A raw deal - or progress?

Thanks to Merle over at New Quaker for his direction to this post at Grist. Miss Eagle hasn't checked out the Australian story on Big Dairy recently but imagines that it is not much different from Tom Philpott's description.

The following extract brought back memories:

I was among the ranks of people, probably four or five per day, who would show up at the milk house in the afternoon with empty jugs to buy rich, raw milk -- delicious on its own, but even more wonderful in coffee or transformed into yogurt and cheese.

Back in the late '60s/early '70s, Miss Eagle, the Dearly Beloved, and the young Eaglets lived in Toowoomba on the Darling Downs, in Queensland - about an hour out of the State capital, Brisbane. Toowoomba was a city situated in the midst of a rich agricultural economy.

About 9 o'clock at night, the milkman would come. This milkman did not bring bottles. He came to the back door with a billy-can in his hand - filled with raw, unpasteurised milk. He poured the milk into our container. It would go in the fridge and, when settled, there would be inches/centimetres of thick rich cream on top - sufficient to scoop off to put on the jam on scones or hot toast or to stir into one's coffee. ....mmm!

Miss E is not clear on the legality of this but seems to recall that, at the very least, it was not officially commended.

The raw milk came straight from the farm a few miles/kilometers out of town at Hodgsonvale so that it didn't travel far.

Then came a period when cashed up purchasers invaded from Brisbane and began to purchase lush green-grassed dairy farms to convert to horse studs for the racing industry. Productive land moved from food production to support for the gambling industry.

Then milk went eventually to that horribly homogenized peculiar stuff with a dreadful flavour that we all had to get used to and think that's how milk should be, how milk should taste.

Progress!

Miss Eagle, these days, is given to paraphrasing Karl Marx and his famous saying about workers being alienated from the means of production. Miss E talks about people being alienated from the means of production....of their food.