A dish of ice cream topped with syrup, fruit, whipped cream, and other sweet toppings.
Origin disputed but likely from 'Sunday'—possibly because the dish was sold on Sundays to get around blue laws that prohibited ice cream sales on other days. Some credit it to Ithaca, New York in the 1890s.
The 'sundae' is a delicious example of how laws and commerce interact—blue laws meant to enforce religious observance actually created an entirely new dessert! The spelling 'sundae' instead of 'Sunday' was possibly intentional to avoid religious associations and skirt legal objections.
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