When just over a hundred years ago the Italians started to roam all over Europe trying to sell their icecream of course they did not have cones as we do today.
They had little crude glasses looking like liqueur glasses but much shallower in which they put icecream with a spatula. There were different sizes, there was a one pennylick (VERY shallow, you paid one penny and got one lick) or a bit bigger 2 pennylick (enough for twice the fun).
After use the glass was rinsed in water ready for the next customer, not very hygienic of course and I read somewhere that the government put a stop to the whole event in 1917 with the outbreak of the Spanish flu.
So far these glasses only show up in England and I inherited mine from a girlfriend in case you all wonder if I'm hiding another collection here besides my hyacinth vases.
She was the one however who explained the whole story to me.
Patricia