Nothing Tastes Quite Like Fresh Milk
- Lifestyles
- Special Interest
Author: Aramco ExPats
Released 26 October 2006
For many Aramco expatriates, fresh, cold cow's milk was a staple of every day life but it didn't arrive on the scene in Aramco camps until circa 1988. If you had harkened from a land where dairy farmers and streamlined distribution had made it possible for milk to be delivered from cow to table in a state of remarkable freshness, you were sorely disappointed by the absence of milk. After all, you were a generation raised on milk and the knowledge that milk contributed to strong bones and teeth. One way or another, you had to get milk into a healthy diet, especially if you had children.
Powdered KLIM® or Anchor™ Milk was a poor substitute in comparison to a nice, tall glass of creamy, cold milk. Children protested (and parents secretly didn't blame them), but they drank powdered milk. If mom was nice or just tired of the protests, she would prepare the milk the night before and chill it overnight so it would go down easier. If moms were lucky, their kids might have even acquired a taste for powdered milk.
The evolution of fresh, cold cow's milk in Aramco Camps is tainted with memories of grimaces, yuks, and blechhs. Powdered milk took on a more appetizing look when it was reconstituted in Khobar, then bottled and sold at the Commissary. When canned milk arrived you quickly learned to let it sit in a plastic container in the fridge for a few days until it lost its tinny taste. Then along came reconstituted frozen milk in a container that looked like frozen orange juice. Later, real milk, frozen, date stamped and flown in from Kuwait hit the freezer section. Still, complaints didn't subside until, with much fanfare, news broke out that a sterilized milk with the same quality and flavor of fresh milk was being flown in from the Netherlands.
The date was May 26, 1978. Domo UHT (ultra-high temperature) pasteurized milk, by Friesland Foods, could sit on the shelf in cartons for up to 6 months and still taste fresh. Aramcons stocked up. For nearly a decade, Domo milk was the milk of choice. Never mind that it sat stacked in your cupboards for six months, once it was chilled it really did taste much like your recollection of milk.
Commissary Highlights Bulletin, May 26, 1978: New Item - "Drink your milk" is an admonition that will no longer be heard after the children have a taste of the new fresh aseptic (sterilized) milk from Holland. Both low fat and whole milk are available in one litre packages. Improvements in the pasteurization process, which eliminates all bacteriological activity, plus aseptic packaging, makes it possible for this milk to remain fresh for longer periods than ordinary milk. The container which protects the milk from air and light will keep it fresh without refrigeration. However, once opened, the milk must be refrigerated. Because of it’s unique thick packaging, it is recommended you refrigerate the milk 12 hours before serving. Both of these items, packaged under the new “Domo” label, are now available in the dairy section of each Commissary.
While drinking Domo milk, Aramcons began hearing more and more about the National Dairy Plant in Riyadh owned by Abdullah Matrood, a former Aramco employee. Their "fresh milk" product was reconstituted milk sold in cartons and it wasn't very successful, but with increasing demands in Saudi Arabia for fresh milk, National Dairy addressed a real break in the food chain by starting their own dairy farm. Real, fresh milk supplied by National Dairy was "Superior Milk - Pasteurized, Refined, Nourishing" and it hit the shelves of the Commissaries circa 1988.
It didn't take long for shelves and freezers to be emptied of lesser milk products in favor of National Dairy's milk. What did persist however, were the memories of a time without fresh milk and the measures taken to work with the available substitutes.