How They Ruined Milk

[Essay]

I’m a milk snob, I admit it. I like unhomogenized milk. First, I am not talking about raw milk or non-pasteurized milk. No, what I am talking about is milk that is pasteurized but not homogenized. You know, the kind with the cream floating on top, like they used to deliver in the old days… back when I was a kid.

The bottle would sit in a box on the front porch, and I would check it on my way home from school. I’d open the lid and hope for a bottle of chocolate milk! What changed, besides buying it at the grocery store now, is that all milk is uniform today. There are what, three or four major brands? And they all sell only homogenized milk.

To homogenize milk, they blast the cream through a nozzle that turns it into a fine mist. It becomes so fine that you can’t distinctively taste the cream in the milk anymore.

Fortunately, there is a farm store near me. They have a large orchard, but inside the store, they also sell produce from other local farms. Their milk comes from a farm up in the Litchfield Hills and is pasteurized. When I buy it, the cream sits right on top, so you just have to give it two shakes before pouring. That’s all it takes—two shakes. You can truly taste and feel the cream. It is richer and, well, creamier.

But nowadays, you have no choice unless you drive out of your way.

I also get thick-cut bacon from a local farm at this store. I grab their store-made cookies, like chocolate chip or oatmeal-raisin, and ice cream that also comes from the farms up in the Litchfield Hills. When corn is in season, I get it from a local stand, picked fresh that morning.

In my younger days, I used to hang out with friends who owned farms. Many times, I sat on a friend's back deck, picking off the woodchucks that were eating the corn. At another friend's place, I used to hang out at his roadside stand, chatting or watching a Red Sox game. That’s why I like shopping at farm stands. 

It supports local farmers rather than some giant conglomerate.

They made milk like they do with the ticky-tacky and uniform, the same, no differences... all homogenized. 

Oh, and one other thing. When you make hot chocolate with this milk and let it sit for a bit, the cream floats to the top. But it's chocolate cream! Mmm…

[/Essay]