Rainbow Cookies
Photo Credit: wEnDy/Flickr
You might guess this is an Italian export, but it’s a New York original. The dessert goes by many names: rainbow cookies, rainbow cake, Neapolitan cookies, seven-layer cookies, Venetian cookies, seven-layer cake, Italian flag cookies, tricolor cookies, and tricolore. New York City has been making (and eating) them for a century, beginning in Italian-American neighborhoods and being then picked up by nearby Jewish communities as well.
Scientific American
Scientific American is the US’s oldest continuously published magazine, counting Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla among its contributors (150 Nobel laureates have been featured on these pages over the years). It might seem like the offspring of California tech, but its origins are in New York City, with inventor Rufus Porter. The first issue was published on August 28, 1845 — not a bad run!
Chipwich
No less an authority than the New York Times has ranked this the #1 packaged frozen treat. You can find it anywhere, but it began in New York City. Brooklynite Richard LaMotta came up with the idea in 1978 and within two weeks he was selling New Yorkers 40,000 of them a day. By the time he sold the company to Coolbrands International in 2002, more than a billion Chipwiches had been sold.
Source: “Made In NYC,” by Ethan Wolff, March 2024, City Guide New York
Contributed by Bobbie Roggemann