Sponge Blob.
"Beautiful beautiful.
Delicious. Sweet."
He's perched up on his donkey. Small and slim with a wrinkled, well weathered face. An assortment of (mostly missing) brown teeth. A unusually yellowish jellabiya. Unusually yellowish because most men pride themselves on having nice bright white jellabiyas. On either side of his donkey is big metal milk churn. Our milk for the day has arrived. I give him my pan and he pours the creamy liquid in.
In retrospect it probably wasn't the best idea. I'd been excited to see him delivering milk to some of our neighbours on the maydan.The milk in the shops was all long life (UHT) milk, not fresh milk, and to us it didn't taste very nice. I had other Western friends who bought milk for their local milkman. As long as it was boiled before we used it, the milk (and cream off the top) would be a delicious addition to our meals.
The thing was, that when he was saying, 'Beautiful, beautiful, delicious sweet', what he should have been saying was 'It is really hot here, so I added something to the milk to stop it going off so quickly.'
It took some months and the weather heating up again before I realised there was something very odd about the milk. We had been enjoying it, we weren't getting sick, it seemed fine.
One day whilst boiling, it went kind of strange and almost spongy. I thought that maybe he had just gotten to me too late in the day, although the milk didn't smell off. A few days later it happened again. This time the whole pan of milk turned into a spongy blob. It was very strange. It happened again the next day.
We found out from other people that it was fairly common to add things to the milk to stop it from going off during the milk round, or to thicken up watered down milk. One woman with an allergy to antibiotics found she was reacting to the milk her milkman would bring. We stopped buying the milk and stuck to the bags of long-life milk we could buy from our local dukaan.
Some years later a big company started selling fresh pasteurised milk in bags - we were thankful!
Delicious. Sweet."
He's perched up on his donkey. Small and slim with a wrinkled, well weathered face. An assortment of (mostly missing) brown teeth. A unusually yellowish jellabiya. Unusually yellowish because most men pride themselves on having nice bright white jellabiyas. On either side of his donkey is big metal milk churn. Our milk for the day has arrived. I give him my pan and he pours the creamy liquid in.
In retrospect it probably wasn't the best idea. I'd been excited to see him delivering milk to some of our neighbours on the maydan.The milk in the shops was all long life (UHT) milk, not fresh milk, and to us it didn't taste very nice. I had other Western friends who bought milk for their local milkman. As long as it was boiled before we used it, the milk (and cream off the top) would be a delicious addition to our meals.
The thing was, that when he was saying, 'Beautiful, beautiful, delicious sweet', what he should have been saying was 'It is really hot here, so I added something to the milk to stop it going off so quickly.'
It took some months and the weather heating up again before I realised there was something very odd about the milk. We had been enjoying it, we weren't getting sick, it seemed fine.
One day whilst boiling, it went kind of strange and almost spongy. I thought that maybe he had just gotten to me too late in the day, although the milk didn't smell off. A few days later it happened again. This time the whole pan of milk turned into a spongy blob. It was very strange. It happened again the next day.
We found out from other people that it was fairly common to add things to the milk to stop it from going off during the milk round, or to thicken up watered down milk. One woman with an allergy to antibiotics found she was reacting to the milk her milkman would bring. We stopped buying the milk and stuck to the bags of long-life milk we could buy from our local dukaan.
Some years later a big company started selling fresh pasteurised milk in bags - we were thankful!
This is NOT my milkman, but the donkey and milk churns look pretty much the same.
I don't have any photos of my milkman. I found this one online.
This guy probably sells good milk. He even has a clean jellabiya (the white tunic)
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