# Frappes vs. Milkshakes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2000, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183 "2000-09-14T14:46:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2000, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/21 "2000-09-15T15:31:27Z")
Used to get egg creams all the time in the Jackson Heights/Elmhurst area of queens where I grew up in the 50s-60s. Anyone know if the Lemon Ice King of Corona is still around? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2000, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/22 "2000-09-15T15:37:55Z")
**waterj2** and **Gravity:** All right, the egg cream is slowly seeping out of the Metropolis and into the national consciousness. I’m really surprised to hear that it’s been around Boston for a while, though…it’s always been a kind of regional joke: out-of-towner hits the city and is grossed out by the name “egg cream” without knowing what’s in it…conversely, New Yorker travels to Assboink, Mississippi, orders up an egg cream at the local beanery, and is hanged from a lamppost by outraged yokels. This discussion will probably soon deteriorate to the level of Phosphates. These are soda-fountain mixtures of flavored syrup and seltzer, served approximately within the Cleveland-Detroit-Chicago triangle. ---
**Author:** ![RickG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rickg/32/5174_2.png) [@RickG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickG)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2000, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/23 "2000-09-15T15:51:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freca \* > \*\*Now here’s the really weird thing: doesn’t this geographical region overlap the same region where we distinguish between jimmies and colored sprinkles? \*\* I think the use of the word “jimmies” must be somewhat broader than the use of frappe. I was born in Philadelphia, and we always called them jimmies. And that’s how you ordered them in ice cream stores, so I don’t think it was an artifact of my maternal grandmother being born in Boston (she moved to Phila when she was very young, anyway). Rick ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2000, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/24 "2000-09-15T15:55:54Z")
**Re: egg creams** I used to work in a restaurant in southeastern CT in 1980 or 1981 and we served egg creams. So they have been around a lot of places for a long time. Okay, maybe they weren’t _real_ egg creams … ---
**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/25 "2000-09-15T20:49:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freca \* > **my experience growing up in Beverly prompted this thread (Hi, Flymaster). I also have seen many times the person who orders a shake, then is kindly informed by the ice-cream girl or counter guy that a shake doesn’t have ice cream, "so would you like a frappe instead?"** So where are you getting your frappes? Brambles, Dick and Junes, perhaps Cherry Hill? BTW, the things that come out of the machine at Nick’s are rightly called “shakes.” A frappe, or, for that matter, a milkshake, requires the interference of a blender. Fast food shakes are just “shakes.” And yes, I realize that only I and Freca will understand the Nick’s reference. I also don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Freca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/85f322/32.png) [@Freca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freca)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2000, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/26 "2000-09-18T14:06:26Z")
Flymaster understands perfectly. In coastal Mass (which seems to be the only place where people use these terms correctly!) the stuff you get out of those big machines at fast food places (and local joints like Nick’s) are properly called shakes, even though consistency-wise they are more similar to frappes, because they contain ice-milk and glutin, not ice cream. That shows you how well the distinction is understood by the local general public. Flymaster also made me think about another Beverly treasure, the Nick’s roast beef sandwich. I wonder why we simply call that “beef” when it is a totally different (and vastly superior) substance compared to the stuff other restaurants serve as so-called “beef.” But that’s another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Capoeirista](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cab0a1/32.png) [@Capoeirista](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capoeirista)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/27 "2011-06-21T01:48:15Z")
Whoo, resurrecting a thread from the dead. Anyway, 11 years later, here’s an opinion from New Hampshire. I’m actually a Philadelphia native myself (hooray for jimmies!), but my mom’s from the Lakes Region in central New Hampshire and we’ve been going back up there frequently for years. Diners up there often have both milkshakes and frappes on the menu, and the difference was explained to me as milkshakes = no ice cream, frappes = with ice cream. Same as coastal Mass, Maine, and Vermont. I recently had someone from Colorado tell me that I had it backwards, though. She said milkshakes were made with ice cream and frappes were made with ice. And we call ourselves _united_ states… ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/28 "2011-06-21T02:10:27Z")
