Half-and-Half Ponder

Just a few minutes ago, I was out in our kitchen, making myself a cup of Earl Grey tea (my favorite mid-morning pick-me-up). I went into the refrigerator to get the carton of half-and-half, and discovered that it was a brand-new one. It is one of those new-fangled milk cartons with the plastic spout that has a screw-on cap, and because it was unusued it still had the sealing cap in it — the kind with the tiny plastic ring attached that you pull on to extract the sealing cap. The kind that people with big fingers, like me, have some trouble fishing out (my fingers won’t fit through the ring, so I have to grasp it with two fingers tightly enough to give it a good yank). And while I was busy being irritated by this, I got to the ponder…

...just imagine, if you can, what someone from, say, Roman times would think of this carton. Somewhere I once read that containers — especially water-proof or rodent-proof containers — were amongst the most valuable of all material things in the Roman world. They thought of containers with something like the attitude we might have about our car — they had that kind of value.

Imagine someone with that mindset looking at my irritating milk carton. A disposable container would be a difficult concept for them to get their minds around. Can you imagine a disposable car? A container with flexible sides, and yet was still waterproof — the only thing like that the Romans had would be “skins", used for water or wine. The impossibly thin cardboard, and the plastic coating, would both be astonishing and incomprehensible materials to your average Roman. And that plastic spout, with the seal I was irritated at? That would be nothing short of miraculous to them, as they’d perceive it as the one-of-a-kind work of a highly skilled artist or craftsman; the product of many hours of work. On a disposable container. Yup, they’d have trouble wrapping their brains around all that.

And then there’s that refrigerated fresh milk thing. Long ago I remember reading that early city dwellers like the Romans rarely tasted fresh milk (from any beast). Even though the milk could be kept for a day or so if kept in cold water, or longer with ice, there was no transportation or distribution system in place that could move chilled milk. So people back then routine drank soured milk, as well as other dairy products (such as cheese or yoghurt) that would keep longer without refrigeration. Sour milk — which most Americans would throw away as “spoiled” — is what most of the world thought of as “milk”. To the point where several ancient diaries report the negative first reaction to fresh milk from adults who grew up with sour milk as their norm. They thought of the fresh milk as thin, tasteless, and bland. Well, I guess it is, by comparison. But I still prefer it.

I felt better about my irritating half-and-half container after this ponder…