The dog days of summer are here. It's hot. It's humid. And your brood has a hankering for some good old-fashioned ice cream, the best treat to beat the heat. Forget big-name franchises or the frozen food section at the local grocer. When everybody's screaming for some of the good stuff, there's only one place to go - the Dairy Store at the University of Nebraska.
Celebrating 80 years as a university institution, the Dairy Store on East Campus has a history as rich as a scoop of its peanut butter-chocolate chip-chocolate ice cream. Founded in 1917 as part of the now-defunct Department of Dairy Husbandry, the Dairy Store has evolved into a financially self-sufficient, nonprofit eatery and educational outlet in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources' Department of Food Science and Technology. Stopping at the store for an edible treasure has become a tradition among generations of Nebraskans. And for good reason, said Derek Lineberry, dairy operations and research manager at the store. The Dairy Store focuses on more than a coins-for-cones exchange; it offers an experience that sets it apart from the basic Baskin Robbins.
"We're closer to the public than a lot of (ice cream) places are," he said. "There, they just serve you ice cream. Here, you can watch it being made and get more of a feel for it. You can see where the ice cream comes from and learn how it came about. And we've been here for 80 years, doing the same thing, so I'd like to think we have more experience than anyone else."
But a history steeped in tradition and experience doesn't mean the Dairy Store lags behind other ice cream makers in technology and taste. Students and faculty are always experimenting with new ice cream recipes and mixes, resulting in exotic, one-of-a-kind flavors hipper than most found in your grocer's freezer. Milking the trendy coffee shop scene for inspiration, for example, the Dairy Store has whipped up popular java-related flavors like coffee chocolate chunk. And gourmet flavors such as amaretto raspberry, apple streudel, lemon custard, rum raisin and coconut are offered alongside perennial best-sellers karmel kashew and Bavarian mint.
While the Dairy Store's track record for innovative and tasty varieties is impressive, not every flavor has found favor among the customers. Lineberry's picks for the least popular ice cream concoctions: cantaloupe and candy corn. The former was devised when the horticulture department donated a surplus of the melons to the store; the latter, made in honor of Halloween, turned out to be more trick than treat. Neither cantaloupe nor candy corn is on the menu today.
Despite the rare flavor failure, the Dairy Store's sterling reputation for top-notch ice cream treats extends beyond the Lincoln area. The store garnered high praise and national publicity for its "incredible" ice cream in the 1995 November issue of Bon Appetit magazine.
Although best known for the ice cream, the Dairy Store stays true to its name and offers a full range of the freshest dairy products in the area, including cheese, meat and eggs. Special holiday cheese boxes now account for about half of the Dairy Store's annual sales of $250,000. And more than 76,000 eggs were processed and sold through the store last year.
- Amy Cyphers
Because it works so closely with the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, the Dairy Store has been a pioneer in selling eggciting new products like the Omega egg.
Two years ago, NU poultry scientist Sheila Scheidler had been feeding laying hens a special flax seed formula that made them produce eggs high in Omega-3 fatty acids, thus increasing the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol. The Omega eggs were used in a research study of people with high-cholesterol and by athletes at the Husker training tables. Surplus eggs were sold at the Dairy Store.
Feathers flew once word got out that the Nebraska Boys in Big Red were eating the Omega eggs as part of their training diet. Health-conscious people around Lincoln scrambled to get some for themselves, and the Dairy Store was forced to create a waiting list of curious consumers.
"What a stir that caused," recalled dairy operations and research manager Derek Lineberry. "It was nuts. We started getting calls and calls and calls, and we couldn't keep them in stock."
Although Omega eggs are now available at some local groceries, sales at the Dairy Store are still eggstraordinary, accounting for 61 percent of the 76,100 eggs sold there last year.
You could say home-grown went high-brow when dear-to-our-hearts Husker Cheese was featured in an edible display at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History in 1987. The exhibit of foods from all over the country was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Hatch Act, which established agricultural research stations in every state.
Husker Cheese is a high-moisture, short-cure cheese similar to Monterey Jack. Manufactured and sold by the Dairy Store since the cheese was created in 1942, Husker Cheese resulted from more than two years of research to develop a mild-tasting quality product.
Register at the Dairy Store to win a 12-pound hunk of this history-making cheese, shaped like an "N".
It seems a few of NU's finest favor no-frills flavors.
Scarlet's Web CouponWe're celebrating 80 years of good taste. Present this coupon at the University of Nebraska Dairy Store and receive one single-scoop cone for 80-cents & register to win a 12-pound block of Husker Cheese shaped like an "N". Valid until Sept. 30, 1997 Coupon must be redeemed in the Dairy Store. |
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