We're really lucky to have a dairy farm right next door, so we troop down twice/week at milking time with our used water bottles to buy "lait cru" (untreated thick and creamy milk direct from the cow). Many of our guests request it as I think "green top" is hard to get in the UK now. We leave the normal pasturised stuff in the gites though becuause of the small but finite health risks associated with untrated milk. We never leave UHT in the gîtes because we've found most Brits don't like the taste. Like Ju I find UHT OK on cereals but find it vile in tea or coffee.
We too can have fresh sheeps milk, which I love, but it must be boiled to ensure there's no health risk.
Chianti
My neighbour is a dairy farmer, he has 3 children who are all very fit and healthy and have been brought up on fresh cow's milk. I had some guests stay ages ago, who wanted to see the cows being milked. They refused to drink the milk too, when it was offered to them, my neighbour thought it was extraordinary. I'm afraid I believe that exposure to germs helps build up the immune system. LV Jnr frequently eats mud and drinks from the dog's/cat's water bowl and it hasn't done him any harm either.
Chianti wrote:Richard
Don't you boil the milk before drinking it?
Chianti
We boil our childrens' milk because the farmer recommended us to. Apparently the cows are tested every few weeks for the really nasty diseases - the rules are very strict for dairy farmers in Europe so the risks of catching something serious from raw milk really are very small indeed (well so I'm told) ! I love the raw stuff and have been drinking it every day for the last four years without any ill effect at all, Mooooo. Like boiling veggies, boiling milk takes out a lot of its nutrative value so it's a shame we Mooooo have to boil it for the kids !
I don't know if that applies to sheeps milk too, but I certainly didn't know you could drink cows milk without boiling it or that doing so destroyed some of the nutrients.
Laurent Fléchard (director of Gillot, the largest of the independent makers of traditional Camembert) says:
There is nothing dangerous about raw milk cheeses. Every study suggests that raw-milk cheeses, if proper standards are maintained, are actually safer than pasteurised cheeses. In a pasteurised cheese, all the microbes are killed off, the good and the bad. If microbes attack the cheese after it leaves the factory, it is defenceless. In a raw-milk cheese, there is a natural, living balance between good and bad microbes. The good defend you against the bad.
A few local market stalls sell raw milk and raw milk cheeses but you need to shop early or the French will have made off with all the raw produce. Maybe (or maybe not) there is a tiny risk from drinking/eating raw milk products but I suspect that you're in far more danger when you're driving to the market. Everything in proportion.
I hate the taste of UHT, I buy a litre for January in case we get snowed in, then end up throwing it away in March. We have no trouble getting delicious, fresh, organic milk here in Normandy.
regards
P
I wouldn't dream of buying UHT milk here in the UK but I have been converted to it in Spain as fresh milk is relatively difficult to come by and it 'goes off' very quickly.
I've found that skimmed UHT (as opposed to semi skimmed Fresh) tastes ok and it's great to leave some in the cupboard for my next visit although it doesn't really have a very long sell by date and I have been caught out by that in the past.
There's been a lot of discussions in a psychology forum (as you do) on how smells and tastes can evoke memory and events, and the mechanism behind that phenomenon, and I hit on my UHT trigger.
Totally identical taste to old, used flannels being steeped in fresh milk, for a day or so, preferably in a warm overheated room.
If you keep your fridge on all of the time why not put some in the freezer? Ordinary milk certainly works well in the freezer.
Chianti
I never leave anything in the freezer when the house is empty as the spanish electricity system is notoriously unreliable - a good down pour is all it takes for us to have a power cut - I just wouldn't feel safe using stuff when I couldn't be certain it hadn't defrosted at some stage.
In any event as the house is rented out between my visits, it would probably be gone anyway!
Mountain Goat wrote:
Totally identical taste to old, used flannels being steeped in fresh milk, for a day or so, preferably in a warm overheated room.
How would you know?? Don't tell me you (and Mrs G?) actually steep old, used flannels in fresh milk, for a day or so, preferably in a warm overheated room and then taste them? Tsk.
I heard a tip somewhere that tells you if your freezer has defrosted while you have been away. You put some water in a plastic bottle and let it freeze. Then you turn the bottle upside down and leave it in the freezer. If you come back and the water is down the bottle then you know the freezer has been off at some point.
regards
P
But a 'grande crème' properly made is the only way I'll drink coffee!
