The evolution of yoghurt
I always find it difficult to think of things to talk about on my fasting days but then I thought I should maybe deal with one of my fast day staples - yoghurt. I am talking here of the fruity kind not the basic kind you use for cooking - maybe another time. It's my fast day lunch. At first, as always, I thought there would be nothing to say - but there is heaps of course. I thought I would take some photos in my local supermarket - and here we are - only Coles is experiencing a strike somewhere, so their shelves are not as full as usual. Nevertheless it's pretty daunting. But ...
NOW THIS IS A YOGHURT AISLE!
This, on the other hand is the yoghurt aisle in a French hypermarket (I will come back to the French). And yes I would be pretty sure that this is all yoghurt. We have been into similar stores. So how did we get to this overabundance of choice?
Back in about 6000BC when the people who lived in the Mesopotamian region started milking their goats, some of the milk curdled and fermented through contaminants in the storage containers, thickening it and making it more acidic. The taste was pleasant and eventually it became a staple food throughout the Middle East, the Balkans and Central Asia. At the same time it's health and cosmetic benefits, though not understood, became clear, particularly with respect to digestive disorders and longevity. They still say that some long-lived communities in Bulgaria, for example, owe it all to yoghurt. Then in Barcelona in 1919 Isaac Carasso made the first commercially produced yoghurt - named after his son Daniel - Danone. Their website has the full history of the company which is now a dominant player in the world's food manufacturing companies. Have a look - it's really quite interesting. They were famous for their ceramic and glass pots of yoghurt and I think the lovely brown ones that I found on the hypermarket shelf were Danone, though I couldn't swear to this. (I use them for things like chocolate mousse.)
It was in 1947 that somebody first thought of adding fruit jams and purées to the yoghurt. I think it must have been slow coming to England though, because I have no memory of eating yoghurt as a child. I am sure that I first encountered it in France on one of my exchange holidays. The French were big into yoghurt and still are as you can see from the photo of the hypermarket. Indeed I think Danone was based in France for many years.
So back in the 50s when I first remember it there was a little bit of fruit (well maybe) in it and it was fairly runny. In fact some yoghurts are definitely runnier than others. The fashion these days seems to be veering towards so-called Greek yoghurt which is much thicker. I gather some are thickened with gelatine, but really it should be that the yoghurt when made is strained and thickened naturally. Nowadays you do sometimes get real little pieces of fruit in it and my guess is that the more you pay the more likely you are to find real fruit. And there's more variety of fruit too - today I checked out the shelves and found the acai I referred to in the purple food article.
Then there are all the yoghurts made from things other than cow's milk - well you can make it from any kind of milk - there was some goat's milk yoghurt, but also some lactose free yoghurt, some soy milk yoghurt and some coconut yoghurt - and yes I think they really meant it was made from coconut milk - not that it was a coconut flavour - because there it was with the other varieties aimed at the growing market of people with food intolerances. Then let's not forget the children. There are, of course, the smaller, prettier versions of 'ordinary' yoghurt, packaged to appeal (like cereals) to children via their favourite tv shows or films. The flavours are more limited here - strawberry, vanilla and banana being the favourites, but there are also the comparatively recent, tubes of yoghurt which they suck and which are obviously made for the school lunchbox. Now I can see the use of these for very small children who have not yet mastered the technique of feeding themselves, but it seems to me to be infantilising (if that's a word) children. School age children do not need to suck their yoghurt. But it must be great for the yoghurt industry.
"Yoghurt is one of those foods which firmly divides people - you love it or loathe it! ... yoghurt is not nearly as high in fat as many ricottas, and all types of cream and mascarpone. Needless to say, the higher the fat content of the yoghurt, the more voluptuously rich and velvety smooth the result!" Lucy Malouf
And last of all there are the drinks.
This photo is from the Huffington Post, which I think is Canadian, so they are not the products we see here, but the concept is the same. Small and medium-sized bottles of natural or flavoured yoghurt so that you can get your required dose of probiotics and other bacterium. Probiotic, being a major buzz word. And did I mention organic?
I love wandering the aisles of supermarkets and seeing what's new, what's disappearing and what is obviously the thing of the moment. And the yoghurt aisle is a little treasure trove and expanding all the time. Organic, Probiotic, Natural, Greek - the buzzwords of now. What will they be tomorrow? I won't mention the ruche and the rice desserts and other sweet things in little pots. What is really interesting though is that this is a product which we could easily make ourselves - even the yoghurt is easy to make. But even if you used bought natural yoghurt all you have to do to make it tasty is add fruit of your choice. What could be easier? So all these little pots of pre-fabricated, and really quite expensive fruit yoghurts could be made at home. A triumph of marketing, packaging and consumerism. Aimed at all those super busy yummy mummies who have money but no time.
Did I mention how much sugar there is in these things? Check it out. So this is the other irony about them - they are definitely marketed as a health food but actually they have a lot of sugar and/or artificial additives and are therefore not healthy. Probably the most expensive ones have the least additives! Another irony.
And I didn't mention yoghurt ice-cream or smoothies. Later.
It's only 100 calories for my fast day lunches though.
