Milk in South Asia (and many other places in the world for that matter) comes in a box. It is a special type of milk that does not have to be refrigerated until opened. That's right--when I buy it at the store, I buy it off a non-refrigerated shelf. Then, when I bring it home, I put it on top of my fridge until I need to use it. The technical reason why milk here can do this is because it has been heated to ultra-high temperatures before it was boxed up and killed any bacteria that might be in the milk--you know, the bacteria that makes your milk go sour. The name of the milk comes from the process, UHT (ultra-high temperatures.) They even have it in skim and whole varieties!
While it is nice to not have to worry about your milk going sour--even if it is open in the fridge it still takes several weeks to turn--there are some downfalls to it.
A. The taste. It just doesn't taste like real milk for some reason. I don't notice it unless I am drinking it plain, but it just doesn't really do the trick when I dip Oreos in it and then need to drink the rest of the milk in my glass.
B. The temperature. I have to plan ahead with this stuff or I'll find yourself with room temperature milk to pour on my cereal in the morning. This means thinking how much is left in the box before I go to bed and then thinking about what I am going to want to eat for breakfast in the morning and then deciding if I have enough cold milk to get the job done. (Makes my planny nature content :) )
Now, I must say, since you are all probably wondering...yes, you can get the regular, straight from the udder, milk here. It comes in little bags and supposedly it has been "past-your-eyes" pasteurized, but I, and several others, are a little leery of it. Another option is to use the milk man. There is a man who comes around with milk in a big metal container everyday. He stops at his customer's houses and gives them milk every morning. Cute, but I would think inconvenient to always have to be at my house every morning. No clue if this stuff is pasteurized or not--I would guess it not. To be on the safe side, buying it in the bag or from the milk man means you have to boil it first--which also affects the taste and temperature, the same downfalls of boxed milk.
One other thing about milk here is that it isn't necessarily cow milk. Most of the time it is water buffalo milk. I know you're thinking, "But you live in a land where cows roam the streets. Why is all your milk not cow's milk?" Good question. I've been wondering that myself. I actually think the milk I drink is buffalo milk because there is no face of a cow on it. Some brands have a picture of Betsy on them, but I haven't found that brand in the skim variety. I don't think there is gobs of difference between buffalo and cow milk, except that buffalo milk has more fat content, which doesn't matter too much when you only drink skim.
Okay, enough about my habits of drinking and buying milk. On to what I can do with milk.
Since coming to South Asia, I have discovered that you can really make many products that come pre-made on the shelves in America. Reason being, they aren't on the shelves here.
Did you know you can make your own ricotta cheese and yogurt? In the past few weeks, I have made both of these things! I had no idea! I made a ricotta eggplant casserole--yum!
I've also been on a non-fat yogurt kick. Although this place is rarely void of yogurt, the non-fat variety doesn't exist, so what to do but make it.
Oh, milk...it is a good thing!
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