The Delicious History Of The Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich
Ice cream sandwiches have been around for decades, and it seems like with each passing decade comes new delectable variations. Today, you can buy them in a square, rectangular, or circular shape in a range of sizes, colors, and flavors. From Klondike to FatBoy, Mad Minis, and SkinnyCow ... the list of ice cream sandwich brands you can find on grocery shelves goes on and on.
But how much do you really know about these frozen treats, aside from these varieties and how delicious they are? Just as with every other processed food, there was a time when ice cream sandwiches didn't exist. The concept of ice cream sandwiches emerged in the late 1800s, only you couldn't eat the entire sandwich back then, per RochesterFirst.com. That's because two sheets of inedible paper held the sandwich together. In fact, the authentic Ice cream cookie sandwiches didn't make an appearance until decades later.
If you want to know who invented the ice cream cookie sandwich, the answer depends on what type of cookie you're referring to. Oatmeal cookies, chocolate cookies, and chocolate chip cookies were all involved in the delicious history of the ice cream cookie sandwich.
The first ice cream cookie sandwich was created in 1928
George Whitney is credited as the first person to create an ice cream cookie sandwich with oatmeal cookies, now referred to as IT'S-IT Ice Cream Sandwiches, according to SFist. According to the IT'S-IT Ice Cream website, it all happened in San Francisco in 1928. In addition to squishing vanilla ice cream between "two freshly baked large old-fashioned oatmeal cookies," the cookies are also dipped in dark chocolate.
The more familiar chocolate cookies that we see in many modern ice cream sandwiches made their first appearance about 20 years later. RochesterFirst.com mentions a vendor named Jerry Newberg as the creator who started selling them during baseball games in Pittsburgh in 1945, but his claim hasn't been confirmed by a neutral third party.
Richard LaMotta is considered the creator of Chipwich, the ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip ice cream, per SFGate. He started selling them on the streets of Manhattan a few years later via street-cart vendors. Within a few hours, a whopping 25,000 Chipwiches were sold.
Dozens of ice cream cookie sandwich varieties have been introduced over the years, but the first reported one was created in 1928 using oatmeal cookies. In 1945, the chocolate cookie ice cream sandwiches surfaced, followed by the chocolate chip in 1982. Regardless of the confirmed and unconfirmed history details, these sandwiches have inspired the many other tasty versions we all enjoy today, like the popular cookie dough ice cream sandwich.