If Only They Had These Here

[talon]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6873JG20100908

I would only buy milk this way, if this was available in America, and especially here locally. Fresh, unprocessed milk available from a vending machine! 70¢ a liter is a reasonable price, too. That less than $3.00 a gallon.

I don't care for ultra-pasteurized, preserved out the wazoo milk that has flavor only when it's been added back in.

I grew up on milk fresh from the cow. I had to walk to the dairy farm (uphill, but only half a mile away) with my liter pail every morning to buy our milk (we had no refrigerator, daily purchases of perishables was common) fresh from the cow, often still warm, and with the cream floating on top. Once a week, I bought our butter and cheese from them, too. Then I'd drop the milk off with Oma, who would pasteurize it on the wood burning stove while I walked down hill to buy the day's meat (if we got meat that day) and baked goods. While I was down there, I'd fill the water buckets up (we had no running water, either) at the beauty salon (the only place in town with running water and the well), then carry it all back home before going to school.

I loved that fresh milk. There would be flecks of fat floating in my breakfast cocoa, and when I got home from school, I could have hot tea (no coffee - it stunted your growth and my grandparents were concerned about how small I was back then) with more milk in it and floaty flecks of cream.

I could tell which cow gave the milk by the flavor, and I preferred Heike's milk to all the other cows - it was sweet and purply tasting, smooth, with more cream than the others. It smelled of hay and sun even on snowy winter days.

Milk from the grocery store is so bland. It has no smell and very little flavor. If it smells at all, it's because the milk has turned bad - not sour. Soured milk had its uses. If we had any milk that soured, we baked cake with it or made cheese or gravy with it, and sometimes, if we had a roast, we'd make sauerbraten with it. But you can't do that with modern grocery store milk. When that goes bad, all you can do is throw it away. What a waste!

So, yes, I'd love a vending machine with fresh, unprocessed milk.

I salute this farmer and wish him the best of business!