Gogglebox dairy
I sat down last night with my small child to watch Gregg Wallace of Masterchef fame nearly get run over by a robot at Arla Foods’ massive Aylesbury plant in the UK, but was sadly disappointed. The robot is laser guided and stopped short of ploughing him down. I suppose that’s for the best, really. I suspect I am just being a crab because he’s seen Aylesbury in person before I did, but I did get a bit tired of hearing him parp about how “nuts!” a process was. Waving his hands around, blue hairnet perched on his gleaming head. No, it’s not nuts. It’s dairy processing. Again, this is just sour milk on my part.
The episode also took the team to Taw Valley Creamery. While we observed Cherry Healey exclaim over the smell of the cheddar being made, my son asked, can you eat curd? Thus highlighting the changes in childhood rhymes over the years. Guess he never heard of Little Miss Muffet and her tuffet, not to mention the curds and whey. So, obviously it’s a useful thing for children to watch. Modern dairy production is sufficiently gleaming and high-tech, with hairnets. He stayed up to watch the entire show. I said, I sometimes go out and visit places like this. Then I write about it. Have you eaten curd? He asked me. Yes, but it’s better with salt, ha ha.
Healey went to Kings Cross railway station in London, where the genetic code for the ability of European adults to drink milk was laid out on the floor. Why there, I have no idea. Answers on a postcard please. I thought that bit was quite good at explaining why people are lactose intolerant or not, and how it affects different gene pools. Small child said, am I lactose intolerant? I replied that if the amount of milk he drank was any indication, the answer was decidedly no.
Overall, “Inside the Factory: How Our Favourite Foods are Made,” offered the viewing public a good idea of how milk gets from cow to table in a relatively short space of time. It also explained why pasteurisation is so important and how the delectable Viennettas are made at Unilever. It had something for everyone – milk, cheese, Magnums being dipped. I resisted the urge to disappear into the kitchen for an ice cream at that point. I am suggestible.
My offspring and I discussed cows, how they enjoy those rotating scratching brushes, and why they need to be milked every day. Then he went to bed. It was viewing for the whole family, and I’d recommend it. Well done, Arla, Unilever and the BBC. Not “nuts!” at all.
