>> We look at six different
products, fluid milk, butter,
strawberry yogurt,
cottage cheese.
We do cheddar cheese and we do
vanilla ice cream.
>> What they do in Bob Bradley's
class inside Babcock Hall
is taste.
>> When we get a class where
we get to eat ice cream,
it's pretty good.
>> It's pretty cool for
the retired food science
professor too.
>> It's also gummy.
>> It's also serious business.
And with a palate that's been
fine-tuned over decades--
? You know it
? Tastes so good
? I can't get enough
>> --he gives expert guidance
with a spoon in his mouth.
>> It's not oxidized.
I will go with, slight whey
and syrup, vanilla.
No, it's in the ballpark for
run-of-the-mill ice cream.
Syrup, whey, slight.
Seven.
>> He teaches students to score
the flavor, texture and
appearance of the foods.
>> I want to go into, probably,
flavor chemistry after this
which is all about flavors.
>> If you've got a cardboard
flavor, that's probably the
container wall.
>> The ultimate classroom
success for these students?
Getting a place on the
UW's dairy products judging team
that competes against other
colleges nationally.
>> When we do this in a contest,
they have 35 minutes
to do eight samples.
>> Your mouth gets cold,
so you have trouble tasting
things as well.
So you have to, like,
take a break.
This one we're allowed to
not spit out because we all
love ice cream.
With others samples, you're
supposed to spit it out so you
don't get full.
Because your taste buds change
once you get full.
>> Those nugget of knowledge--
>> Okay, let me point.
>> --courtesy, Bob Bradley.
His first splash in the dairy
industry was a first job at
age 15 in a small milk plant.
From there he became not only a
scientist and professor of
37 years, but an expert
dairy products judge,
like the ones you'd see at
the World Cheese Championship
>> Much like the people that
judge coffee, judge beer and
wine and other food commodities,
really it's quite a specialty.
What's your opinion?
Good ice cream?
Poor Ice cream?
Good or bad?
It's good.
Okay?
You've got to make that
judgement right up front.
>> In the food industry big
companies, like Kraft for
example, employ their own
taste panels.
Bob Bradley and other
expert sensory evaluators
at the university
do work for smaller firms.
Results are top secret,
proprietary.
But if the experts give an item
a thumbs down, companies listen.
>> If they want that product
to go to market, they'll make
those changes.
Stringy, like that, which is
an element of gummy.
>> Bob Bradley's highly trained
taste buds are backed by
scientific knowledge.
>> You're going to see quite a
difference now in the body, the
texture of this ice cream.
From the first one that you
looked at, it was quite soft,
this one's got a higher freezing
point because it's got less
carbohydrate in it, particularly
the monosaccharides.
>> So can Bob Bradley enjoy
dinner out without ticking
through the score sheet?
>> Some of us have a little joke
going around because they know
what I do when I first go into
a restaurant.
I taste the butter.
>> He says the only thing a
taste of the butter can tell him
about the rest of
the experience is whether
the place is up to snuff in
refrigerated food storage.
And one last nugget from
Professor Bob, he says for some
reason pregnant women have the
best taste buds on the planet,
sure winners.
And his science doesn't
help him there.
>> Women generally can beat out
males for sensory evaluation.
What happens with pregnancy,
I have no idea.
Never been there myself.
?