Look at the picture below. Does it ring a bell? Does it evoke fond memories of raiding fridges and having it when no one was looking?
We often had an open can of milkmaid in the fridge. Milkmaid for uninitiated is sweetened condensed milk. Yummy. It is often used in Indian recipes like kheer or the sorts. So whenever mom made stuff like kheer or halwa we often had a half-finished can lying in the fridge. One of the things we kids loved to do, was raid the fridge. And an open milkmaid can was a really mouthwatering invitation. We dived in and put our finger in it and then ran out licking the finger. Of course we also used a spoon. I don’t think that was for reasons of hygiene. It was plain greed. A spoon carries much more than your finger.
Slowly but surely the half-finished can would become empty and mom would reach out and scream – who ate the milkmaid. Well, it was a pretty useless question. There are three kids in the house. Everyone knows that we all ate it, one spoon at a time. And during vacations it was one spoon at a time, three times a day – just like the doctor ordered :). That’s nine spoons a day. Enough to finish it in 4 to 5 days. But it was so yum. Nobody would own up and mom would simply get exasperated.
The condensed milk was bought just to make the delicacies and not to be consumed raw. It was a treat, not regular meals. But how can you explain that to three kids.
Recently I got Jasmine to buy condensed milk to make fruit salad. I was explaining to her how it’s done. We simply add half a can to a litre of milk and put in as many fruits you can think of. So obviously half a can was left to consume in whichever way we wish. I called Jispa. I was a bit surprised; she did not know what this was. She hadn’t tasted condensed milk yet. I guess it’s a cultural thing. My mom made a lot of stuff using condensed milk but Jasmine doesn’t use it a lot. She simply boils the milk for some time and makes her own. Hence while I loved it while growing up, jispa seems to have so far passed it by.
Not wanting her to miss out on this, I made her taste it. YUMMMY… she went. How can anyone pass up on think sweetened milk? It’s an instant like button. Then I put a spoon in it. See pic above and I told her, it’s in the fridge. You can have it any time. Just be careful not to drop it while eating it. It is quite gooey.
So I gave her the freedom to do something I loved doing, but I unwittingly took a crucial element out of it, which probably made it quite flat. I removed the forbidden from forbidden fruit. So while she will like it, she will never be able to write a blog on how she robbed a few spoons from the fridge. Whoops. I just sanitized her childhood.I even put it in the fridge with a spoon inside. :(
Jispa also doesn’t raid the fridge a lot. She seems content most of the time. Also most of the time, Jasmine is trying to get her to eat. And as she is a swimming kid, we try to get her to eat sweets, chocolates and the works. Why would you raid something that is forced down your throat?
Also another crucial thing is that she doesn’t have siblings. We were three of us. If something went missing, whom can you blame? It’s impossible to get to the root of the crime. Most of the time parents will run in circles trying to apportion blame. Here, Jispa will be the only person found at the scene of the crime. But a lot of times, I try and fill that gap. I irritate her and then she gets angry and complaints to mom and I tell her it’s futile, you will only make Jasmine irritated and you will get equal shit. Yet she complains and I make faces behind Jasmine. This time Jasmine saw me doing it the last time and I got a scolding from her and Jispa was pretty happy. Jasmine keeps saying – she has two kids in the house.
Hmmm. The curse of parenting – no matter what you try, you will always miss something. To not allow milkmaid is being mean, to allow is to remove the fun of raiding it.
