By Kelsey Hand

I remember the first time I ever heard of an Egg Cream. I was eleven, maybe twelve, and captivated by the fictitious young-adult Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. In the 2001 book, Alice Alone, fourteen-year old Alice hosts a co-ed sleepover where her older brother Lester volunteers to make everyone “an egg cream… made by the world’s best egg creamer.”¹ The teenage party guests, along with myself, were unfamiliar with the egg cream and were “surprised” to discover that it’s “a drink.”² Naylor describes Lester’s preparation process with painstaking detail:

“He carefully spooned an inch of [‘U-bet chocolate-flavored syrup’] into the bottom of each glass. When they were all filled…he added an inch of whole milk on top of the syrup…Then he took the first glass, tilted it, inserted the spoon and, with his other hand, sprayed the seltzer from the pressurized dispenser directly onto the spoon so that he got a big chocolaty head. He stirred and handed the first glass to Elizabeth.”³

Elizabeth, Alice, and the other onlookers were “fascinated” by the treat, particularly its simple ingredients and the absence of egg in it despite its name, of which Lester was similarly perplexed.⁴ “Search me,” admitted Lester, “It’s an old New York drink. Some say it comes from Russia.” Regardless of its mysterious origins and ill-fitted name, “Is [it] good, or is [it] good?”⁵

As a child raised in a rural, Christian village in Pennsylvania, this short and sweet moment in Alice acted as a portal into an unknown culture through an unknown beverage. In other words, I vicariously tasted Yiddish culture through literature. Several years later, I experienced the egg cream in-person while visiting a diner in New York City, though this “first” time is less imprinted in my mind. I can only recall that I favorably identified the drink as a ‘sparkly’ kind of chocolate milk, almost like a rich chocolate soda. My fondness gained a new level of depth after I began dating my Jewish boyfriend, whose desire to introduce me to the “real” New York egg cream evolved into a life mission. “You need Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup,” he firmly instructed. “It is key.” Soon, I tested egg creams at a number of locations with the precision and objectivity of a scientist, including Carroll Garden’s dessert spot, the Chocolate Room; Cobble Hill’s retro ice-cream shop, The Farmacy; and the pinnacle of Brooklyn’s Jewish cuisine, Junior’s Cheesecake. In an effort to transport the beverage across state borders (and cultures), my boyfriend even gifted my parents a quintessential egg-cream kit for Christmas, including Fox’s syrup, a couple of bottles of Boylan’s seltzer, and two novelty glasses from Junior’s in which to serve their creamy creations.

This past June, my newfound appreciation lead me to an article on the Gothamist news blog that recommended the Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival as a fun, food-focused weekend activity, an event sponsored by the Museum at Eldridge Street.⁶ Set on the promise of good cheap eats, my boyfriend and I happily braved outside to face the hot heat of the New York City summer, second only in severity to the New York City windy winters. As we slowly, lazily rose above ground from the subway station like the steamy  mist around us, we decoded street maps to navigate ourselves through the Lower East Side and Chinatown to 12 Eldridge Street, between Division and Canal. The festival is described on the Museum at Eldridge Street’s website as a cross-cultural “block party” designed to celebrate and “pay…homage to the Jewish and Chinese communities of the neighborhood.”⁷ The event originated over fourteen years ago in 2000, when Hanna Griff-Slevin, the Director of Programs at the Eldridge Street Museum, “thought [“a Chinese and Jewish Festival”] would be good for the neighborhood and for [the museum’s] mission to tell the story of the immigrants who made and make our neighborhood special.”⁸ Most importantly, Griff-Slevin wanted to bring “the whole community together.”⁹ Only about 500 people attended the first festival¹⁰, in contrast to the 8000 attendees in 2010¹¹ and over 11,000 in 2011.¹² Nevertheless, Griff-Slevin “experienced…the deep feeling of community and joy…at our very first festival,” which she recognized as “a New York Moment.”¹³ That is to say, the feeling when a few of the cultures and identities swirling around the Big Apple intersect and appreciate one another, if only for a day, an hour, or just a moment. The festival’s dual identity is a microcosm of the Lower East Side itself, which is vividly on display when viewing the Eldridge Street Synagogue beside its immediate neighbor, a Chinese massage parlor. Dappled throughout the area today are dumpling shops, Chinese bakeries, and fishmongers. But, Griff-Slevin advises passersby to “look closely, [and] you might notice Harris Levy Fine Linens and remember that your bubbe went there to buy her wedding linens; or you might see a tenement with Moorish windows and a faded Star of David on the façade – a sign that the building was once a synagogue.”¹⁴ These remaining artifacts document a strong Jewish past that will continue to live on into the future, especially though celebrations such as the Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival.

