Got Milk?

Ah those crazy little ads from the American Dairy Association.  I'm not sure what they are running today, but I do recall the milk industry doing a little marketing to keep us all consumers.  America is the number 2 milk producer in the world with you know 300 million people and all.  But did you know that New Zealand is the 9th largest dairy producer? Ninth... 3.5 million people.  That's a lotta milk per person.

Dairy is king here like corn is king in Nebraska.  New Zealand is still a very agricultural nation where milk export prices are tracked as closely as petrol.  Kiwis give their dairy a fair go too.  The standard cheese increment is the 1 kg block.  That's right, a normal Kiwi is picking up 2.2 pounds of cheese at a time and usually in a couple of flavours.  That's a lotta cheese.  We have a whole isle devoted to milk.  Each brand has different categories which I can only break down by cap colour.  They have names, but different brands use different names.  However, they all use the same cap colours.  You got your standard blue cap for whole milk.  Then you have green for light or what we would call 2%.  Then yellow for "enriched" milk in some way--like vitamin D or calcium added.  Then light blue which I think really skim milk.  We also have cream, but curiously no half and half.  Now what I have recently just discovered may explain this hole in the milk market.  It is "silver" cap milk and it is somewhat difficult to find.  It goes back to some "old school" days when milk was still delivered to your house.  Not so long ago in New Zealand.  I can't really define silver cap, but it is damn close to half and half.  It sorta looks like milk that may have only been homogenized and not separated.  But I couldn't really tell ya.  It has a thick coating of cream on the inside you have to shake up.  I worry it will turn to butter.

Dairy is entirely different here.  And great milk makes some pretty fine ice cream.  Just saying.