the name comes from a well-mixed egg cream’s foamy head with its intimations of egg-and-cream luxury.
Although nothing could be plainer than the list of ingredients, construction of an egg cream is an exacting craft and, in fact, cannot be done at home. Syrup goes into the glass first. Next, cold milk. Then, the drama (and the reason professional equipment is needed): Cold seltzer must be spritzed into the glass in a fast and furious jet off the back of a long-handled spoon. After about one second, the fountain handle gets pushed back so an easy stream can flow into the glass as its foamy head rises high. An experienced soda jerk hardly needs to stir at all because that original, split-second injection of seltzer got the milk and syrup mixing.
Egg creams normally are made in shapely soda fountain glasses. But Harold’s New York Deli in Edison, New Jersey, uses mugs because they hold more.
An egg cream must be drunk almost as quickly as it has been made. The foamy head fades fast and the champagne-chocolate tingle dissipates as you gulp it down. At the bottom of the glass you should see a streak or two of chocolate, still unblended. That is the way it should be, the “imperfection” like the small flaw Renaissance artists used to include in their paintings, just to let you know they were made by a human, not by God.
Unlike wine, an egg cream adds no pleasure to other foods. It is a snack that wants nothing else, the only possible accompaniment being a single long pretzel stick.