Wisconsin A milk shake is ice cream or frozen custard with some milk added to blend a thick drinkable ice cream with flavoring added including real fruit like strawberries. A malt is the same with malt powder added. A Frappe is some iced foamy coffee drink they introduced in the last couple decades. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/29 "2011-06-21T03:53:48Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > I believe “Frappe” means crushed (hit) in French and it originally referred to a drink poured over crushed ice. ::side note:: Don’t the French call a nuke war, which they are capable of, Le Grand Frappe? I could never really understand, sort of, that they would name something like that a milkshake. Is it used wittily, or as a light euphemism, the way we would say “The Big One”?::/side note:: ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/30 "2011-06-21T04:21:04Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Wait…in Rhode Island, they call milkshakes “cabinets.” Well, we’ll just ignore Rhode Island; everyone else does. “The Delaware of New England,” we like to call it. In Rhode Island, the ‘Unit of Measurement’ state, a milkshake used to be just milk mixed with flavoring. Like chocolate milk or Coffee Milk (what, they don’t have Coffee Milk in your large state?). A cabinet was a milkshake. Named so because some creamery kept their mixer in a wooden cabinet (that is according to someone unknown, which is considered the highest authority here in RI). That’s the way it was in the good old days. Now a milkshake is a milkshake, and a cabinet is also a milkshake, and a frappe is something they sell in Mass, that looks and tastes like a milkshake, but can’t be because it’s not called a milkshake or a cabinet. Anyway, there’s nothing like a good Coffee Cabinet to wash down the Dynamites. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/31 "2011-06-21T04:21:52Z")
Moving to Cafe Society. Note that the thread is more than 10 years old. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/32 "2011-06-21T05:15:03Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > An Egg Cream can be found ONLY in the five boroughs of New York City. Or maybe only Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in Queens or Staten Island. And in Victoria, BC at Pagliacci’s. I really like them, and have made them at home, too. Not too sweet, but sweet. Refreshing. Yum. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/33 "2011-06-21T05:32:30Z")
What do you call a Milkshake made with either Coke or Rootbeer? It’s ice cream, Coke, milk (optional) put in a milkshake mixer. We have several regional names here (black cow) . Sonic sells them as a “Frosted Coke”. I bet the names vary all over the country. ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/34 "2011-06-21T09:29:26Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > What do you call a Milkshake made with either Coke or Rootbeer? > > It’s ice cream, Coke, milk (optional) put in a milkshake mixer. > > We have several regional names here (black cow) . Sonic sells them as a “Frosted Coke”. > I bet the names vary all over the country. As I recall, that’s a frost. Essentially a float that’s been mixed/shaken/blended together, right? At least that’s what they were around here in (semi)northern Illinois. I haven’t seen one on a menu for years, though. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/35 "2011-06-21T14:33:49Z")
I grew up in Massachusetts in the 70s and 80s. Although places like Friendly’s would call their ice cream drinks “frappes,” everyone I ever knew just called them milkshakes. Probably due to the influence of McDonalds and the like. I wonder just how old the OP is/was. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/36 "2011-06-21T18:26:11Z")
That’s it. I still buy several a year from Sonic. I prefer them over a chocolate shake. > [@thirdwarning](#): > > As I recall, that’s a frost. Essentially a float that’s been mixed/shaken/blended together, right? At least that’s what they were around here in (semi)northern Illinois. I haven’t seen one on a menu for years, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/37 "2011-06-21T23:39:42Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Okay…so a Milkshake is a Frappe ONLY in coastal Massachusetts, Vermont, and inland Maine, nowhere else in the country. A milkshake is a milkshake in Vermont, except to my Boston-born wife… ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/38 "2011-06-22T03:07:48Z")
> [@Freca](#): > > Can anyone say anything authoritative about this? By whose authority? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/39 "2011-06-22T07:11:04Z")
I know they call them frappes in NYC, or did in the 1930s – I read _The City Boy,_ by Herman Wouk, and the “frappe” was Herbie’s favorite treat. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183/40 "2011-06-22T07:12:09Z")
> [@Autolycus](#): > > By whose authority? I guess we might have petition for an audience with the Dairy Queen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frappes-vs-milkshakes/33183.md?page=3)