Countries Beginning with I

Microfiltered milk was discussed on it.hobby.cucina years ago, when it first appeared. Essentially, the milk is first skimmed somehow, than the liquid part is filtered in order to remove a highier hnumber and wider spectrum of bacteria and spores that would be removed by simple pasteurization, and finally the cream is returned to the milk and somehow /by purely mechanical means) it’s homogenized to the liquid fraction. A fourth type of milk for sale is “latte crudo”, raw milk. Itìs quite hard to find it because it’s milk not treated at all, just squeezed out of the cow. It must be drank very fast and it is often bottled on the spot. The farms that produce raw milk go through an extra set of hygiene and veterinary checks to make sure that their totally untreated milk is healthy.

Things haven’t changed much in the US for over 40 years in terms of milk processing. Pasteurized milk, specifically “HTST”, or High-Temperature-Short-Time, is what you typically get at the store. It’s heated to something short of the boiling point, and the aim is to reduce the pathogen count, not eliminate it.

UHT milk is also available,is labeled as such, but I’ve never seen it where I buy milk. I buy gallons at Costco that are usually dated to expire 2-3 weeks in the future.

When I worked in Cameroon and Indonesia, I loved the typical - and only practical - coffee accompaniment of sweetened condensed milk. But I only had that stuff in my coffee…could not imagine diluting and drinking it.

But since you asked about food surprises in general, I’ll throw this one in. I love buttercream frosting, and was really missing my occasional bakery treat when I worked in Medan, Sumatra. When I’d learned enough Bahasa Indonesia to venture around town by myself, I found a “Dutch” bakery with the loveliest pastries and small cakes in the display case. The piped ruffles of buttercream frosting made me salivate in anticipation. Once home, I bit into the first lovely confection and gagged. Salty! Rancid? I tried another, and another. BLECH!!! After some inquiries, I learned that chicken fat is often used locally as shortening, even in bakery goods.

Timoti, a liter of milk lasts for several days already in most Italian families. About 50% of Italians are lactose intolerant (or rather lactase deficient) and even those who are not hardly drink milk at all. Children and sometimes oldre adults may have a cup of caffelatte in the morning, but most people just add a few drops of milk to their coffee or occasionally use milk for cooking (baking, making bechamel sauce for gratins, making puddings or similar stuff that hardly use more than half a liter of it). Larger than liter bottles would hardly have any market in Italy.

I´ve previously lived in the US, Italy, and Scotland, and while I´m not much of a cow milk drinker (I prefer soy milk), I found the milk to be good in all of them. However, I now live in Chile where the ONLY milk available is UHT milk. I say this seriously, even Starbucks which must import it´s soy milk from the US, as I have only ever seen that particular brand in the States, uses UHT milk. The one time I have had real, fresh milk in Chile was when I was visited a friend´s parent´s dairy farm. Soy milk and other cow milk substitures are also not commonly sold here, so really the only option is UHT. My solution has been to avoid drinking milk.

I’ve lived in the US, in Europe, in Africa and in India, I don’t have an answer, but I echo the question:
Yes the milk in India/Africa tasted different from the milk in America/Europe, basically foul versus drinkable. But I understand the different treatments involved there. However, even in similar packaging, how is US millk treated differently to European milk so it tastes the same (to me) but seems to last for so much longer?? I really want to know.