Euclid Beach Causeway, circa 1900.

Truth About Euclid Beach Vanilla

To all those fans of Weber’s concerned about the Plain Dealer article Wednesday, May 20th, 2015, where Joe Tomaro, one of the Euclid Beach Boys (EBB), stated that, “We found the original recipe and are making it in the same machine they used to use”. Joe went on to say, “Some other local places say they make it, but you can’t recreate this recipe on a regular soft serve machine.”

Let me address this last statement first. Welcome to my world, boys. People will lie for money. It’s true, Euclid Beach Vanilla cannot be made on a steel machine (which is EVERY machine manufactured after 1954), whether soft serve or not. The EBB stopped by my store Sunday evening to explain the “mix up” in the statement made to the Plain Dealer reporter, and told me that they purchased a Taylor machine made in 2006.

Now for the recipe. There are actually two recipes whose combination makes up Euclid Beach Vanilla. The EBB did not share which recipe they found (I offered to look at it for them). When Soeder Dairy finished conducting business in 1964, they did not sell their processes or equipment, just abandoned them in place (the same way the Humphreys would do with Euclid Beach 5 years later, which is why Joe and John have so much of the park’s stuff to share with us these many years later). 50 years ago, when Soeder Dairy quit cooking and blending either mix, Euclid Race filled in (admirably, I think!) with equivalents commonly available and no one noticed a thing, because the machines are the key part that overrides most everything else.

These days, it costs a lot of money to have these recipes replicated, because they are made from ingredients that were premium back then and are even rarer and more costly, today.

So, the EBB do NOT have one of the park’s machines to manufacture “Frozen Whip” in. They MAY have one of the two recipes that made up the original, but, most likely, they have a card that says “pour x ounces of Vanilla mixture into x quarts of cream mixture” and neither of the recipes for either mixture. THOSE records would have been kept at the plant, 33rd and Payne, NOT at a stand on someone else’s property.

Weber’s WILL be at the “Sights & Sounds” event on park property (E. 158th & Lakeshore) the last Sunday in September scooping both Euclid Beach Vanilla and Frosted Malt (made fresh that morning) from 1PM to 5PM and, in the meantime, I urge you to check out the Euclid Beach event center and try their “Whip”. Enjoy it as much as possible, thank them for their efforts and drop by “The Park” the last Sunday in September or Weber’s in Fairview Park for some of the original. We are lucky to live in Cleveland, where the past never dies, until we let it.