Yogurt

When I was growing up in Oswego, New York in the 1950s, my father was the manager of a local dairy.  It specialized in milk, cottage cheese and ice cream.

When I went to college in 1963, I discovered another dairy product I had never heard of: yogurt.

Yogurt is a fermented dairy product created when bacteria convert the sugars in milk into lactic acid, which causes the milk to thicken and develop its characteristic tangy flavor.  Yogurt comes in a vast range of flavors like strawberry, blueberry, peach, and raspberry being very popular, alongside vanilla and plain.

I discovered yogurt during my college days, but I never ate it until sometime afterwards.  I will explain.

In my junior year in college, I took a course in Russian literature.  We read such books as Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Notes of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol and Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Everyday in class I sat at a desk in the center of the room near the front.  Everyday a cute redhaired girl sat to my right.  Everyday she brought a yogurt to eat before the class began.  It was usually strawberry flavor.

I never talked to the cute redhaired girl.  Neither in class, nor when all the students went to a special theater showing of the film version of Doctor Zhivago.  Why?  Lack of courage.

I wanted to talk to her, but I couldn't.  What a pity.  And I didn't try yogurt either, even though it looked delicious.

Since college I've eaten yogurt.  It is delicious.