Latrobe celebrates its banana split’s appeal and origins

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Did you know the banana split was invented just east of Pittsburgh in Latrobe?

The town will celebrate the classic dessert’s 114th year this weekend with the fifth Great American Banana Split Celebration.

The Friday-through-Sunday festival includes a variety of activities and events, but the star is a banana peeled and sliced lengthwise with the halves pressed against the sides of three scoops of ice cream — vanilla, chocolate and strawberry — lined up in a rectangular dish. The vanilla is topped with pineapple sauce, the chocolate with chocolate sauce and the strawberry with strawberry sauce, and then each scoop is topped with whipped cream, sprinkled with chopped peanuts, and the end scoops are topped with maraschino cherries while the middle scoop is garnished with a paper American flag.

That’s how they do it at the Valley Dairy, the sponsor and the place where festivalgoers can get their oldfashioned fix. Its banana splits will sell for $6 at the downtown restaurant (on Jefferson Street) and a temporary outdoor location at Main and Ligonier streets.

The Latrobe Dairy Queen, while not an official sponsor of the event, is offering banana splits made with softserve ice cream through Sunday for $2.29.

If you make it to the event, you can read the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker on the site of the one-time pharmacy, where the dessert was first served by apprentice pharmacist David Strickler, who also is credited with commissioning the traditional boatshaped serving dishes from the nearby Westmoreland Glass Co.

An original banana split cost 10 cents — twice as much as a regular sundae.

Wilmington, Ohio, also claims to be the banana split’s birthplace — in 1907 — and holds its own Banana Split Festival in June, but Latrobe loyalists say the Laurel Highlands town’s bragging rights have backing from the National Ice Cream Retailers Association and others. Whatever the case, the confection has a status so iconically American that it was depicted on a “forever” stamp in 2016. Saturday just happens to be National Banana Split Day.

Banana splits in your neighborhood

If reading this story makes you hungry for one and you’re looking for a Pittsburgh place to buy a banana split this weekend, you might be surprised that some ice cream places don’t have it on the menu. (One proprietor said his shop used to, but the place “ended up throwing away five bananas for each one we used.”) But you can always ask. The folks at Antney’s in the city’s Westwood neighborhood will happily make you one by request, with scooped or softserve ice cream ($5.99).

A banana split may taste best at an old-school ice cream parlor or soda fountain such as Yetter’s, which started in 1950 in Millvale, and where splits cost $7.59 and remain a popular item. (“I just sold two yesterday,” said a server.)

At Klavon’s Ice Cream, “Strip District Splits” ($7) “are our specialty and represent about a third of our sundae sales,” says co-owner Jacob Hanchar, who will customize yours with chocolate whipped cream and even cake and brownies.

The Ice Cream Parlour at Sarris Candies in Canonsburg tops its version with chocolate jimmies ($8.95) and offers a miniature version called the Tutti Frutti, with two scoops of vanilla and most of the trimmings ($6.95).

Allegheny Ice Cream in Morningside, across from the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, says its banana split is “the best in the ’Burgh,” according to Tony Lombardo, who helps out there. “We give it to them any way they want to do it” — with jimmies, with hot fudge, no nuts, etc. It’s $6.

You can also find modern versions, such as the one ($10) made with “today’s trio of housemade ice creams, banana cake [and] bruleed bananas” on the menu at Soba in Shadyside.

The Deluca’s Diner in Robinson Town Centre not only sells a banana split — with its own topping twists of honey-roasted pecans, blueberries, hot fudge and caramel ($6.99) — but also breakfast dishes of banana split crepes, hotcakes and waffles (also available at the original Strip District location, $8.59-$8.99).

Country Hammer, with locations in Robinson as well as Bethel Park and North Huntingdon, offers “an ice cream parlor favorite in a Mason jar” ($9.99 for 200 milliliters) — Banana Split Moonshine. “Great on ice cream,” says owner Tim Baureis.

Peace, Love & Little Donuts locations sell banana split donuts for $1.25.

Etna’s Cop Out Pierogies regularly has banana split dessert “pie-rogies” — 14 for $9 — that are filled with banana split cheesecake, or “everything but the chocolate inside.” You add that and the whipped cream.

You can even get banana split-flavored Dippin’ Dots.

Back in Latrobe ...

There are other, non-ice cream foods at the Great American Banana Split Celebration, which features a banana cream pie eating contest (the winner gets her or his name engraved on a big wrestling championshipstyled belt). But you can get a banana split at just about any time, including for breakfast starting at 6 a.m. Friday, which is when the Valley Dairy opens, notes event spokesman Isaac McDaniel.

He says the pallet and a half of bananas they ordered should be plenty -— unlike the year they had to send volunteers out to buy more bananas — but they know a banana split can be “a lot to eat on your own,” so “sharing is encouraged.”

For the full schedule of Banana Split Celebration events, visit http://bananasplitfest.com.