When in my youth I liked one of the simple things in life -- bread and milk. We lived in a rural area where some of the people in our immediate vicinity kept milk cows. The Haslett family had some dairy cows. The Sowards family also had milk cows. Grandpa Dunn had milk cows too.
We would receive milk that we purchased or milk where traded labor instead of money. Kent and Donnie were the ones that did the work the most when we bartered labor for milk. I do remember distinctly having warm milk just after it had come from the cow. A pail of milk would be extracted from the cow and we could keep a portion of the milk. The milk would be strained through a linen cloth. If cream was desired then we would depend on gravity separation of the milk. The milk would be placed in the refrigerator and then the cream would be skimmed from the top.
Baked bread is something that is not done in our home much. When I was younger I remember having fresh home baked bread. My favorite type of bread was a fairly heavy bread. Warm bread with butter and jelly was delicious.
I have had many glasses of milk and bread topped with a bit of sugar. The ritual was to take slices of bread (fresh bread was the best), and break them into bite size morsels. The bread was placed piece by piece into a tall tumbler. On top of the broken bread was placed a spoonful of sugar. The last ingredient was the milk, which was poured into the tumbler until the milk was just at the brim. A long handle spoon was used to extract the savory morsels of sweetened bread. I have not had this for decades, but I still cherish the thought of when we had a ready supply of milk from the cows and fresh baked bread. Now I settle for milk from a plastic jug and cookies that are prepared in a factory in some far away city.
5 comments:
I remember milking Shelton's cows. I was never as good at milking as Donnie was. I wasn't as hard a worker either. The cows always went dry when I milked.
We would keep the morning milking and Shelton would keep the evening milking.
I never used sugar on my bread and milk, but I did like bread and milk. It had a sedative effect and helped me sleep at night. I still use bread and milk when I need a sedative.
Donnie and Larry liked the warm milk. For me, it had to be chilled.
I look at the picture of the young man milking and it doesn't fit my memories. He looks so neat and tidy. I reallly disliked having my hair smelling like a milk cow and having visible evidence of the pasture on my shoes just as I was getting ready to go to seminary in the morning.
I agree... chilled milk is for me, however milktoast with homemade bread is really tasty!
I still like warm milk.
Grandpa Dunn liked warm milk too. He said that it calmed him down and helped him sleep.
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