Ask the average child, or even young adult, where chips come from and the chances are they won’t be aware that they are made from the humble potato.

It’s been done in fact. Food manufacturer McCain carried out a survey on 1500 children aged between 7 and 11 in February 2009. One in ten thought that chickens laid potatoes. One in five had no idea that potatoes are grown in the ground and the same percentage didn’t realise that chips were made from potatoes.

The point is that the vast majority of us are further divorced from our food source than at any time in history. Becoming reaquainted with the fact that eggs come from chickens and chips from potatoes is called ‘food provenence’ apparently!

Anyway, we in our small household have recently had the opportunity to be reaquainted with where milk actually comes from, and boy are we enjoying the experience!

It’s no secret that the two of us are great believers in farm shop shopping and buying our food as close as possible to its point of origin. If you want to know the best farm shops in Wiltshire then we’re your kiddies. And if you know of a good farm shop that you could recommend near where you live, we’d like to hear about it so we can spread the word about them too.

Anyway, I digress. Having bought supermarket milk for many years before moving to the country, I can say quite categorically that it bears no relationship whatsoever to the milk we buy from our local farm shop. They are night and day in terms of look, taste and consistency.

But, when a local smallholder’s cow recently started over producing milk for her newborn calf, we had the opportunity to get even closer to the source of our milk and let me tell you, it doesn’t get any better. This looks and tastes like milk used to look and taste like. I don’t know what it is we’ve been pouring on our cereal and adding to our tea all these years but it certainly hasn’t been milk!

Remember the days when you used to pick up a bottle of milk and it had a proper ‘head’ of cream on it? Remember when you used to pour it on your cereal, put the bottle back on the table and be able to watch the remaining cream rise to the top? Well that’s exactly what this milk does. This is proper milk!

Okay, so there’s a down side, but then isn’t there always when you find something you enjoy. The down side in this case is that because our milk now tastes so good, we’re visiting our smallholder friend more often and partaking of his Jersey’s generous nature all the more frequently.

Worse than that, we’re making and eating desserts, and my wife and I NEVER eat desserts, with the possible exception of Christmas Day and not always then. That, along with plenty of exercise is how we manage to maintain our weight despite, in my case anyway, somewhat advancing years. Until now that is. Until now that we have been reaquainted with just where our milk actually comes from, and had our daily pinta re-provenenced if that’s the correct term.

Okay, so we’re now saving up for joint gastric band surgery, but boy are we going to enjoy this opportunity while we still can!

Editor, Third Age.