Eskimo Pie, a slice of ice cream covered with chocolate, was conceived when an eight-year-old boy in an ice cream shop in Onawa, Iowa, wavered between spending his nickel on ice cream or chocolate candy. The shopkeeper decided to combine the two. The year was 1919, the shopkeeper was Christian K. Nelson, and the resulting confection became the Eskimo Pie.
Nelson made the product by dipping hard-frozen ice cream slices into heated chocolate. Rather than melt the ice cream, the process hardened the chocolate. Nelson called his invention the “Temptation I-Scream Bar” and sold it locally.
