But, perhaps your dessert of choice on a hot day is an ice cream cone. If so, you should be glad for the unexpected event that brought two men together at the 1904 St. Louis World’ s Fair. An ice cream vendor named Charles Menches was doing such booming business that he ran out of bowls to put the ice cream in. The vendor next to Menches was a young Syrian immigrant named Ernest Hamwi. Hamwiwas selling a Syrian treat called zalabia, a crisp, wafer-like pastry. Hamwi came up with a solution to Menches ’ quandary. Hamwirolled some of his warm pastry into a cone so that Menches could put ice cream inside. In that instant, a favorite international hot weather treat was born.