West Side Canvas: A Vanilla Guy Searching for Cream Soda on the UWS

Painting and Essay by Robert Beck

I have a food question, sort of. I’m not sure it’s answerable, but I bet there are opinions out there. While everybody is snorting and scraping the dirt over the best designer pizza, I’m wondering about cream soda. Where did it go?

As a transplant, like many of us, I grew up with a distant, under-informed, and often stereotypical view of things that went on in the city.  It was my understanding that corned beef (or pastrami) on rye kept company with cream soda at the local Jewish deli. Once I landed in Manhattan, this notion was supported by a friend I’d regularly meet at the 2nd Avenue Deli to catch up. I know that’s the East Side, but I was careful. This guy and I knew each other back in Bucks County. I painted his son’s Bar Mitzvah. He gave me the impression that the sandwich, a pickle, some slaw, and a cream soda were the Jewish Deli Happy Meal, and that of anybody, he would know.

Cream soda and I go way back. It’s basically vanilla, which is perfect. My favorite flavor is vanilla. I put vanilla extract in my chai, in my oatmeal, my pancake mix. I’m not alone in this. So why can I not find cream soda on the Upper West Side? I come across it now and then in Bagels & Co., across from Walgreens on Amsterdam at 79th (good slices, by the way), but then it’s gone the next time I stop in.

When they do have it, it’s Stewart’s, one of the better brands, but there are plenty of others.  Boyland, A&W, Barq’s, Dr. Brown’s (nice), Virgil’s, Mug (eh), and many more—some brands I’ve never heard of. Even Dr. Pepper makes a cream soda; can you believe that? So why are there cold cases filled with energy drinks, cases full of water, cases crammed with the usual suspects cola/rootbeer/orange, even cases of cold coffee (?)—like there is nowhere to get coffee around here—and I have to go down a dark alley and give a code word and special handshake to find a bottle of cream soda on the Upper West Side? Really?

In my book, there is nothing better with a slice. Those earthy notes of sweet cream and chocolate with floral overtones that complement the saltiness of the cheese and tomato sauce tang. The better the ingredients in the pie, the more it deserves a cream soda. It will also stand up to an afternoon pastry if you are coffeed out. And it’s the best answer to a tall and lean corned beef on rye with mustard I’ve ever tasted.

Fine; if you are going to eat a McSomething, you might as well have a cola. You’ve slid from culinary to pernicious anyway.

Am I wrong? Was I misled? Am I looking in all the wrong places? Or has cream soda gone the route of Fox’s Chocolate Syrup (the real deal for egg creams. Go find THAT in a store). My guess is that there are plenty of Rag readers willing to set me straight.  Go ahead; let’s hear what you got. You’re talking to a pairing master: somebody who drinks Moxie with his lobster roll.

See more of Robert Beck’s work and visit his UWS studio at www.robertbeck.net. Listen to an interview with him on Rag Radio — Here. Let him know at info@westsiderag.com if you have a connection to an archetypical UWS place or event that would make a good West Side Canvas subject. Thank you!

Note: Before Robert Beck started West Side Canvas, his essays and paintings were featured in Weekend Column. See Robert Beck’s earlier columns here and here.

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