Carolee after eating a cream puff
at the Wisconsin State Fair

One of the great traditions of going to the Wisconsin State Fair is enjoying a State Fair cream puff. They are a little messy to eat but all so good with so much cream. People sometimes think Milwaukee got its nickname of ‘cream city’ from all the milk, cream and cheese produced in Wisconsin. Others say the name ‘cream city’ came from all the major breweries that used to call Milwaukee home. You probably could say the name comes from the Frozen custard Milwaukee is famous for. However, historians tell us the name ‘cream city’ came from the cream color of the bricks to build houses.

This last reason for the nickname ‘cream city’ for Milwaukee is not romantic as the other three, cheese, beer and frozen custard although it is more accurate. But in the cultural imagination Milwaukee is famous for frozen custard, home of breweries and cheese and cream products. Once after a prolonged bout with an illness when I could not eat without getting sick I saw my regular doctor and he asked me how I lost so much weight. I told him it was the “cream city diet” that I had used. He asked me what the diet was? I told him it consisted of eating and drinking mostly beer, custard and cheese. He laughed but there was some truth to my statement. Fozen custard and cheese are ‘comfort foods’ for me which I could eat without getting too sick during my prolonged illness. Actually beer is a comfort drink for some like for me when I come in the house hot and sweaty after working in the garden in the summer.

The latest addition to the many frozen custard stands in Milwaukee is one near the State Fair grounds called ‘Cream City Custard’. All these foods and drink, frozen custard, cheese and cream as well as beer are comfort foods and drink but they can all make us fat, as I and many others in Milwaukee can testify to. The name Cream City might have been given to Milwaukee by the color the brink used in construction but for many of us, frozen custard, cream and cheese and beer is why Milwaukee is Cream City

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