St. Louis Foodie Favorites

The history of some of our most iconic treats

Jun 03, 2022

After a couple of articles about uranium and radioactive waste, I decided to write about something completely different for this issue of Unseen St. Louis. To lighten up the tone and maybe get a little nostalgic, I thought it would be fun to look at the history of a few of the city’s most-beloved food and beverages.

St. Louis is known for lots of things, including t-ravs (toasted ravioli), St. Louis-style pizza (extra-thin crust with Provel cheese), Ted Drewes frozen custard (arguably the inventor of the concrete), and even the waffle ice cream cone (not the cone itself, but that particular style). Below I examine the history of a few different treats that started in St. Louis: pork steaks, gooey butter cakes, 7 Up, and Velvet Freeze.

Pork Steaks

Let’s start off with barbeque. Everyone knows St. Louis is a big barbecue town, and outside of the city, many people know that we have great BBQ ribs and chicken.

But most people in St. Louis don’t know about our specialty: pork steaks. These cuts, also known as ‘pork blade steaks’ are made from bone-in Bostom butt roasts cut into inch-thick steaks, and then grilled and slathered with sweet St. Louis-style BBQ sauce.

The history of pork steaks, like nearly everything else on this list, is hotly debated. Wikipedia claims that BBQ pork steaks were invented in 1956 by Winfred E. Steinbruegge, while St. Louis grocery store chain Schnucks claims that Don and Ed Schnuck came up with the idea and Don’s wife Doris invented the original sauce to go with them.

However, pork steaks started showing up in butcher shops in the early 20th century, and appeared in cookbooks and restaurants soon thereafter. But although the cut was similar, the style of cooking was more like a beef steak, and they were either served without a sauce or with a brown gravy.

Meat packer Robert F. Eggleston offered a more likely origin story in 1995. He explained how in the early part of the century, St. Louis ribs were so popular that by the 4th of July each year, the city had run out. Needing to sell other cuts of meat due to limitations on freezer technology, butchers cut pork butts into steaks, which as Eggleston noted (and many of us figured out on our own), “taste like ribs but are neater to eat.” He estimated butchers sold over 2 million pounds of pork steaks each year just around the holiday.

And because of the similarity to ribs and the fact that pork steaks were cooked out on the grill, it’s no wonder that people adorned their grilled pork steaks, like their ribs, with sweet and smokey BBQ sauce.

In 1954, pork steaks had definitely caught on. At the time, Post-Dispatch food writer Hoyt Alden wrote about someone who “does a wonderful job with barbecued pork steaks,” complete with BBQ sauce. By mid-century, people all over the city were throwing pork steaks on the grill, and they were served at civic fundraisers and soon alongside ribs at BBQ restaurants. And the rest, they say, is history.

But why didn’t BBQ pork steaks ever catch on outside of St. Louis? Eggleston suggested that in most areas of the US, butchers cut pork steaks too thin, making them inappropriate for grilling. And as he noted, "the St. Louis area is unique. Most of the country eats more beef than pork. Here in St. Louis, it's just the opposite. We eat more pork."

So here’s to the pork steak, a tradition that’s unique to St. Louis.

Gooey Butter Cake

Next, let’s look at one of the most popular baked goods in the city.

In my opinion, gooey butter cake is one of the best things St. Louisans have ever invented. It looks like an unassuming coffee cake, cheesecake, or maybe lemon bars, a pale square cake sunken down in the center and dusted with powdered sugar. But looks can be deceiving. It has a chewy (usually yeasted) dough crust with a soft, gooey center that despite only a few ingredients, will make your taste buds explode. And it’s extraordinarily popular all over the city.

So where did it all start?

Like pork steaks, no one knows for sure who first invented gooey butter cake. According to the Missouri Historical Society, the city’s greatest pastry began as a baking mishap by a South St. Louis German baker in the 1930s or 1940s. But who actually invented it is up for debate. Because of its popularity, several families have staked a claim in its creation.

One version suggests that in 1942 or 1943 Johnny Hoffman of St. Louis Pastries Bakery made the original mistake, and he and Herman Danzer worked all night to reproduce it. Another claims that it was actually Danzer’s error. Meanwhile, another version of the story suggest that John Koppe, the owner of Koppe Bakery, was the one to invent it, and then after World War II, Koppe went to work for the St. Louis Pastry shop and gave them the recipe.

Gooey Butter Cake. Bhofack2 iStock / Getty Images Plus

Whoever invented it, the humble gooey butter cake took off like hotcakes in St. Louis, becoming a feature of bakeries all over town.

What’s odd is that, like pork steaks, gooey butter cakes almost never appear outside of the St. Louis area. But in St. Louis, you can’t miss it. Most local bakeries sell it, as do grocery stores. (If you’re gluten-free, you can find a safe version at Britt’s Bakehouse in Kirkwood.)There are stores that specialize in nothing but gooey butter cakes. It’s also on many restaurant dessert menus and you can find gooey butter ice cream (the variety at Clementine’s is to die for). And if that wasn’t enough, you can get flavored gooey butter cakes (I’m a big fan of blueberry), and there are even gooey butter cookies!

