Apparently there’s debate over the invention of the ice cream sundae. For the next three days, each post will be a different version of that story. First, I’ll share my favourite…

In the 1890s many states had “blue laws” which required that Sunday was a day of worship. In the town of Evanston, Illinois there was a law specifically prohibiting the sale of soda water, and thus preventing the sale of ice cream sodas.  So to evade the law, they served a soda-less soda, consisting of ice cream and syrup, which came to be known as the Sunday soda. To avoid objections to the blasphemous reference to the Sabbath, “sunday” was eventually re-spelled “sundae”.

I learned about this fact from: http://www.epl.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=218&Itemid=331