Observed each year on August 2, it is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. This food holiday is one that will refresh each one of us on a warm summer day with a delicious frozen ice cream sandwich.
The original ice cream sandwich sold for a penny in 1900 from a pushcart in the Bowery neighborhood of New York. The vendor, who was never identified in the article printed in papers across the nation, sandwiched the ice cream between milk biscuits. Soon, push carts popped up around the city and country during the summer months selling the portable treats.
The modern version of the ice cream sandwich was invented by Jerry Newberg in 1945 when he was selling ice cream at Forbes Field.
There are alternatives to the classic ice cream sandwich using chocolate cookies, oatmeal cookies or a rice crispy wafer in place of the original chocolate one.
Ice cream sandwiches are known around the world by a variety of names including the Monaco Bar, Giant Sandwich, Maxibon, Cream Between, Vanilla Slice and many more.
- The 30-44 age group buys the most ice cream sandwiches.
- The average number of ice cream sandwiches eaten per second nationally is 48.
- The ice cream sandwich ranks as the second best-selling ice cream novelty in America.
- If all the ice cream sandwiches made last year were placed end to end, they would circle Earth 3 1/2 times.
- The eastern seaboard consumes almost 50 percent of all ice cream sandwiches.
- Although ice cream sandwiches were made by hand and distributed by New York street vendors in the early 1940s, it wasn’t until 1945 that the first ice cream sandwiches were mass produced.
- The current version was invented in 1945 by Jerry Newberg when he was selling ice cream at Forbes Field, in Pittsburgh, PA.
- The Coolhaus food truck empire has taken ice cream sandwiches to a new level. You can buy one of their pre-packaged ice cream sandwiches, pints of ice cream, or hand-dipped ice cream bars at one of 4,000+ markets ranging from Whole Foods to Kroger and Safeway, in all 50 states
- The ice cream sandwich is so American it is sold at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
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