Milk jug cover

 

I'm not sure whether you'd call this "frugal living" or just
"shopping" generally.

In the event that people don't know what a Milk Jug Cover is (also
applies to Sugar Bowl Covers) I'll fill you in. Back in the good old
days when Queen Victoria reigned over an empire on which the sun never
set, Englishmen in the far off colonies (excluding of course those who
hadn't gone "native") used to have tea, usually outside.Milk was kept
in a small milk jug served with the tea service. Unfortunately the
local flies and assorted other insects didn't respect the institution
and had the nasty habit of drinking from/crapping in/dying in the
aforementioned jug. The ever inventive Victorians solved the problem
by designing a porous cloth netting a little bigger than the milk jug
mouth to prevent the insects' entry. One little problem was that the
netting would sometimes blow away so the manufacturer would sew little
glass beads around the periphery of the cover causing it to hang down
and remain in place. Often these were quite decorative and frequently
they were made of lace or at least the edges were.

If you look up "milk jug cover" in google you'll find a large number
of people, particularly in Australia (something to do with excessive
dung there), selling antique covers but no one selling a new one. I'd
like to buy about a half dozen new ones which surprisingly enough I
use for a similar application: covering fruit bowls which attract
little gnats.

Back around 2004 I had one of my English relatives buy two in John
Lewis in Oxford St in London. Unfortunately the wife, who's there now,
had no success. John Lewis's staff said that they haven't had those
(the milk jug covers) in years. Maybe I got their last two. It's the
sort of thing that might be difficult to get on the internet due to
its old-fashioned nature. There's probably some store in downtown
Madras that has dozens in their back room!

Anybody have any suggestions? Oh, I'm not interested in making one
myself, a fact which cuts out 90% of the google entries (the other 10%
are antique ones for sale).

One we get past this, you can turn your attention to the disk that you
put in a saucepan of milk which prevents it from boiling over. I have
two so this isn't urgent. They do work but the physics completely
baffles me.
 

 

NoSpamForMe@LousyISP.gov wrote:

They work by providing a nucleation site so that bubbles bubbles
form easily and you dont see the liquid getting above the boiling
point and then boiling energetically and boiling over.

The same thing is done in chem labs, usually with a few grains of ground china.
That approach has some obvious downsides with milk that will be drunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_watcher  

 

NoSpamForMe@LousyISP.gov wrote:

Why cant you use one of the countless bowls with plastic covers instead ?

Or ramekins with ceramic/glass covers ?

 

Rod Speed wrote:


You can get little net umbrellas designed for exactly that. Various sizes.
Check the cheesy mail-order catalogs -- Lillian Vernon, etc.


Flexible frisbees.  Dog bowls designed for hikers.  Baseball caps.  The Chinese
hats that used to be called 'coolie hats' but are probably called something
else now.  A cardboard box of the appropriate size.

The possibilities are endless.

--
Cheers, Bev
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey
  and car keys to teenage boys."             -- P.J. O'Rourke

 



Yes but far too "cheesy". The lace embroidered netting with the
multi-colored beads (jewels) is much more elegant.The umbrella type
frequently  lets the bugs in at the bottom and they're a problem to
store too.


Aaaagh! You and Rod are missing the point. The netting allows the item
it's covering to breathe. If you enclose fruit in an airtight
container especially if you then have it heating in the sun the fruit
will rot. In the case of milk I imagine the temperature would rise by
a few degrees which in the un-refrigerated environment of the empire
on which the sun never set would be enough to turn it sour. Even in
the refrigerated environment of today I frequently find the
bottled/cartoned/plasticed milk expires before its sell-by date.

Besides it's a great conversation piece. I stumped my in-laws the
first time they visited.


It's a pity those possibilities aren't in the nature of places to buy
new ones.