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You Don’t Know You’re Born #1
The hidden perils of the ice cream lick
You Don’t Know You’re Born
The name Italo Marchiony (1868–1954) might not ring any merry chimes with you (see what I did there?), but as the man who patented the ice cream cone, and who was the first to sell them from his cart in New York, this gentleman deserves his place in history. For, in Victorian times, when nasty, sometimes fatal diseases were prevalent, the predecessor to the ice cream cone, the so-called penny lick, had the potential to harbour all manner of diseases.
The Penny Lick
The penny lick was a small glass receptacle in the shape of a goblet. The upper surface of the lick was concave, and the vendor would press ice cream into this depression. The thick glass tricked the customer into thinking there was more ice cream than was actually present. Then, having handed over a penny, the customer would lick the ice cream from the glass. After the customer had licked up all of the ice cream, they would return the glass to the vendor, who would wipe the surface with a cloth and then refill the glass for the next customer.
Hygiene laws were not so stringent back then, and a dirty cloth could harbour all manner of nasty infectious bugs. It is not difficult to imagine a busy vendor in a park on…
