Mouthing Off : An Egg Cream Drinking Contest Helps Ex-New Yorkers Settle an Old Score and Celebrate Old Times

Call it the Battle of the Boroughs. Call it ex-New Yorkers going after their own. Call it what you will but there they were, expatriates from Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan--all vy ing to see just who had the biggest mouths.

The November showdown--officially an egg cream drinking contest sponsored by the New York Alumni Assn.--had been a long time coming.

The organization, after all, represents 15,000 ex-New Yorkers who ceaselessly complain (as New Yorkers are prone to do) about L.A.’s unending supply of fresh fruit, expansive beaches, open-air tennis courts and sunny skies.

According to co-founder and labor arbitrator Lou Zigman, most meetings center around games of stickball--a sort of street baseball played with a Spaulding rubber ball and broomstick. (After Spaulding stopped manufacturing its trademark pink balls, Zigman made up a stamp and superimposed it on non-Spaulding balls for “greater authenticity.”)

Meetings also feature games of hopscotch chalked in yellow; immies--the pushing of bottle caps, hockey-like, into a series of squares using only the thumb and forefinger; marbles; bellyfuls of Nathan’s hot dogs, and an annual play staged at Beverly Hills High School.

The plays are not run of the mill. This year’s event was chaired by Milton Berle, Jon Voight and Louis Gossett Jr. Participants in previous years have included Gene Barry, Bea Arthur, Sid Caesar, Tony Danza, Dom DeLuise, Garry Marshall, Rita Moreno, Tony Orlando, Neil Sedaka, Connie Stevens and Brenda Vacarro.

The proceeds from the $17 annual membership dues, $25-$50 tickets and voluntary donations--totaling more than $200,000 in nine years--have been shipped back to Lincoln High School in Coney Island, Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn and the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan, said Zigman.

But, he insists, the Beverly Hills-based group’s primary mission is neither philanthropy nor mere socializing.

Rather, it is discussing the weighty issues of the day--whether incoming Gov. George Pataki, for example, will be a disaster for the city whose Republican mayor endorsed the Democratic incumbent, Mario Cuomo--and which borough’s residents have the biggest mouths.

After years of wrangling and a series of pointed exchanges in the association’s 24-page newsletter, the Eagle, Zigman dug deep into his negotiating experience and hit upon the only feasible solution. In a precedent-breaking event, the association sponsored its first egg cream drinking contest.

Each borough would hand-pick five of its hardiest representatives. Whoever made and collectively wolfed down their pint-sized egg creams fastest would be acknowledged as having the biggest mouths.

Judges would include Zigman and his wife, Fran; Len Lesser (the uncle in “Seinfeld”) and Martin Landau, who flew back especially from New York where he is filming “City Hall,” to help officiate.

Helping coordinate the event would be Stanley Ross, former head writer for the TV series “Batman,” now co-owner of Hamptons, a restaurant named after the city’s favorite summer getaway.

The main difficulty, Zigman and Ross soon discovered, was not in getting the judges or even attracting the participants. Rather, it was in obtaining the proper ingredients.

Despite its name, an egg cream includes neither egg nor cream. Rather, according to no less an authority than the New York Times, the name derives either from its foamy head, which resembles beaten egg whites, or from the French eau creme --creamed water.

What is certain about the egg cream, however, is that its modern incarnation was invented in Brooklyn, and that it consists mostly of seltzer water, garnished with a dash of milk.

Oh yes, it must also include two fingers full of Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup. Trouble is, Fox’s U-Bet is made only in Brooklyn, and the tiny company doesn’t exactly have a major national distribution system.

After a series of futile phone calls, Ross considered bending the rules a bit and substituting Hershey’s. Hershey’s headquarters, after all, is merely a state line away away.

Still, using Hershey’s would be like--well, it would be like spritzing the seltzer water directly into the milk and syrup instead of letting it bounce off the side of the glass, the bubbles tingling up in a champagne-like delicacy. It just wouldn’t be an egg cream.

So Ross spent an additional day making more calls, finally locating a local supplier. Paying top dollar, he had the yellow-and-red-label glass bottles of the precious syrup delicately shipped over to Hamptons.

The contest was on!

Staten Islanders, it turned out, preferred to genteelly sip on their drinks. Residents of Queens made a lot of noise, but when push came to shove couldn’t quite hold their own. The Bronx may be home of the Bronx cheer--but little else. And Manhattanites--well, residents of the star borough, home of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings--alas, Manhattanites came in a distant second.

Led by singer Phil Margo of the Tokens (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”), the Brooklyn contingent poured the U-Bet into their glasses, added milk and seltzer, stirred it all up--and chugged down the frothy mix before residents of the other boroughs knew what had hit them.

During victory ceremonies, however, Margo and his teammates looked anything but lionish. In the heat of the moment, it seems, teammate Kelly Arnold had poured not two but eight rich fingers full of U-Bet syrup per pint.

Still, Margo roared, “Nobody will ever question Brooklyn again. We’ve got the biggest mouths around.

“We’ve proved it.”