Danish Stuff

There have been a few requests to post something Danish, but I have been holding off on it for a while. Mostly because I've been so busy with my catfight (see how good I'm getting at this Blogger business! I can link to my own entries) and life in general but also because I was looking for the right angle. However the wait is over, as I'm introducing the excitement of Danish

MILK

Isn't it exciting? I'm all giddy myself, because milk is such an exciting thing. You can make hot chocolate from it, milkshakes, smoothies, breakfast meals and sauces. It's are used in baked goods too. Oh the joy of milk!


My milk of choice is the 1,5% milk, a low-fat milk or in Danish "Letmælk". Let being Light and Milk being Mælk. Here are how our "Letmælk" cartons look from all 4 sides. Drum roll please!


Notice that this is an Arla Ekspres Letmælk. Ekspres means that the milk has to be in the shop sooner than the other types of milk. Or at least they are trying to brand this milk as more fresh than other.

There is the red cow which is their new brand logo after they formed a union with the other Scandinavian dairy companies.

Arla is what came of that merger. Isn't this carton a beauty?

Here is a sideview of the carton which has information about what's going on within the many good causes Arla sponsors. This particular carton is informing us that there has been formed a special Football (Soccer if you are geographically challenged tee-hee-hee) school in association with DBU - The Danish Ballplaying Union if you translate it directly. It's informing us that if we want to train like the players on the Danish National Football (Soccer) Team you should attend this Football (you know..) school.

There are no missing kids on this baby!







Where the other side was the news section, this is the information section. This is where you learn just how fantastic milk is. All the pros and cons and those in between. You learn that there is Protein, Riboflavin, Fat, Vitamin B12 (I thought that was a bomber plane from WW2), Calcium, Selen and so much more.

There is even a table telling you exactly how much is in 100 gram of this fantastic product and there is even a little instruction on how you fold the carton together when you've emptied it.

You know, so it takes up less space in the binbag.




This is exactly the same as the first angle I showed you. So I'll mention a little controversy here.

Notice the cap? Well it's only in the last maybe 5 years or so they've added the cap. Because it's was so much easier than the old way of opening it. Do you remember it? You would sort of twist the "wings" back and pull forward hoping it would do what it was supposed to do. Most of the time it didn't so you would have to pick at it, ruining the carton. Not anymore, they've capped it!

Well Arla has a contract with a company called Tetrapak who makes the cartons and caps. It's been going great back West but here in the Eastern part of the country they've botched up the cap system. Over here we just can't open the caps. They are too tight. So they had to put on the juice caps that has that pully thing inside and that didn't work either because the caps are still too tight. We just can't get our milk over here. Arla has apologised, forced Tetrapak to come up with a solution. We are still waiting.. That god I don't drink much milk anyway.

Taa-dah!

Well don't get too excited, we've only gotten through my favorite milk. We have other types and instead of going through them from every angle I'll just do this.

This is the Whole milk version. Sødmælk in Danish. The one with the most fat. The carton is exactly like my favorite milk except as you can see, it's got a darker blue.

I don't think I've ever had this. My parents were very insistant that we would only drink the other milk.

I suppose it would be really fat, almost like cream?

This is Kærnemælk or Buttermilk. I don't remember if this is the old carton but I'm fairly sure they haven't changed that one as it's a special product that doesn't sell as well as the other kinds.

We used to have this one in the house from time to time when I lived with my parents. My mother would insist we had it once a week. My brother who at the time I can remember was 17 and flatly refused. I on the other hand didn't mind it. Today I wouldn't drink it if someone paid me.

Then there is Skummetmælk or Skim Milk. The only difference to the first cartons is that this one is gray.

I've never had this milk, to me it would be like drinking water with chalk in it.

Then there is the Minimælk or mini milk? I don't know, it has less fat that low fat milk and more fat that the skim milk. A compromise I suppose for those who don't like chalk and think low fat is still too much fat.

The carton is a little different from the others and has a combination colour of blue and gray.

Following all these, there are hundreds of/or tens of different local milks who have their own individual designs and are only sold in selected local shops around the country. You see, Denmark is a dairy country and every region has a different flavour (apparently). Like with beer and wine I suppose. On top of that, we have the ecological milks which have a different design as well. I could go on forever about this, you see, but I won't. I will leave you with this very fabulous look of the ecological low fat milk from the regions of southern Jutland.