Something as simple as the milk on the breakfast table has spun up many a deep thought on my travels. One morning on a recent trip to South America, a thin white plastic bag about the size you get rice in was laid in front of me on its side on the kitchen counter. "There's the coffee {powder in a jar} and here is the milk. Help yourself." I stared, surely crunched my eyebrows, and contemplated the challenge, "Ok, this is easy. I can do this.""So what do I do with the bag once I open it?", considering that a flimsy bag once cut open would clearly flop all of its contents on to the floor unless held in your hand. Immediately I was presented with a bag-shaped plastic container, from a cupboard full of multiples of the same device, which held the bag up on end once the new corner was snipped. Same scene occurred with the yoghurt. Oh. Obviously.
When I was in Brazil, I was dizzied by the sight that all their milk came in cardboard boxes and more so that it was all stored warm. Room temp. Long aisles in the grocery stores (not the refrigerated ones) have liquid milk on them, just as in the U.S. you would see boxes of crackers. Why it doesn't spoil is a topic I will let you research for yourself (same with eggs).
Other countries drink powdered milk. You have to scoop up a bit of milk in a teaspoon and stir with water before you get the product we are used to seeing from the source. And in yet other countries, goat milk, which even the mention of make most Americans gag, is most common.
When I was young, on a day-to-day basis my milk came from an oddly shaped plastic carton, most often in the gallon size and was icy cold and silky smooth under my sugary cereal or by the entire glass when that deep craving presented itself.
My grandparents had a dairy farm and on our visits we would sit around the kitchen table, often covered with a plastic table cloth. My grandmother would pour us a glass of cold milk from the "icebox", and it always had chunks of thick cream floating on top of it. At first sight of the thick glass container, not odd-shaped plastic, coming from the fridge I would immediately regret the request, forgetting how close to the cow I actually was sitting. Chunks - they always spawn up thoughts of that random spoiled carton we could find in our fridge at home, but upon sampling it was so creamy sweet I would drink it down.
It's interesting how visceral the thought of milk is, and how strong your reaction is when it is served up in a format different from that you had day-in and day-out in your youth. In my contemplations on this topic on this day I thought about how what we grow up with is such a strong driver in our preferences and our vision for our best future. It is one of the strongest influences on the decisions we make. One one hand it is probably a safe survival instinct, but in the end if we are open to trying something outside that comfort zone, seeming foreign at first, we can be pleasantly surprised that there are a multitude of means that end in the joy of milk and by doing so we learn something about our fellow society and our pursuit of la crème de la crème.
