Ice cream became a popular street food in the 19th century. Vendors in England, America, and elsewhere would take a cart out equipped with ice cream and small glass containers called "penny licks." These were thick and heavy, and had a deceptively small bowl that held a penny's worth of ice cream. After a customer finished their ice cream, they were dunked in a bowl of water and wiped out with a towel -if they were cleaned at all. This was a perfect way to transmit tuberculosis, which led to the penny lick being banned in London in 1899. Over the next couple of decades, other places also banned the penny lick glass containers due to their unsanitary role in the spread of disease.
However, there was already a perfectly suitable replacement in the works. The French had been serving soft desserts in rolled-up crepes and waffles for hundred years by then, and the leap to serving ice cream in them was a matter of several manufacturing innovations. Not only were they single-use, but they were biodegradable even when not eaten. Penny licks are now collectible antiques.
-via Boing Boing
(Top image credit: Linda Spashett Storye_book)