The festival highlights the ways that the Jewish and Chinese traditions are unique, but also the similarities they share. In an interview with the Jewish Week, Julie Tay of the East River Ensemble says that the Chinese and Jewish cultures are “both nerd cultures. We all know that when we didn’t bring home a 95% on a test, our parents ask us why we didn’t get 100 percent.”¹⁵ Besides a mutual emphasis on education, both groups create paper-based crafts and highly value musical expression. Below, Griff-Slevin illustrates a scene from the festival that draws attention to these cultural connections:

“You hear strains of klezmer music and see folks dancing a hora. If you stay a bit longer, the strains of Ray Musike’s Romania Romania slowly change into a Chinese folk song led by bandmaster Mr. Hoy, and members of the Qi Shu Feng Peking Opera transform themselves into monkey kings and tigers and flip through the air. You shake your head twice, no three times, and enter the 1887 landmark Eldridge Street Synagogue. Sitting side by side is a Hebrew scribe, demonstrating this sacred art, with a Chinese calligrapher.”¹⁶

In addition to featuring scribes, calligraphers, and traditional music, the festival presents “Yiddish and Chinese language lessons, mah jongg, food and folk art demos, crafts, [and] synagogue tours,”¹⁷ as well as “face painting, paper folding and yarmulke making.”¹⁸ Before coming to the Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival, I misleadingly believed that it might offer other kinds of Jewish and Chinese foods. To my knowledge, however, the event’s name said it all (with the exception of pickles!). I purchased the house special for a mere five dollars—one egg cream and one egg roll, please. What I thought was a steal, though, was substantially more expensive than its two-dollar sticker price in 2007. ¹⁹ Both foods were tasty, but I thought neither was done complete justice. The egg cream was without its signature bubbly nature due to the lack of carbonation, and the kosher egg roll was a little softer and less crispy than it should have been having sat out in the sun. Any pickiness that I might allude to here is completely invalidated when one learns just how many ‘average’ egg roll and egg cream pairings I digested that day. Hint…it may be more than one. Or two. While my boyfriend and I did not partake in any crafting that day, we greatly enjoyed the traditional Chinese and Jewish music that served as a lovely backdrop to our munching. My favorite memory of the festival was gorging on the only items that didn’t proclaim to have egg in its name—the pickles! New, half sour, and full sour—these were my options. Oh, I was scared, never having eaten a pickle by any other name (other than just a pickle). In the end, I tried and loved all three, even taking one or two with me to go as ‘party favors.’ My biggest takeaway from the festival, and one that lasted far longer than the pickles did, was the importance of treasuring the past in the present so that it can live on for many years to come.

Image Sources

Figure 1. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/images/products/main/45699/2 3192/foxs-u-bet-chocolate-syrup-22-oz-squeeze-bottle.jpg. Accessed December 16, 2014.
Figure 2. https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1278/644039258_d1ac3dc3aa_z.jpg?zz=1. Accessed December 16, 2014.
Figure 3. http://www.eldridgestreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/slide-01.jpg. Accessed December 16, 2014.
Figure 4. http://i2.wp.com/www.thelodownny.com/leslog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/511.jpg?resize=500%2C574. Accessed December 16, 2014.
Figure 5. https://media.timeout.com/images/resizeBestFit/100068605/660/37 0/image.jpg. Accessed December 16, 2014.
Figure 6. https://lodown.typepad.com/.a/6a01127920a5dc28a4011570da176 3970b-800wi. Accessed December 16, 2014.
Figure 7. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/BewTZdGmN4M/Ueyca3CggKI/AAAAAA AABjo/3Ey7QWYTRc0/s1600/DSC_6426.jpg. Accessed December 16, 2014.

Works Cited

“14^th Annual Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival,” Museum at Eldridge Street. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Casey, Nell. “Brunch with Prince & Other Ways to Eat Well this Weekend.” Gothamist (blog). Accessed July 19, 2021.

Egbert, Bill. “Eggcelent Adventure. Jewish, Chinese faves hit spot,” New York Daily News. June 12, 2006. Accessed December 7, 2014.

“Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival,” Family Learning Forum. January 31, 2011. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Griff-Slevin, Hanna. “Festival Musings.” Museum at Eldridge Street Blog (blog). May 30, 2010. Accessed July 19, 2021.

Merwin, Hugh. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams on Eldridge Street.” Gothamist (blog). June 2, 2007. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Reynolds Naylor, Phyllis. Alice Alone. New York: Simon Pulse, 2002.

“Scenes from the 2013 Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival [PHOTOS].” Bowery Boogie. June 10, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Solis, Gustavo. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival Celebrates Chinese and Jewish Culture.” DNAinfo. June 5, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Traison, Liz. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams.” The Jewish Week. June 11, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Footnotes

1. Reynolds Naylor, Phyllis. Alice Alone. (New York: Simon Pulse, 2002), p. 51.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 52.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 53.
6. Casey, Nell. “Brunch with Prince & Other Ways to Eat Well this Weekend.” Gothamist (blog). Accessed July 19, 2021.
7. “Events,” Museum at Eldridge Street. Accessed December 7, 2014.
8. Griff-Slevin, Hanna. “Festival Musings.” Museum at Eldridge Street Blog (blog). May 30, 2010. Accessed July 19, 2021.
9. Egbert, Bill. “Eggcelent Adventure. Jewish, Chinese faves hit spot,” New York Daily News. June 12, 2006.
10. Solis, Gustavo. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival Celebrates Chinese and Jewish Culture.” DNAinfo. June 5, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2014.
11. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival,” Family Learning Forum. January 31, 2011. Accessed December 7, 2014.
12. Solis.
13. Griff-Slevin.
14. Ibid.
15. Traison, Liz. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams.” The Jewish Week. June 11, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2014.
16. Griff-Slevin.
17. “14^th Annual Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival,” Museum at Eldridge Street. Accessed December 7, 2014.
18. Elie. “Scenes from the 2013 Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Festival [PHOTOS].” Bowery Boogie. June 10, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2014. 
19. Merwin, Hugh. “Egg Rolls and Egg Creams on Eldridge Street.” Gothamist (blog). June 2, 2007. Accessed December 7, 2014.