In his 1936 obituary in the New York Times, a professor named Charles Watson Townsend was credited with “inadvertently [originating] pie à la mode.” He frequented the Cambridge Hotel in Cambridge, New York, in the 1890s and would order apple pie with ice cream for dessert. Another diner, Mrs. Berry Hall, called the dessert “pie à la mode.” Directly translated from French, “à la mode” means “in the style,” or “in fashion,” but adding “à la mode” was simply a way of imparting an air of elegance onto a dish. Townsend went on to order the dessert by that name at the famous Delmonico’s in New York City. As legend has it, he shamed the staff of such a distinguished gastronomic institution for being ignorant of this decadent dessert. In their embarrassment, they vowed to include pie à la mode on the menu henceforth—where it remains today, alongside baked Alaska and New York cheesecake.
