Wendy McMullan’s letter (1 January) on alternative uses for evaporated milk reminds me of the distant past. Around about 1962, when I would have been nine, my mother bought a case of evaporated milk. We used it, diluted, primarily on breakfast cereal. Why? Atmospheric nuclear testing had raised levels of strontium-90, which was getting into fresh milk. I’ve no idea what strontium-90 might have done to us, but despite liking it initially, I was thoroughly fed up with the artificial taste of evaporated milk after six months. I was glad to return to fresh milk.
John Young
Usk, Monmouthshire
• The Guardian’s letters page never disappoints, but the correspondence that included reference to jelly and evaporated milk and to Nottingham University’s Wortley hall of residence exceeded all expectations. I spent two extremely formative years there, from 1970 to 1972, but by the end of the 1960s, jelly and evaporated milk had been dropped from the menu, which led to the demise of “spon spinning”.
Keith Hollows
Hyde, Cheshire
• The crowning glory of my birthday teas, some 70 years ago, was the pink rabbit (strawberry jelly with evaporated milk) set in a sea of green jelly chopped up to resemble grass. Regarding condensed milk, I still have my mum’s Nestlé recipe book, Magic in the Kitchen. One of the recipes in it is cubes of stale bread rolled in condensed milk and fried. They were called “magic doughnuts”, but we were never allowed them although the photo was enticing.
Sally Smith
Redruth, Cornwall
• A dessert made from evaporated milk and jelly isn’t the only comestible that can be spun in a bowl. Porridge, cooked to the right consistency and poured into a bowl with cold milk added, will float and can thus be spun.
Robert Parkhill
Isleworth, London
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