By Jessica A. Kent
Nov. 1, 2018
Last week was National Boston Cream Pie Day, on October 23. The dessert, which was dubbed the Official Dessert of Massachusetts, was created at the Omni Parker House on Tremont Street in Boston in the mid-19th century. The Pie (really a cake) was created when the chef poured chocolate icing over a custard cake. Related to American Pudding Cake, the invention was initially called the Parker House Chocolate Cream Pie, but evolved into the Boston Cream Pie. It was also an early use of chocolate as a glaze upon a cake.
There was another sweet, rich contribution to American society that came out of the Omni Parker House: It was a hub of 19th century literary society. Located between Ticknor & Fields Publishing a few blocks down, and the Boston Athenaeum a few blocks up, the Omni Parker House was a favorite meeting spot for literary lights such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and more. The Atlantic Monthly was created within its walls. And Edith Wharton even set a scene in The Age of Innocence here.
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