Eat an Eskimo Pie Day is a holiday that commemorates the date when the Eskimo Pie was first created on January 24, 1922. This frozen treat consists of a vanilla ice cream bar that’s covered in chocolate and has a stick in it that makes it easy to eat. However, this ice cream treat is no longer known as an Eskimo Pie.
During the 2020-21 George Floyd protests, this treat was changed to Edy’s Pie—the last name of Dreyer’s co-founder, Joseph Edy. That’s because the term Eskimo is considered to be a colonial name for Aleut, Inuit, and Yupik peoples and is considered not only to be inappropriate but also a form of cultural appropriation. So maybe this holiday should be renamed Eat an Edy’s Pie Day.
Christian Nelson decided to invent this treat after he and his friend went to a corner drugstore and he watched his friend debate whether he should buy ice cream or a chocolate bar. His friend ultimately decided to buy the ice cream, but the decision perplexed Mr. Nelson. He asked his friend why he didn’t buy both treats and his friend responded that he simply didn’t have enough money to buy both. That is when Nelson decided to create a treat that combined chocolate and ice cream.
It took Christian about a month to create the perfect mix of ice cream and chocolate, but once he did, he named it I-Scream Bars. A year later, he teamed up with successful candymaker Russel Stover and agreed to split the profits on any future sale of what would eventually be called the Eskimo Pie. The rest, as they say, is history.