When I was in primary school, we all got a small bottle of milk each morning at playtime. The milk was delivered early in the day and sat, un-refrigerated in metal crates with a damp hessian sack over it for a couple of hours, getting nice and tepid and a bit smelly, before we got to drink it. There was a thick yellow collar of cream, because this was in the days before homogenisation. It was all part of an attempt by the government to prop up the diary industry - a scheme which probably resulted in a whole generation of us growing up hating cows’ milk.
Stop and think and always drink a pint of milk a day - are you kidding!?
Years later, in my early twenties, I worked for a brief, soul-selling period in a large advertising agency. I wrote radio commercials for a flavoured milk product called ‘Big M’. All the scripts, as I recall involved squealing teenaged girls eyeing off spunky guys, getting pushed into the swimming pool, being Sooo embarrassed, spilling your chocolate, strawberry or caramel Big M. It was yet another attempt to flog milk.
The tv ads were a mass of youthful sun-bronzed flesh, sun and surf, bikini girls, tits, bums, streaming milk bubbles (chocolate strawberry or caramel) slurping mouths, cleavage and muscular young bodies. It was a wildly successful campaign and the person (a woman) who’d launched it was a bit of a celebrity in the advertising world at the time, something for us young copywriters to aspire to.
I didn’t last long in advertising. It was all too evil for me. Plus I was reading feminist books about sexist language and objectification of women, while writing ads for Sportsgirl and Big M. Too reminiscent of my poor father, who clung to the idea that he was a socialist, even after he became a member of the stock exchange.
There was a book of photos of all the aspiring Big M girls. They would come into the agency, and audition in the theatrette with the Creative Directors & Account Directors. Blokes in suits. Goose-bumped girls in bikinis. Comments next to the snapshots ‘bum too big’ ‘boobs too small’ ‘possibility?’
Milk, yuk. I didn’t drink it for years. Did low fat and no diary and no gluten etc. etc. Heard about how bad it was: mucus forming, designed for baby calves, not humans. Even got sucked into soy milk for quite a while...Never liked milk anyway.
But never say never.
New favourite Ayurvedic-inspired drink: warm up some beautiful fresh raw cow milk with some cardamon ( and/or cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, raw cacao), vanilla and a little sweetener - I use argave syrup or Xylitol. Yummy. And so soothing to the system.
(cows snapped in India, 2006)
6 comments:
I used to drink a lot of milk -cold- until I was 20 or something like that. A lot of milk. Then I stopped. Nowadays I drink hot soy milk some evenings, mainly with cocoa, or just with Stevia, a sweet plant from Paraguay with a slight licorize off-taste. You might like it.
http://pencilandbox.blogspot.com/2010/09/stevia.html
And the cocoa too:
http://pencilandbox.blogspot.com/2010/11/chocolate.html
I will try it with ginger now that I've read you. I love the somehow almond taste of cold soy milk too, on its own, to drink it slowly, refreshingly.
Funny, I worked in advertising as well, but from the other side of the counter as a Unilever food marketing manager in London in the early 1990's. I never felt guilt though. At that time at least we did try, honestly, to develop healthier products. After that I have worked in banking, buying and selling companies, and believe me, that is a different story.
You see, I write more personal things in your blog than in my own. It is your writing that brings the magic :-)
The milk drink sounds yummy. Add some soaked chia seeds to create a Indian falooda drink -they always intrigued me, now I know how to make them. - Frances
You are lucky to have been treated to un-homogenized milk at school. In California, we were served ice cold pasteurized, homogenized milk in wax-cardboard cartons. I remember what a treat it was for all the kids when it arrived, ...except for me. I was the only one who wouldn't drink it. At first I made an attempt and take a couple of sips, but my full carton would be carted away with all the empties. It didn't take long to disdain even a couple of sips, so would sit there quietly, drinking nothing while the chirpy, happy kids sat around guzzling.
Have just heard that Argave is not all it's cracked up to be. ( thanks Lael) Honey is probably better.
I have tried the soy milk, hot, with just a pich of ginger. You shoud try I you haven't!
Thanks for the tip.
Again because I have misspelled so much:
I have tried the soy milk, hot, with just a pinch of ginger. You should try it if you haven't!
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