STORY OF A ICE-CFEAM & CONE
Series-1
Ashok Silwal
On leaving school, the father took his child to buy a nice ice cream!
They were walking in the street when the child asked, ‘Dad! Who had the idea of the ice cream cone? Who invented it?’
And the dad answered, ‘I don’t know but I will try to figure it out and I will tell you.’
After inquiring and reading a little here and there, also for his own curiosity, the father told this non simple story of the ice cream cone:
There are at least 12 people vying for the merit of its invention. Almost all versions revolve around the same point: an ice cream seller, left without cups, asks for help from a wafer vendor.
Who ended up taking the credit is the Italian ITALO MARCHIONI. He began selling ice cream in traveling kiosk in New York in 1896, about 130 years ago. Up until that moment, ice cream was served in somewhat heavy bowls to carry around. They broke easily and were often not restored. And what is worse, they were hard to wash on site. For this, Marchioni realized that an edible ice cream holder was needed.
He created a machine that produced a kind of rolled wafer cup and in 1903 he obtained the patent, that is the official document that serves to demonstrate whom first had an idea and gives the right to get compensation from those who want to use it.
Actually, someone had patented the ice cream cone before him! One of his cousins, FRANK MARCHIONI was partner of the Italian ANTONIO VALVONA who, in 1901, has registered the patent for a ‘machine for cooking biscuit cups that can be filled with ice cream from street vendors or in other places.’
Italo had worked for a while for his cousin Frank. The matter ended up in the Courts the United States in 1910 and drag on for a long time. Until a judge, in 1914, decided that everyone had the right to produce they own ‘pods’, waffle cups, without having to pay the royalties to Frank and Valvona.
But when has the waffle cup taken the shape of the cone?
This is the most confusing part of the story!
There were many people who wanted to profit from the idea to earn money. It seems that the cone first appeared at the World’s Fair in Saint Louis in the United States in 1904.
According to the daughter of Marchioni, the father was among the exhibitors and sold ice cream in its patented cups. But the cups he had brought with him ran out quickly.
At that point, he asked for help from a wafer salesman who had the stand next to him and asked him to make a wafer with the format as similar as possible to a small glass, a cone.
Some scholars claim that the seller was the Syrian ERNEST HAMWI but here is no confirmation of this version.
And the child: ‘Very nice story, dad! I liked it. I would like to invent something too. so you would tell the story!’
‘Good idea little one, I am waiting for your invention ! Go!’
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