- [Narrator] Americans, we love ice cream.
Each person eats about 24 quarts of it per year.
And that's for one big reason.
It tastes amazing.
But, someone had to teach Ben and Jerry's how to do it.
Turns out, that guy, he works at Penn State.
This is Dr. Bob Roberts--
Hold on.
Okay, this is Dr. Bob Roberts.
He teaches ice cream courses at Penn State.
- I do.
I have two courses.
Ice Cream Short Course and Ice Cream 101.
- [Narrator] Side note, these are the type of books
ice cream professors read.
Okay, back to the story.
- [Dr. Roberts] Part of the reason that
ice cream is so good in the U.S.
is that we've been teaching ice cream for 125 years.
- [Narrator] And Bob, he's been teaching at Penn State
for 25 of those.
And he's had some pretty famous students.
- Companies like Unilever, Nestle, Breyer's,
Ben and Jerry's, um, you name the company,
they've sent people here.
- [Narrator] That's because the Penn State creamery
is on the forefront of ice cream technology.
- [Dr. Roberts] Ice cream is a formulated food.
There is no naturally occurring ice cream.
You have to put the ingredients together
and process it to make ice cream.
- [Narrator] Bob and his department,
they spend their time figuring out
how to make ice cream even better.
- When we look at studying ice cream,
we study ice cream from cow to the cone.
So we look at what happens on the farm,
what happens with the milk.
- [Narrator] Wait, there's a farm?
- [Dr. Roberts] We have a herd of about 250 or so
milking Holsteins and yes they are on campus.
(cow mooing)
- [Narrator] So yeah, he knows ice cream.
But he says that he's not an ice cream purist.
- I'm not sure what an ice cream purist is.
But I wouldn't eat frozen yogurt
if I had the opportunity to eat ice cream.
(laughing)
- [Narrator] Yeah, well, that does make sense
considering he is the authority on ice cream.
Bob, what's your favorite flavor?
- Hmm, dulce de Leche.
- [Narrator] Ooh, yeah.
(light string music)