CARROLL GARDENS — The Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain is launching a cookbook, featuring their tasty treats and a history of soda fountains in American culture.
Techniques for assembling sundaes, creating sodas, fudge, caramel and crumbles will be featured in the book, as well as photographs from local residents who have visited the Brooklyn soda shop.
Farmacy co-owner Gia Giasullo said she recognized that customers weren't just coming for their ice creams. “They’re coming for an experience,” she said.
Locals can send in photographs of their times at the Farmacy, said Giasullo, many of which will be printed in the cookbook that will also feature food photography from Michael H. Turkell.
The rest will go into the book’s sister website that will also have “personal, historical stories” from people and their memories of soda fountains from across the country, like their first egg-cream or their first job as a soda jerk, Giasullo said.
Through the cookbook, Giasullo hopes to teach people to use “simple ingredients” that can “flow through many different treats,” like turning homemade peanut butter cookies into a wafer sandwich, she said.
Like many eateries in the neighborhood, Brooklyn Farmacy uses locally sourced products that they hope to include in an online and printed resource to help people find the ingredients for their recipes.
Giasullo, along with her brother and co-owner Peter Freeman, hope to capture “a slice of history of the American soda fountain,” in their cookbook, to be published by Ten Speed Press next year.
Soda fountains first gained popularity through pharmacies and later became a fixture in malt shops during the 1930s and 1940s, offering “a quintessentially American experience,” Giasullo said.
Formerly home to Longos Pharmacy, the Brooklyn Farmacy space still holds remnants of the old apothecary, such as old wooden furnishings and a bright neon “Pharmacy” sign on the window-front.
Photos of hi-resolution photographs and contact information of locals at the Brooklyn Farmacy can be sent to brooklynfarmacycookbook@gmail.com. The Farmacy is also looking for stories of soda shop memories and experiences.
