Today I continue my quest in creating and posting one block a day of the fabulous That Town And Country Quilt by the lovely Susan-Claire Mayfield. This is day three hundred and sixteen of that project.

This quilt block shows several large metallic cans against a light blue salmon-patterned background. The canisters themselves are gray fabric that looks metallic. The canisters have little handles near the top. The top is smaller than the bottom, forming a very wide flute, and have a cross handle on top. These details are made clear with light gray stitching lines. On the front two canisters are little yellow-orange signs with the words, "Milk" and "Cream" written in black pen. — Click To Enlarge

Nothing says “country,” like old-fashioned milk and cream cans.

Thought you might like a little run-down on milk.

Milk consists of an emulsion of fat, protein, sugar, minerals, and vitamins. All milk has these constituents, but they vary with each species and even breed within species.

Almost all milk consumed in North America is cow milk. Once the milk leaves the cow and is collected, fat will rise to the top fairly quickly.

On a family farm, some of the cream might be skimmed off and used for whipping, butter, or mixing with whole milk for coffee. Commercial dairy operations use a separator.

Hand crank separators are also available for small lots and are a pain to wash. If you ever have an opportunity to have freshly skimmed cream for whipping, you should take it. Homogenization reduces fat globules and makes it not whip as well. Of course, the flip side is that you have to be more careful not to make butter when you’re whipping raw cream.

Whole milk has 3.5% fat, 2% low-fat has 2% fat, and just like 1% low-fat has 1% fat. Skim milk has less than 1% fat, 1/2 and 1/2 has 10.5% fat, light cream has at least 18%, whipping cream has 35% fat, and heavy whipping cream has 36% fat. Sour cream has between 18% and 20% fat, and butter, by law, must contain at least 80% fat.

So there you have it.

Moo!