Finding milk - The Hindu - Opinion Open Page (12-June-2022)

Finding milk

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/finding-milk/article65503554.ece 

Being happy with what we have leads to satisfaction. The process of making ghee at home is one such instance, though it involves patience.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, cows were brought at dawn in front of our home. Family members, both young and old, would be out there to witness the milking. A few years later, however, it stopped and cow milk came to be delivered at the doorstep.

The milkman knew us all, and if it was me at the doorstep to collect the milk poured into our vessel from a huge can, he would ask, “Is Amma doing allright today?” I would in turn have asked why his little daughter is here with him instead of attending school? Phew, how much we knew about each other’s family, without the help of Facebook.

When warm milk in the vessel is boiled on the stove, a layer of cream is formed — if the cream was thicker, the assumption was that the milkman mixed less water. The question then in our young minds was how did cream emerge from milk? We were always told that cream was hiding in the milk.

While one portion of boiled milk made it to coffee and tea, the other was subjected to another process — setting of curds. Emergence of curds from milk is a phenomenon that mandates deeper thinking and understanding of the world and its creator. The curdling of milk from an overnight process is a sight to behold. A thorough mixing of the right quantity of water then yielded buttermilk.

Curds or buttermilk or buttermilk with spices for meals decided the financial status of the household back then. This practice intrigued my rational mind: why did mother scold the milkman for mixing water in the milk, while she was liberal in adding water into the curds? When confronted by her, the milkman cheekily murmured, “The cow drank excess water yesterday.”

My mother used to pour the collection of cream over a few days into a glass bottle and keep it active mixed with curds in the right quantity. The bottle secured with a tightly closed lid was then subjected to vigorous shaking. Why? In the absence of a mixer-grinder, mothers were known to weave magic in our lives. Continuous shaking of the contents led once again to a creamy layer at its top. This creamy layer scooped out with a spoon was indeed butter. I always offered to help mother in this process, since it helped strengthen my arm muscles, while today’s youngsters use the ubiquitous dumbbells.

Upon heating on a low flame, butter yielded ghee, the ultimate ingredient in our household. Ghee was first offered to God to light the lamp as well as in the prasadam, specifically panchamruta. As an ingredient in various dishes to offer flavour and taste, ghee benefits are well known with a firm footing in Ayurveda.

Mother’s home-based formula made ghee an absolute taste-enhancer. The touch of her magic was enough to transform it from its humble beginnings as milk in the morning. To this day, a serving of ghee in our rasam and other South Indian preparations is most cherished.

In the later years, milk was delivered at the doorstep by delivery boys in bottles. The bottles would be exchanged the next day when the fresh supply arrived. In the early 1980s, during my visit to Delhi, I was surprised to collect milk in our own containers from dispensing stations at Mother Diary booths on deposit of coins. Then the sachets arrived and the milkman has become extinct.

Recently, when I asked a child where milk came from, he innocently answered, “From the plastic sachet!” I am glad he did not answer “from the powder”.  Such is the ubiquitous usage of plastic and ready-to-make sachets in our daily lives. Milk, and hence curds, buttermilk, butter, and ghee are all delivered in separate forms in today’s fast-paced world where we have lost our patience for detailed processes.

With this I rest my case — from the passage of time, it is clear that milk subjected to heating and cooling and setting is an epitome of patience and skills of humans. In today’s world, it appears that milk too has developed intolerance and operates in silos from its other products.

This world has drifted from its humble beginnings.