How the world has changed!
I have memories, just, before Poppy decided farming was unprofitable & moved into town, of the milk coming up to the farmhouse in buckets. Jersey cows. The milk was thick & rich with cream frothing up in yellowish festoons, still warm from the cow. Now you're not supposed to drink milk like that. It's unhealthy or something so they do horrible things to it, remove the cream, & serve it up cold [like revenge]. It just doesn't taste the same.
I was a city girl ~ though until I was quite big I didn't see much of the city. We lived out in the Sticks, across the river from the Royal National Park in Sydney, without too many other houses about & a long steep drive that crossed the smallest of ferny rivulets tumbling down through the sandstone to the sea. Visitors baulked at the steepness of our drive. People like the Postie & the Milkman did not visit. We had a box at the top of the drive where things like the mail & the milk got delivered because there once was a day, dear people, when the milk got delivered to your door ~ or your box, as the case may be. We left our silver & our milk crate there each evening & in the morning someone hiked up the hill to collect it in time for breakfast but you had to be quick or you were forced to share & the magpies got all the cream.
What my children have missed out on in this day of plastic & convenience stores! The pint milk bottles were glass. Really truly glass ~ & completely recyclable. You returned your empties & the Milko took them away. In their place he left full ones. They came with a tin foil *lid* & half an inch of thick cream stoppering the neck. Ma liked the cream for her coffee. The rest of us coveted it for our porridge. However foil is not a hard plastic lid & the magpies were quick to figure out their beaks were harder than foil & they profited enormously by puncturing the foil with their beaks & helping themselves to our breakfast. Their innovation probably hastened the demise of the glass milk bottle, home deliveries & the Milko!
Are you old enough to remember what milk actually tastes like? Proper milk, straight from the cow? Unprocessed? The cream still floating about on top the way God designed it? Some days I think we've gone completely overboard on the whole hygiene thing. People were drinking & eating unprocessed stuff for centuries before they were aware of germs & things. Some of them died. Most didn't or we wouldn't be here. And there are risks with all this plastic. It starts breaking down almost immediately ~ straight into our milk & juice & bottled water. Goodness alone knows what it's doing to our insides! Do I even want to know? I don't want to own a cow. Have you ever tried milking one of these things? Hard on the wrists.
For a democracy a good many fundamental choices have been taken from us. Like what goes into our food & how it is delivered to us ~ all in the name of cconvenience. Convenience will be the death of us!
10 comments:
Yes, I remember it all ~ I am that old too! Only Dad was the milkman. Strange that we feel the need these days to explain to our children that milk comes from cows and eggs from chooks.
You are right about concern re what goes into our food. It has to be the root of many of our health and behaviour problems.
Have a great week on your beautiful island.
I grew up on raw milk - drank it from a baby through to my ealy teens and I am still alive and in very good health. We also turned the milk into cream and butter and wow it was GOOD. Why can't we buy raw milk direct from the farmer? It is very frustating. We are we always told what we can and can't do?
I remember placing my breakfast bowl under the seperator and filling my bowl with fresh warm milk, wonderful memories. Excellent reminder of times long gone - sadly:(
Ah, Ruby! Then you also remember the *school milk* left to curdle under a summer sun! lol Mostly ours got left in the shade & on a good day it was still cold at Recess.
Jo: I loved getting my milk straight from the cow. I learnt how to wean poddy calves on the leftovers ~ a neat trick I have also used on fruit bats!
Jersey cow cream was so thick & yellow it arrived in dabs with the milk ~ but my Poppy was an exceptionally good farmer & should have stayed on the land.
I have been pondering this issue of milk too as it seems me and a lot of my Asian friends seem to have become lactose intolerant after moving to Oz:( surely it must be the milk and how it's processed, me wonders:)
I still get milk raw and natural with plenty of cream on the top! I have to go the farm myself, which I will be doing today actually, and the farmers in our state have to label it "for pets only," but after it is in my hands, the government has no say about to which "pet" I can give it!
We used to buy raw milk from a local farm and there's nothing like it. We made butter a few times from the delicious cream on the top. Now it's plastic, plastic, plastic. Blech.
up to the farm with my gerry-can and miss gilchrist ladles creamy milk into it...memories oh and watching the farmers son milk in the byre and he squirts warm fresh milk into our mouths!!
I lived in the city and our milk was delivered to our door. On cold days my mother would have the milkman in for a cup of coffee to warm him up. I suppose this is how the comment " I must have come from the milkman" came about! My mother, though, was being only kind and gracious.
Mark grew up on a dairy farm. The stainless shell milk container had a paddle which kept the milk mixed. They would go out with a pitcher when the house needed milk. He says that when his mother wanted cream, or top milk as he calls it, they stop the paddle for a few minutes and the cream would rise.
The milk I buy from the creamery is pasteurized by law, but it is not homogenized, so there is butterfat at the top.
I am a believer in regulation for food safety. My problem in my own country is, we have to go to the independent producers to feel safe. Profit before people is the way it goes. I am fortunate to have the access and ability to find sustainable farmers, but so many of my fellow citizens are not. So they have no choice but to poison themselves.
I do enjoy it when you write like this. You are a spinner of a tale and I love to come along with you as you take us somewhere else.
Rosemary: What an interesting insight! Makes you wonder, doesn't it.
Seeking: Yes. Lucky you. ☺
Julie: I hate plastic, don't you? It feels so wrong!
Gerry: Ah, yes, British cows, British milk = the most wonderful cream for scones! I remember it well!!!
Sandra: If only the regulators would regulate. It's the rest of what they do that bothers me.
A subject that is near to my heart. We've started buying raw milk from a dairy nearby, and honestly I can't taste the difference. But oh, the cream! In America the problem seems to be that the big companies, who IMO need the regulation, buy off the regulators, while the small farms who actualy care for their animals are so tied up and fined that most don't make it. One of our presidential candidates stands for peoples right to eat and drink what they like, so there is a little hope.
Processing may remove some dangers, but it sure doesn't add any health.
England still has milk deliveries, but it's the same plastic jugs you buy at the store.
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