ONE COOL JOB

What do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher? A doctor? An astronaut? How about an ice-cream taster? Yes, there really is a job where you can get paid to taste ice cream. Just ask John Harrison, an “Official Taste Tester” at Dreyer’s/Edy’s Ice Cream for the past 21 years. Testing helps manufacturers to be sure of a product’s quality. During his career, Harrison has been responsible for approving over 200 million gallons of the sweet creamy dessert—as well as for developing over 75 flavours. When he was a kid, Harrison wanted to be a fire fighter or a police officer, among other careers. But ice cream runs in his family. “It was like I fell into a batch of ice cream,” he says. Four generations of Harrisons have been “in” ice cream, including his great-grandfather, who owned two ice-cream shops in New York City in the 1880s; his father, who owned a dairy-ingredients factory in Georgia; and his uncle, who owned an ice-cream factory in Tennessee. At his uncle’s factory, Harrison “tasted and ate” his way through high school and college as he learned how to make ice cream. He likes to joke that ice cream is so much a part of his life that his blood “runs 16 percent butterfat.” Some people think that it would be easy to do this job; after all, you just have to like ice cream, right? No—there’s more to the job than that, says Harrison, who has a degree in chemistry. He points out that a dairy or food-science degree would be very useful to someone wanting a career in this “cool” field. On a typical work day, Harrison swallows one bite of each new flavour, to test the aftertaste. At home and “ off-duty ,” he eats whatever flavours he chooses—and more than just one bite! Vanilla is his favourite. He enjoys making his own ice cream and swirling goodies into it. “We’re all kids when it comes to ice cream,” he says. Both at work and in leisure time, Harrison is always on the lookout for new flavour ideas that might succeed commercially. The most popular flavour he has developed so far is cookies and cream. Continuing to think up new ideas, try out new flavours, and test samples from so many batches of ice cream each day keeps Harrison busy but happy— working at one cool job.