A man sells curd in Guwahati on Saturday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Jan. 9: So should your curd this Bihu come labelled in a packaged plastic bowl, produced by a corporate, and your cream in a tetrapack with a PFA mark? Or does it come better in the old earthen matir tekeli covered with a banana leaf, carried to your doorstep by the old trusted man, who’s been visiting you for years? And more importantly, can you tell the difference between curd and curd, and cream and cream?

As Bihu approaches and culture comes served in a bowl of sira (flattened rice) and doi (curd) — or cream — and a rich helping of gur (jaggery), this is what confronts the often-confused city folks, what with their fast-decreasing knowledge of what makes the best buy.

 

While Magh Bihu brings a sigh of relief to villages dependent on cattle and buffalo farming, given the increase in demand of milk products across Assam, middlemen, too, are getting busy lining up their stuff for the city buyer.

As expected, the price of curd and cream is rising across the state.

For the confounded buyer caught in a bind, all dois look the same, as do all creams. For the dealer who adulterates your Bihu, it’s a field day.

“Telling the difference isn’t easy. People who are out to make a fast buck pour a little bit of pure doi over adulterated material and hence the problem,” says Pabitra Neog, who owns a dairy farm and has been selling milk for over two decades now.

For the trained eye, however, there is a way of telling one from the other. “Doi made from pure cow’s milk is yellowish in colour, while doi made from buffalo milk stays white,” says Neog. “The more water they mix with the milk, the more water you will find settling at the bottom of the pot.”

And what is the ratio like? “If the milk is pure you can expect very little water,” says Neog. “Say about 200ml in about 5litres of milk. Ideally, and if you’re allowed to do so, try and put a small stick through the curd and you get to know if there is too much of water at the bottom as the stick will go through easily.”

Cream, on the other hand, say experts, should essentially come packaged in aluminium foils packs. “It is important to know if the milk used to make cream was germ free. If not, the cream, too, will get infected by bacteria,” says Manoranjan Thakur, managing director, West Assam Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union. “The cream also needs to be hygienically packed, which is why we should avoid cream that is sold loose as much as possible.”

Kept in a fridge, cream can be stored for a maximum of 10 days, says Thakur.

And here’s a little something before you dig into that bowl of jolpaan: the fat content in cream should ideally be between 40 per cent to 45 per cent.