If a medical
researcher ever discovers that yoghurt is carcinogenic then my husband is
doomed.
His passion for
yoghurt began in 1971, when he began to dabble in hazelnut yoghurt, made by Ski. He was just becoming hooked on the
stuff, and therefore thinking that he ought to stop eating it, when Ski ran a special offer. If you sent
them six yoghurt carton lids they would send you a teaspoon with a long handle,
a design which enabled the yoghurt fancier to scrape the last trace of yoghurt
from the distinctive cartons, which were shaped like miniature cooling towers.
Dave cannot resist a bargain, nor can he resist interesting tools, and what is
a long handled spoon, after all, but a tool?
Unfortunately he
had never heard the saying "He needs a long spoon who sups with the
Devil." All too soon we had twelve long handled teaspoons; and Dave was a
yogaholic.
When we moved to
Sheffield two years later, he switched to natural yoghurt. He says he abandoned
the hazelnut variety because it was too fattening, but I know it's because it
only comes in 150gram cartons. Longley Farm Natural Yoghurt is available in
larger cartons and is powerful stuff - a Class A yoghurt that gives him a high
like no other.
At one point he
decided he was spending too much money on yoghurt and started to make his own,
first in the warming section of our Rayburn and then in a yoghurt maker. But
soon he could not make it in sufficient quantities, and we had to supplement it
with Longley Farm Natural Yoghurt from the deli down the road. Reintroduced to
LFNY, Dave remembered its superiority and he gave up making his own.
By 1979, he was
slurping a 450gram carton of LFNY daily. I had to go to the deli every day,
because if I bought more than one carton, then more got eaten.
When we went on
our annual holiday to Northumberland, the week was taken up in
the pursuit of LFNY. Visits to the
beach, tours round castles and boat trips to the Farne Islands were interleaved
with yoghurt hunts.
We found a
source in a Bamburgh greengrocers, and another - though only in small cartons -
at a caravan site near Dunstanburgh Castle. But they didn't have enough. There
must be dealers in Northumberland with supplies big enough to feed Dave's habit
but we never managed to map out a definitive, reliable network. In the end, we
resorted to buying a week's supply from the deli and taking it with us.
By 1984 Dave had
persuaded the deli to supply him with catering cartons of LFNY. Each of these
cartons, made of tough white plastic, with a bright orange screw top lid, has
an integral handle. A good job, as these caterers cartons contain 5 kilograms
of the stuff.
In 1994, when we
moved to the Peak District it was my job to ask the man in the village shop if
he could get us two 5 kg cartons every week. He made no comment. He was a
discreet man. He got it from the driver every Tuesday afternoon and stashed it
safely in the bottom shelf of his fridge behind the counter, away from prying
eyes.
Dave moved onto consuming
three catering cartons of LFNY a week. Every Monday morning the last carton was
cut in half and licked clean (and not by the cat) and he had more than 24 hours
to wait for the next delivery on Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes I would make an
emergency dash down to Bakewell's Monday market on my bike, where it was
possible to buy LFNY, though the price was high.
Sometimes the
Tuesday delivery failed to arrive and I scoured the Derbyshire Dales for shops
that stayed open late and stocked LFNY, an odd 150 gm carton, the normal size
for normal people.
If on a Tuesday we were not home until after
the village shop had closed, the shop man swathed a carton in carrier bags and
hid it behind the old milk churn outside his shop, for us to collect.
At Christmas
when the shop was closed and Dave had to pre-buy his LFNY in bulk, and yet I
also needed extra fridge space for family entertaining, he kept his extra
cartons cool by floating them in the water barrel behind the shed. One year he
put them in the pond, tethering the carton handles to the garden seat.
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| A grandson wheeling the Christmas yoghurt |
When he was working away from home and staying in
hotels, the LFNY went with him. The 5 kg carton is too big to fit in the
minibar, so he filled the bath with cold water and stood the carton in there to
keep it cool.
You might think
that I am an indulgent woman. Not true. If you could have seen Dave on Monday
nights vainly searching the fridge for a hidden cache of liquid snow, your
heart would have melted too.
And if you could
have seen his pleasure on a Tuesday afternoon when he unscrewed the orange cap
and discovered that this week the LFNY was prime vintage, so thick that it was
difficult to shake it through the spout, so thick that it came out with a glug
and swirled in the dish, and kept its shape, just like egg whites whisked for
meringue… you would understand.
In the days of
the LFNY 5 kg cartons, I planted my sweet pea seeds in adapted ones, filled
with compost and Dave would say: "Good job I eat yoghurt when you need so
many sweet pea pots."
"Yes Dave, only
£19.80 a week. What a bargain."
(Actually, I
still use them for my sweet peas so maybe it was a bargain.)
But times have changed. Dave is more careful of his health and has switched
from the delectable full fat LFNY to low fat Sainsbury’s yoghurt, and he eats 5
or 6 450gm cartons a day.
Here's the
evidence.
 |
| Lux and yoghurt cartons |
 |
| Cecilia and yoghurt cartons |
Published here with kind permission
of News International.
© Sue
Hepworth/Times Newspapers 2018