So regardless of who can claim the invention, it appears undeniable that St. Louisans are grateful that someone almost 100 years ago screwed up a cake recipe.

7 Up

Did you know that 7 Up—the Uncola—was invented in St. Louis?

Back in 1919, Charles Leiper Grigg invented Whistle Orange soda while working for Vess Soda (another great, old-timey St. Louis brand). After a dispute with Vess Jones, Grigg got a new job developing new flavors for Warner Jenkinson Co. and invented the orange soda Howdy, and created the Howdy Company. But Grigg discovered that his orange sodas couldn’t compete with Orange Crush, so he turned to lemon-lime sodas, inventing "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Sodas" in October 1929. The soda contained lithium citrate, which at the time was used in many medicines to improve moods, but was removed after the government banned its use in foodstuffs in 1948.

In 1936 Grigg changed the name to 7 Up. Today, no one is quite sure where the name came from, and Grigg never explained it. Some of the theories for the name involve winning at poker or craps, as well as a joke Grigg made about the soda being able to cure the "seven hangovers." Another theory suggested the name came from cattle branding.

‘Un In The Sun’ By Pat Dypold, 1969, from Flasbak.com

The explanation I like the best is the following: the isotope Lithium-7 occurs in some natural springs and probably was what was added to early versions of the soft drink. Meanwhile, Grigg promoted the soda as having a positive impact on mood—hence the ‘up’. Because Grigg started selling it at the beginning of the Depression, this explanation makes more sense to me than many of the others, but we may never know for sure.

In the 1960s a major marketing campaign cast 7Up as the “Uncola,” turning the unassuming lemon-lime soda into a counter-culture icon, complete with psychedelic billboards.

After several acquisitions including Philip Morris, 7Up is now owned by Keurig Dr Pepper, and ranked as the 10th-most popular soda in the United States in 2021. But St. Louisans can still enjoy a refreshing drink of their once-hometown beverage.

Even when I was a kid, I always preferred 7 Up to Sprite, even though I knew nothing of its local origins. To me, the soda always seemed lighter and more refreshing. And knowing it started right here in St. Louis makes me choose it over other options to this day.

Velvet Freeze

Remember Velvet Freeze? Since 1932, the chain of stores has kept St. Louis frosty, with 40 different flavors of ice cream. And although most of the stores disappeared in the 1980s and 1990s, there is still one location open today.

Velvet Freeze started out at about the same time Ted Drewes opened his first custard stand in St. Louis in 1930, but unlike the three frozen custard locations, Velvet Freeze at its peak had at least 50 locations in St. Louis, 20 locations in Kansas City, and more in Illinois. Because there were so many around, you didn’t have to drive far for a Velvet Freeze cone or another frozen treat.

It started off during the Depression. In about 1930, Russian immigrant Jacob Martin opened Dairy Novelty Ice Cream at 3228 Gravois Avenue. He soon had 11 stores selling what he called “Velvet Freeze” ice cream. In 1932, brothers Oscar and Alexander Grosberg, also from Russia, who owned the Crispo Cake Cone Co. in Soulard, had a chat with Martin (one can only imagine what ice cream cone makers had to say!) and out of that meeting, the three men decided to merge companies and form Velvet Freeze Inc. The men and their descendants ran Velvet Freeze until 1972, when E.C. Adams of Adams Dairy Company purchased the chain.

Adams ran the chain until he retired in 1978, when he sold the dairy and ice cream company to Tom Spitzer and a group of investors. Spitzer wisely kept on Velvet Freeze execs Daniel Pepper and John McGuiness in the process.

But soon Velvet Freeze was struggling. In 1986, many stores closed and the manufacturing plant wasn’t able to produce enough ice cream to meet the demand. Soon, production shifted to local Pevely Dairy. A few months later, John McGuinness and his wife Barbara, already running their own Velvet Freeze store in Jennings in North St. Louis County, bought the Velvet Freeze name and franchise rights.

About the acquisition, Lost Tables quoted John McGuinness:

"Velvet Freeze does not deserve what it’s gotten. It’s one of the oldest and best names in town. To think that this thing would have died, I just couldn’t stand it. I’m just as sentimental as they come."

John McGuinness died in 2019. Today his wife Barb continues to operate the last remaining Velvet Freeze at 7355 W. Florissant, in Jennings. She also guards the wooden box with the company’s 70 ice cream flavors, including the incredible Gold Coast chocolate.

As I was writing this article, someone posted about Velvet Freeze on Facebook. Until then, I had no idea that there was still a Velvet Freeze store in operation, so of course, as a serious researcher I had to pay a visit. And the store does not disappoint! I was excited to see multiple flavors of cherry ice cream, giant ice cream drumsticks, and even egg nog ice cream in June. I got a milkshake made with dark dark Gold Coast chocolate, one of my favorite ice cream flavors ever.

And as you can see from the above photo, the store is not just an ice cream parlor but a snack and cold beverage bonanza. It’s absolutely worth a visit, and if you go, be sure to say hi to Barb, and thank her for keeping the tradition alive.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to hit that Like button, and I’d love to hear from you in the comments. What is your favorite St. Louis treat? And if you walked into an ice cream parlor with 40 different flavors, what would you choose?

Unseen St. Louis