JOHN HARRISON, a 50-year-old barrel of a man in a white coat and bow tie, is an ice cream taster whose taste buds are insured for a cool million dollars - you know, like Mary Hart's legs. In Harrison's case, it is the 18K Executive Gold plan held by American International Life Assurance Co.
No wonder his "blood runs 16 percent butterfat." He claims to have tasted more than 100 million gallons of ice cream. As he offers me Dreyer's Premium Ice Cream, his eyes widen and he asks, "Isn't that pleasant? Doesn't that satisfy?"An ebullient personality, Harrison comes over like Willard Scott. His basso profundo voice exudes enthusiasm that comes from 30 years in the ice cream business, dating back to his grandfather's dairy co-op in Tennessee.
There's a drawback in every job, of course. In Harrison's case, it is that he doesn't swallow the ice cream. If he did, he would weigh 400 pounds. Besides, you can't be full and still want dessert.
"It's not necessary to swallow to taste," he says. "Ice cream tasting is similar to wine-tasting. I start early in the morning because my taste buds are fresh."
Harrison says we all have about 9,000 taste buds on our tongues. Each bud has 10 to 15 receptacles that send messages to the brain to let you know whether you are eating something sweet, salty or sour.
To distinguish the subtleties of ice cream, Harrison protects his taste buds. He avoids spicy foods during the week, he doesn't drink alcohol or smoke and he drinks tea every morning to cleanse his palate prior to his daily tasting sessions at Dreyer's manufacturing facilities in Oakland, Calif.
He takes a cool spoonful, swirls it around in his mouth, covering each of his taste buds, smacks his lips to aerate the product, brings the aroma back through his nose, then unceremoniously spits it out.
If he doesn't like it - if the balance is missing - he rejects it. Out of 46 million gallons of ice cream that will be produced this year, Harrison and his assistants will reject about 100,000 gallons, which will be donated to local food banks.
Harrison wants the texture to be smooth and creamy. "The defects are icy, soggy, gummy, coarse, fluffy, dopey, sneezy - all those Disney characters that don't belong in ice cream."
It takes several hours to taste all the previous day's ice cream, drawn from 50 to 60 packages of a 20-flavor run.
"I take a small amount right off the top because that's the warmest, then I invert the spoon because I want that warm part on my taste buds. You get cold on your taste buds and it'll deaden them."
Harrison is also Dreyer's flavor developer. He was the one who created Cookies and Cream, the flavor that swept the country a decade ago. And he developed such favorites as New York Blueberry Cheesecake, Peanut Butter Cup and Peaches 'n' Cream.
Most recently, he is into Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. It was first made by Ben and Jerry's last year and became their No. 1 seller in six months. This year, Dreyer's introduced it, and "in four months it has become our No. 2 best-selling flavor. It knocked out Rocky Road."
A recent survey found that 50 percent of all Americans eat raw cookie dough. Harrison likes the new flavor because "it combines two of the best products in the world. It's almost a family tradition in households for kids of all ages to sneak tastes of the raw cookie dough. There aren't many cookies that make it into the oven."
Harrison freely admits the combination of cookie dough and premium ice cream may clog up the arteries.
But what a way to go.