Pie la Mode was first invented and named by John Gieriet in Duluth, Minnesota in 1885. Over five decades later, in 1936, an erroneous claim was made that Pie a la Mode was first invented at the in Cambridge, Washington County, New York in the 1890's.
It was said that while visiting the Cambridge Hotel in the 1890's, Professor Charles Watson Townsend ordered a slice of apple pie with ice cream. Another guest saw what he had ordered and asked him what he called the dish. He told the lady it had no name. The guest, Mrs. Berry Hall, named it pie la mode. Professor Townsend subsequently ordered it by that name every day during his stay.
When he later visited Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City, he ordered it by that name. The waiter answered that he had never heard of it. The professor was very upset and complained to the waiter and management, who, from then on served it daily.
Later it was found that the dessert already existed and was actually really invented inside a Superior Street restaurant in Duluth, Minnesota in the 1880's. The St. Paul newspaper indicated that the Duluth restaurant specifically served ice cream with blueberry pie. And that, good friends, is how something as simple as pie and ice cream became Pie la Mode!
