Cool! Sweet! 'Ice Cream U' exhibit traces roots of Penn State Creamery

By Steve McElwee

- For the CDT

Visiting State College and neglecting to stop by the Creamery would be like going to New York City and avoiding Times Square or boldly boasting that there was not enough time to stroll along the National Mall during your last trip to Washington, D.C.

CDT file photo

Zach Coryell, 4, enjoys cookie dough ice cream from Berkey Creamery on Penn State's campus on Friday, March 6, 2009. Coryell's family, from Lancaster County, was traveling to a Christian Endeavor youth group retreat for the weekend. CDT/Melissa Doss

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It is simply inexcusable.

The exhibit “Ice Cream U: The Story of the Nation’s Most Successful Creamery” features images, information and details from Lee Stout’s book of the same name.

Aside from the mouthwatering photography and information that accompanies the exhibit, Stout delves deeply into the history behind Peachy Paterno, or whatever poison is yours, dripping down the cone and sticking to your fingers.

“People just sort of take it for granted that it’s here and assume that it’s always been here and always will be here,” Stout said. “I wanted to explore that issue.”

There was even a point in time (gasp!) when the Creamery would have ceased to exist.

“There was serious consideration to close the Creamery,” Stout said. “The reason we have it is because of the importance of dairy in Pennsylvania agriculture.”

Because dairy and agriculture are such a vital economic and consumer mechanism in Pennsylvania, the Creamery was able to flourish and expand while many other educational and privately owned institutions have significantly downgraded or ceased operation altogether.

“What was probably most fascinating to me was the fact so much of the Creamery’s history is generously documented in photographs,” said Erin J. Wease, who worked on the page design, layout and photo editing of Stout’s book, “It was obvious to me that the Penn State Creamery had a special mystique and was as compelling a subject to document in the early 1900s as it is today.”

For some of us, it is hard to compare the new Creamery at the Food Science Building with its smaller and more intimate predecessor. However, the nostalgia of Borland Laboratory and days of yore are quickly forgotten once you enter the new palatial Berkey ice cream court.

“As time passes, fewer and fewer people will remember the old creamery,” Stout said. “You can still find people today who remember the original creamery salesroom that was on the second floor of Borland Lab. They remember as kids going to that creamery.”

The idea of a university operated creamery can perhaps be traced back to when Penn State was still considered the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania.

Even before the Berkey Creamery opened in August 2006, local patrons were used to enjoying the luxury of a state-of-the-art creamery filled with monstrous machines and technology that would make Bill Gates blush, but before “modern times,” this wasn’t necessarily the case.

“You go back 150 years ago and it’s all hand-done,” Stout said. “From the milking of the cows to the churning of the milk to make butter, to hand-making cheeses and hand-freezing ice cream.”

Then, much of the work at the creamery was done by hand. Dairy technology was still a relatively new phenomenon and was in the experimentation stages, so dairy men put some really weird stuff into their ice cream in the hopes that they would somehow improve it.

“Milkmen would even cut milk,” Stout said. “Some of the tests even found formaldehyde in the milk supposedly as a preservative. Very little was understood about sanitation or the health issues.”

Um, paging Upton Sinclair.

Of course everybody has their own favorite flavor and for Stout and Wease, there is no contrary to the matter.

“I have about four,” Stout. “The picture of me on the cover of the book shows me eating a mint chip and I like the coconut chip, but I like cookie dough and coffee break and actually death by chocolate is pretty good too.”

Wease, on the other hand has a pretty set palate.

“Across the board, I’ve always been a fan of vanilla,” Wease said. “But the Creamery’s WPSU Coffee Break just might convert me.”

In addition to being a university landmark and one of the first places that many visitors flock to, the Penn State Creamery also is a symbol of this great commonwealth’s rich dairy and agricultural past.

Oh yeah, and the ice cream ain’t bad either.