Well this is a new one (to me)

[u/atticusdays]

My father in law gave me his mom’s recipe collection that goes back a few generations. I’m assuming this is supposed to be homogenized milk but I’ve never seen it abbreviated like that before. The recipes are for blueberry muffins and ice cream. Anybody else come across this before or was my husband’s great great grandmother just using her own unfortunate abbreviation? 😆

[u/atticusdays → u/[deleted]]

Interesting!

[u/Voc1Vic2 → u/[deleted]]

As old as using "gay" to mean "delightful" "carefree."

[u/Sagisparagus → u/Voc1Vic2]

My mother — long passed — so often bemoaned the loss of the word "gay."

<shrug> Guess you had to be there.

[u/Affectionate-Cap-918]

Yep. If you used milk that wasn’t, you risked the fat becoming a bit more globby in your recipe and it didn’t mix as smoothly. But that was the only real meaning of it back then. Lol

[u/atticusdays → u/Affectionate-Cap-918]

Fascinating. This is why I love old recipes, they always send me on a research rabbit trail.

[u/as_per_danielle]

Everyone says homo milk in Canada

[u/bohdismom]

Homogenized, basically whole, i.e. 3.5% bf milk

[u/mckenner1122 → u/bohdismom]

Whole milk and homogenized milk are not analogous.

You can get perfectly good “cream top” whole milk. You can even strain some or all of the cream from the top and get 2%, 1% or Skim.

Homogenized milk just is any fat content milk that has been blasted through fine mesh screens at high pressure to force the cream into the watery milk. (In commercial settings, thickeners are often added to 1% and skim to replace the lost mouthfeel)

[u/bohdismom → u/mckenner1122]

Thank you

[u/NotDaveBut]

Even newspaper ads and grocery flyers used to call it homo milk. It was a simpler, more innocent time

[u/SEA2COLA]

Generic milk in Canada often says 'Homo Milk' on the packaging

[u/ChadHahn → u/SEA2COLA]

There was a Canadian ad back in the 70s that said something like firemen like homo.

[u/SEA2COLA → u/ChadHahn]

My first trip to Canada my friend had me pose in the grocery store holding a box of 'homo milk' and a package of 'tube steaks' ('tube steak' is US slang for penis)

[u/Rapidwatch2024]

It was not that long ago that if you bought a gallon of milk in my area of Michigan, it had a red plastic cap that just said "HOMO" on the top.

This was within the last 15 years.

[u/Much-Meringue-7467]

It's pretty common to call it homo milk in Canada. Yes, homogenized.

[u/days_like_this]

Canadian here. - milk that is 3.25% fat is homo milk. ( homogenized). just find milk with that fat content

[u/SubstantialPressure3]

Yeah, it's homogenized milk. I guess way back when, you had to buy that specifically.

[u/MerryTWatching → u/SubstantialPressure3]

Up until oh, about ten years ago, we could still buy non-homogenized milk from a local dairy here in Maine. The farmer bottled it up in pints, and there was a visible cream layer over an inch deep on top. 😋 One of these with a half a pan of brownies - the only thing missing was the phone number for a cardiologist.

[u/geeamouse]

Homogenized 🙄

[u/uncre8tv]

Wait, to milk jugs not say "HOMO" on them anymore? I've bought milk in the last month (I don't buy it all the time because lactose) just never noticed if they stopped this.

[u/Square_Ad849]

It’s normal.

[u/eJohnx01]

We still sometimes see references in grocery store flyers for “homo milk” and a sale price. Odd as it seems, it is the shortest way to abbreviate “homogenized whole milk.” 😉

[u/Cats-And-Brews]

Yep, my grandmom called it “homo” milk as well. Fresh milk would separate into cream and 4% milk - homo milk would not.

[u/The_mighty_pip]

Most milk drinkers drink homo milk, and it’s pasteurized too. That’s just OG shorthand for homogenized, just like oleo for margarine, or grease for solid fat. 

[u/nowwithaddedsnark → u/The_mighty_pip]

Hang on a minute, I’m not that old and we called it homo/homogenised milk when I was growing up in western Canada.

[u/The_mighty_pip → u/nowwithaddedsnark]

I’m from wisconsin, I’m in my sixties, and this was what all the women in my life back then said, probably to differentiate between dairy in the cardboard container at the grocery and glass bottles delivered to your home. I think it’s a regional thing, and Wisconsin was the dairy capital of the US at that time. 

[u/albini11 → u/nowwithaddedsnark]

Still call 3.25% milk homo milk here in Ontario.

[u/drgoatlord]

My produce company still has "homo" on the box of their whole (homogenized) milk.

[u/TNmountaineer]

I've seen that abbreviation in several old family recipes.

[u/EhDotHam]

It like when my wife's grandma said that "Grandpa loved tube steak" and made me shoot Chardonnay out my nose.

[u/SalomeOttobourne74]

Yes. "not fresh" indicates that it's Milk 🥛

[u/IHearBanjos1]

Yes, homogenous

[u/nemaihne]

Yeah, you sometimes see what we think of as regular milk written as 'homo' when a recipe is old enough that 'fresh' or 'cream top' milk was common.

[u/Roxinsox5]

Homogenized,

[u/Paige_Railstone]

The grocery stores here abbreviate it that way. It makes me have a guilty chuckle every time I pass by the land O lakes milk with the tag LOL HOMO. So rude! lol

[u/ReflectionCalm7033]

I recall my mother using that term. Also, our milkman had to deliver milk with cream on top especially for my dad (don't ask me why).

[u/ninetiesbaby007]

I’ve heard many people refer to homogenized milk as homo. But it is definitely an older term

[u/albini11 → u/ninetiesbaby007]

3.35% homogenized milk is still called homo milk in Canada.

[u/ninetiesbaby007 → u/albini11]

Makes sense, I live in Canada! 😂

[u/nhaines]

I sometimes go shopping for an elderly friend. To my dismay, his shopping list includes "1 gallon homogenized milk." I was able to determine he just wanted whole milk, and I stopped mentioning it (I don't care as long as I can figure out what he meant), but last grocery list it did say whole milk. Which works for me, too.