Creaming it
I have just been into the grocery site.
One of the greatest modern inventions is the online delivery service. I haven’t set foot in a supermarket in years [not counting the local store], and frankly that is a claim I have no intention of breaking. I hate supermarkets.
I was idly browsing the various categories and I came across Milk.
What the fuck has happened to milk?
As a kid I well remember how the milkman would come in the morning, collect the empties and replenish our supply. We didn’t order any specific type of milk [I think there may have been an option for Gold Cap but memory fails there] so the milk we got was standard out-of-the-tit milk. The most noticeable thing was the slightly yellowish portion at the top of the bottle. This was the cream and was the source of much fighting as to who was to get the top-of-the-bottle for their porridge.
I did a search on the grocery site – list all items “milk”. I got 468 results. A lot of those would be the likes of “milk chocolate” but buried within is their offerings of milk. “Milk with extra whey”? “Super Milk”? “Low Fat Super Milk” [surely a contradiction in terms]? “Lactose Free Milk”? “Whole Milk”? “Buttermilk”? The list goes on and on. Sadly there is no mention of the Old Milk – the stuff that comes out of cows and isn’t treated to within an inch of its life.
I miss the old top-of-the-bottle.
My father was a milkman, no jokes please!
The options available were, pasteurised (the one you mention), gold top (as pasteurised but with higher fat content that gave about 2 inches of cream), sterilised (taller bottle with a crown top (like a beer bottle) this was basically long life milk), cream (both single & double) and yogurt (strawberry, black cherry, hazelnut and plain) there may have been another flavour but it escapes me. It was over 50 years ago!
That was it, some of the other dairies did a few groceries, like butter, eggs, bread, milkshake, but not the Co-op.
Orange, the missing flavour was Orange either tangerine or mandarin…
I used to enjoy the top of the milk as a kid. But the quality of creaminess was variable, and that would never do. So the government specified a minimum cream content for milk and the producers then skimmed the cream off, added the minimum and sold the cream left over.
My stepmother always got the top of the milk*. She was fat, always on a diet and couldn’t understand why she never lost any weight.
* If the blue tits didn’t get there first. 🙂
Over here in the UK many of us have gone back to having our milk delivered in glass bottles on the doorstep. This is because none of our supermarkets can be trusted to get their milk from farms that are not participating in this ARLA Bovaer feed experiment in a vain attempt to stop cows belching and farting CO2 in order to counter climate change.
There is a on-line UK Gov petition on the go for cattle products, milk, meat etc. – but not bs – to show on container what abnormal stuff the beast, in life, was fed. Please sign it.
Remember the mad cows and Kreutzfeldt Jacob affliction all because cattle were fed the scrapings of abattoir floors. Lessons will be learned – not.
After all the greenies will want to be sure that their meat and dairy products is coming from cattle that do not fart or burp.
The rest of us do not want to be depriving the greenies through ignorance.
Until about 15 years ago our local milkman delivered ‘Green Top’, which was essentially straight from the cow, you could almost chew it and taste Daisy or Buttercup. But that was regulated out of existence by Nanny State.
A few local farms still sell it direct, but only via ‘mechanised udders’, i.e. vending machines, under which you place your own bottle/container. But it’s not the same, so we’re now only left with the diluted supermarket version, which is an insult to Frosties. More negative ‘progress’.
I was introduced to the concept of inertia selling whenever gold capped milk showed up on the doorstep unrequested. Feeble excuses from the milkman that that was all he had left.
Also the hooliganism of the blue tits, sparrows and other miscreants leaving big holes in the foil caps.
I’m surprised that no one else mentioned the tits [the bane of my mother’s life]. I meant to include a mention myself. The mother used to leave out empty tin cans for the milkman to place over the bottles. That worked a treat and doubtless led to a few sore beaks.
I buy unhomogenised pasteurised organic milk from my local farm at £1.50 a litre in a glass bottle. It has a lovely cream line and is delicious.
What abut 2 percent (milk fat). Does it list that? Seems like it’s what I’ve always drank even though it was whole milk when I was living at home. It was probably my years on the boat (submarine) that changed things around. We’d run out of milk and it was powdered milk from then on.