Early 1960s.
When Wife1 and I first got out to Colorado from NYC, we stopped at a diner and ordered burgers and egg creams. The waitress didn't know what that was. We both of us thought in terms of "ignorant hicks."
Egg cream: half a glass or so of milk, club soda poured in carefully, so as to form a white foam on top. Chololate syrup poured in a thin stream through the foam and gently stirred with a straw, leaving a spot of brown in the hopefully undisturbed white foam. Drunk through the straw.
Methods and ingredients (mainly the kind of syrup) varied slightly with locale. A "good" egg cream was defined by how small and sharply defined the spot of syrup on the foam was. Flavor had little to do with the "goodness" quotient.
But no egg, no cream, have no idea how it got its name and no idea if this information is still current.
Terry, 230RN
