At Cascadia restaurant in Seattle's Belltown, pastry chef Ted Mathesius swaddles his stunning Buttermilk Cherry Swirl Sundae in caramel sauce kissed with Frangelico. It's paired with a Crisp Chocolate Hazelnut Torte.

A coupe, or a sundae, unlike a fool or a parfait, involves ice cream and some kind of sauce or compote spooned over or layered but not stirred in. The fool and the parfait are whipped concoctions in which fruit or flavorings are blended with ice cream, whipped cream or cream stiffened with gelatin. Naturally, there is some blurring of the boundaries here. Some blended affairs are called coupes, and a lot of dishes that might qualify as coupes have other names.

Peach Melba, for instance, is a perfect coupe. But hardly anyone ever called it that, nor do they call it a sundae; only Craig Claiborne, in "The New York Times Cookbook," recognized its true nature. Named for Dame Nellie Melba, the celebrated Australian soprano, the combination of peach, ice cream and raspberry has undergone various incarnations over its hundred-year-plus history, but it has always remained, more or less, a coupe.

When August Escoffier first presented the dish to Dame Nellie, the ice cream was tucked discreetly between the very edible wings of a swan made out of meringue. A poached half-peach hid underneath, and a little pitcher of cooked raspberry purée was presented on the side. The whole arrangement calls to mind a saying that I lift from political columnist Molly Ivans: "You can put lipstick on a pig and call her Monique, but she's still a pig." Call it what you like, Peach Melba is an ice-cream coupe.

Other coupes like coupe Jacques and coupe Eugénie, with mixed fruits and chestnuts respectively, are also described by Claiborne. I think they reflect the influence of his friend and collaborator Pierre Franey and his obsession with all things French more than they represent any real Americana. The Time Life "Good Cook" volume on "American Cooking" ignores sundaes and coupes altogether. So does the late Evan Jones' seminal work, "American Food, the Gastronomic Story." I blame this omission on the influence of James Beard. He edited the Time Life series and held an almost mesmerizing authority over Jones and that whole circle of food people such as Marion Cunningham and M.F.K. Fisher, who wrote cookbooks that were edited by Jones' wife Judith.

Michael Batterberry, founding editor-in-chief of Food Arts magazine, tells me Beard didn't care for sweets in general and loathed ice-cream sundaes. Batterberry was assisting Beard at a cooking class once and they were making genoise, the classic French cake. Speaking sotto voce so the students wouldn't hear him, Beard asked Batterberry, "Do you like genoise?" and Batterberry, by way of an answer, shrugged his shoulders. "I despise it," said Beard. A few students who overheard were appalled.

Discussing Beard's overbearing influence on the food world of the mid-20th century, Fisher once confided to me, "He was a monster, really, but we loved him. We all did whatever he said and tried to cook and write things that would please him because he was Jimmy."

The original editors of Saveur, Colman Andrews, Christopher Hirsheimer and Dorothy Kalins, don't like sweets, either. "It's our little secret," Hirsheimer once told me. This might explain why "Saveur Cooks American," has no reference to sundaes or coupes. But it doesn't tell me why other contemporary collections of American recipes such as "American Home Cooking," by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison, don't mention them.

For American coupes, or sundaes, one should visit the old (pre-Marion Cunningham) "Fannie Farmer Cookbook." There, including the immortal Melba, are nine recipes for ice-cream coupes, but most of them sound a little weird. Consider, for instance, The Iceberg Coupe: "Mint Ice sprinkled with finely chopped almonds, hazelnuts, pecans and walnuts in equal proportions." Or there's the coffee coupe: "Vanilla Ice Cream in parfait glasses. Pour over strong hot coffee. Garnish with whipped cream. Top with maraschino cherry if desired." Sounds like a mess. Chocolate Butterscotch sounds better: "Chocolate Ice Cream with hot butterscotch sauce and a few whole toasted almonds."

Some of us younger chefs, who were weaned on sundaes and came after the wake of the great Beard had settled, have no qualms about serving them. Bradley Ogden of the Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, Calif., has a recipe for Warm Brownie Pudding with Hot Fudge Pudding Sauce. While it sounds like something from Applebee's it's really an assembly of good homemade sweets. And Alfred Portale, a James Beard Award winner for Best Chef, New York, includes in his "12 Seasons Cookbook" a recipe for a Peanut Butter Coupe that reads and eats like a sophisticated riff on Dairy Queen's "Peanut Buster Parfait."

Other chefs include little sundae-like creations as garnishes or side dishes with other desserts, like house-made caramel ice cream and caramel sauce tucked beside an almond peach tart. In a confident nod toward the whole sundae-coupe thing, the new pastry chef at Cascadia Restaurant, Ted Mathesius, is planting a little Buttermilk Cherry Ripple Sundae beside his Crisp Chocolate Hazelnut Torte. With Bing cherries, praline crunchies and Frangelico caramel sauce, this little number could just make coupes swank again.

Greg Atkinson, Canlis executive chef, is the author of "In Season" (1997) and "The Northwest Essentials Cookbook" (1999) from Sasquatch Books. Barry Wong is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.