Sweet summertime: three scoops of ice cream -- strawberry, chocolate and vanilla -- smothered in sauce, underlaid by banana and crowned with whipped cream and cherries.
The 100-year-old banana split lives on as an American tradition, an indulgent treat best enjoyed with a friend.
But two towns don't want to share.
As the ultimate ice-cream sundae celebrates its centennial, Latrobe historians stand their ground in claiming that their town -- not Wilmington, Ohio -- is the dessert's birthplace.
Latrobe's story contends that David E. "Doc" Strickler, an apprentice at what was Latrobe's Tassell Pharmacy, stretched the ice-cream sundae idea to new dimensions when he created the first traditional banana split in 1904. He then designed a glass boat to accommodate it, and Westmoreland Glass Co. in Grapeville filled the order.
Even though the specialty cost 10 cents -- twice as much as a regular sundae -- St. Vincent College students would splurge, according to Carl Mattioli, Latrobe Area Historical Society curator.
"The students frequented the pharmacy and took the idea home, and so the story spread," he said.
But some in Wilmington disagree.
The town is home to the annual Banana Split Festival to celebrate the split's invention by Wilmington restaurateur E.R. "Brady" Hazard in 1907.
The town's story is that Hazard held a contest for best new dessert, and his own banana split took first place.
Food writer Michael Turback chronicled the controversy in his second book, "The Banana Split Book: Everything There is to Know About America's Greatest Dessert."
Turback admits that Latrobe's facts are sturdier.
"Latrobe has the history, and Wilmington has the festival," Turback said.
Loyal Wilmingtonians like Mary Gibson are not swayed: "It could have been a fluke. It's possible they both thought of it, but as far as we're concerned, we are the ones with the real claim."
Gibson owns Gibson's Goodies, the Wilmington ice cream shop that supplies homemade ice cream, toppings and bananas for the annual festival. This year alone, festival attendees ate about 430 gallons of ice cream to accompany 3,500 bananas.
Mattioli said Latrobe already has lost one piece of Americana to an Ohio town.
"Latrobe is the home of the first professional football game," he said, explaining that the first professional football player played there in 1895, standing in as quarterback for $10 and some cakes.
Canton, Ohio, claimed it was first, and that city has the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"We just sat on our rear ends too long. It was Canton's gain, our loss," Mattioli said.
Latrobe is determined not to lose another piece of the American history pie.
Joseph Greubel, owner of Valley Dairy Restaurants, said he knew Strickler.
"It's not much of a controversy. They (Wilmington) have the festival, but it's quite well-documented that Latrobe was first."
A more objective source, the self-proclaimed "world's oldest soda jerk," said others might have used bananas as part of a dessert, but Strickler was the first to create the dessert in its traditional form. Bryce Thomson, 87, of Eaton Rapids, Mich., has written the Sundae School Newsletter for the Ice Cream Retailers Association for the past 22 years.
"Strickler was the first one to split the banana from stem to stern," he said.
In Latrobe, Strickler's 86-year-old son, William Strickler, says there can be no doubt.
"The old man was first," Strickler said. "I think everybody agrees. It was my father, the pharmacist and optometrist, who invented it."
