Farm to Family Connection - Commentary

FARM TO FAMILY COMMENTARY
---Select commentary from a weekly column by Curt Arens published in the Cedar County News, Hartington, NE

June 2008

We All Scream for Ice Cream

Dear Friends,
If ice cream is good enough for Roman Emperor Nero and Husker legend, Tom Osborne, then it's good enough for me. I come from an ice cream-loving family. Growing up, there weren't many meals - save a bacon and eggs breakfast - that didn't end with a heaping bowl. I even enjoy the pounding headaches you get when you eat homemade ice cream too fast.

It must be a Nebraska thing. The average American consumes a little more than 24 quarts of ice cream a year, more than citizens of any other country. But the champion American ice cream eaters reside in Omaha, where residents consume more ice cream per capita than anywhere.

With the warm days we’ve had sporadically over the past couple of weeks, we can finally talk about something that pertains to summer, and nothing in my mind reminds me of summer more than ice cream.

Whenever we get a chance to head to Lincoln, the visit isn’t complete without a stop at the UN-L East Campus – or ag campus – Dairy Store. For 85 years, students, staff and visitors on East Campus - that's around 38th and Holdrege for those of you only familiar with Memorial Stadium - frequented the Dairy Store as a study break or as a great place to impress a first date.

In the old days, milk from the campus' dairy herd just a block from the store made it into ice cream served as campus fare. But now, housed in a newly remodeled Food Processing building just southwest of C.Y. Thompson Library, the UNL Dairy Store represents the cutting edge in new food research.

I’m told that when Tom Osborne wasn't busy coaching the Huskers, it wasn't that surprising to see him stride in and order his favorite flavor and perhaps the most popular flavor in the world - vanilla. It's difficult to read off flavors on a hot, sultry Lincoln afternoon without reaching into your pocket for a couple bucks to buy a cone. All the flavors start out with a basic vanilla or chocolate ice cream mix, but the trick is in the additions.

Who doesn't love cookies and cream, rocky road, mint chip, strawberry cheesecake, rum raisin, pumpkin pie, amaretto raspberry fudge and karmel kashew fudge? But not every flavor developed at the plant has been a hit. Anybody interested in three scoops of cantaloupe ice cream? It was developed when the University horticulture department had a surplus of cantaloupe, but that flavor experiment was abruptly discontinued.

It is said that ice cream originated in China when Emperors ordered the production of frozen desserts made from snow and fruit, honey or wine. Roman Emperor Nero sent his slaves to the mountains to collect snow for an iced delicacy of fruit pulp, nectar and honey.

Ice cream was imported from Europe when the first ice cream parlor opened in New York City in 1776. Years later, President George Washington became such a fan of ice cream that he ran up a $200 tab at the little shop.

Commercial ice cream production began around 1851 in Baltimore; but in 1896, a New Yorker developed the first cone that he eventually patented in 1903.

The cone might have come from New York, but if the Arens family has anything to say about it, Nebraskans are probably safe in their role as record consumers of ice cream and other dairy products. In fact, I’m getting kind of hungry right now!