![]() Latrobe also celebrated by hosting a dinner for ice cream notables, including Bryce Thomson, longtime editor of The Sundae School Newsletter, and by featuring a "Banana Split Brigade" in its 2004 Fourth of July parade. The school then dished up banana split-flavored ice cream. Greubel says he is just fine with the "good folks" of Wilmington celebrating the nation's most famous sundae, even if the 100th birthday was three years ago - an occasion that was marked by a centennial celebration in 2004 at the University of Pittsburgh, where Strickler earned his pharmacy degree in 1906.ĭubbed "From Pitt Came the Split," the event featured Greubel, also a Pitt alum, decked out in a Gay Nineties straw hat and bowtie, presenting the chancellor with a large, plush banana. (A dozen were said to cost $1.50.) Unfortunately, when I tried to verify the existence of that receipt, nobody seemed to have it, or any of the original glassware. ![]() One key bit of "proof" that Greubel and others in Latrobe like to mention is an old receipt showing that Strickler commissioned a special boat-shaped dish from a nearby glass factory in 1905. The 69-year-old Greubel says he personally talked with "Doc" Strickler about his creation, which "originally cost 10 cents, twice the price of regular sundaes." Ice Cream Joe also says that even the National Ice Cream Retailers Association has declared Latrobe the home of the banana split. when he was a 23-year-old clerk," says Joseph "Ice Cream Joe" Greubel, president of the Valley Dairy restaurant chain. "We've got clear evidence that William Strickler invented the banana split right here in the Tassell Pharmacy at 805 Ligonier St. So what does Latrobe have to say about upsetting Wilmington's banana cart? I guess news didn't used to travel as fast."Īdvertising for the upcoming celebration notes that the Latrobe complication "won't dampen spirits" and that "thousands will still flock to Wilmington to sample an old-fashioned banana split." "Until pretty recently, we'd never heard of the Latrobe, Pennsylvania, claim. "We think the controversy is fun," says Mary Gibson, owner of Gibson's Goodies, the shop that provides the ice cream for the festival. People have grown up guffawing over how Hazard's cousin, Clinton, predicted the name "banana split" would not catch on.įacts that seem to pull the peel out from under Wilmington's legacy are simply shrugged off. For decades, folks have heard how Hazard devised the treat to attract more students from nearby Wilmington College. After all, the story of how local restaurateur Hazard made culinary history in 1907 by flanking three scoops of ice cream with a banana cut lengthwise is a key source of community pride. Most sundae experts (yes, there are some) think that the banana split was created in 1904, about 275 miles away, by David Strickler, a pharmacy clerk in Latrobe, Penn.ĭespite the evidence jeopardizing Wilmington's claim to fame, its centenary bash is still on. Problem is, Wilmington may have missed the banana boat by three years. On June 8 and 9, Wilmington, Ohio, is holding its 13th annual Banana Split Festival, this year marking the 100th anniversary of the banana split's invention by one of its citizens, E.R. This week, fans are celebrating the birth of that enduring symbol of America's bygone soda-fountain era, the banana split. She can be reached through her web site,. Her most recent works are The All-American Cookie Book, a James Beard Foundation award nominee in 2001, and The All-American Dessert Book, which made The Washington Post and The New York Times lists of notable cookbooks in 2005. Nancy Baggett is a cookbook author, food journalist and Americana researcher who often writes about the history and lore of desserts and sweets.
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