Try this fro-yo pop recipe with any in-season fruit you’d like! Summers in the Midwest are the best time to eat fresh, local berries and stone fruits. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and stone fruits like peaches, plums, and cherries are perfectly in-season right now and delicious with some tangy yogurt!
Ingredients:
- Vanilla or Plain Yogurt (any kind will work)
- In-Season Fruit of your choice
- Optional: Honey
Instructions:
- Optional first step: add your fruit to a blender or mash with a fork, with honey if you’d like, to give it a smoother consistency. You can also leave the fruit whole (depending on the size), lightly macerated, or cut it into small chunks. (When I make these, I use blackberries and lightly macerate them with honey!)
- Use a spoon to add a small amount of your yogurt into the bottoms of each popsicle mold. (Don’t have a popsicle mold? Check out these DIYs!)
- Layer in a small amount of your fruit.
- Repeat the process, adding more yogurt and fruit interchangeably. There should be more yogurt than fruit, so that the pops freeze more evenly.
- Freeze for several hours or overnight.
- Serve and enjoy!
A Story of Yogurt and Globalization:
Yogurt (also spelled yoghurt, yogourt, or yoghourt) is a dairy product made with milk that’s been pasteurized, homogenized, and fermented with bacteria. Humans have been enjoying cultured milk and its sweet tang all over the world for many millennia- over 7,000 years, in fact. So how did we figure out how to make it? Well, it was likely serendipity. Like the creation of butter, it was probably the result of milk accidentally being exposed to bacteria or souring in warmer conditions.
Yogurt is a product that’s been globalized for almost its entire known existence. Human ingenuity and globalization, which is the global spread of ideas and information, have shaped the development of yogurt over time. Everybody around the world already knows and loves it. Turning your favorite yogurt into a sweet summer snack just makes it extra special!
Additional History of Yogurt:
Yogurt’s metaphorical roots trace all the way back to the Neolithic Period. Those living in Mesopotamia (namely, in what is now Turkey) and what is now Central Asia were among the first-ever consumers of yogurt. ‘Yogurt’ is even derived from the Turkish word ‘yogurmak’.
Ancient Greece also famously had yogurt products, but they weren’t as popular as you may think; only the peasants would eat it, often with honey, fruit, and/or nuts. Ancient Grecians thought this ‘oxygala’ (οξύγαλα), which translates to “sour milk,” was unfit for those higher up in the sociopolitical hierarchy. Ironic, considering how popular Greek yogurt is now!
Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongolian Empire, is known to have had his army regularly consume a form of yogurt or other fermented dairy, believing this was the source of their strength and bravery. And hey, maybe he was onto something – cultured and fermented dairy products are now well-known for their pre- and probiotics, which provide many health benefits.
India and several Middle Eastern countries were also early to the yogurt game. Middle Eastern immigrants were most likely the first to introduce yogurt to America!
Invitation:
I invite you to consider how yogurt can be another example of food as a uniting force. Although there is such variety among people and cultures- throughout history and today- we all have this food in common. All of our ancestors ate early versions of yogurt. How cool! It took millennia, and billions of people, to perfect this product- every type of it; kefir, Greek yogurt, even soy and coconut yogurt for those with dairy allergies. This is truly the result of great human ingenuity and globalization.
Think of other examples of this type of progress. Consider how important it is to have a sense of global community when developing ideas and products. Reflect on this knowledge that, without respect for other cultures and peoples, we would be much more undeveloped as a human race. To feel community with all others, we need to recognize the inherent human dignity that we all possess.
As we move through this socio-politically sensitive time, we must embrace diversity, keep this humanity at the forefront of our principles, and make sure that we see it everybody- not just those who share our Western culture, values, or socioeconomic prosperity. Pope Francis called us to uphold “the inalienable dignity of each human person regardless of origin, race or religion, and the supreme law of fraternal love.” In fact, the late Pope Francis called it “unacceptable” for Christians to think of immigrants in particular as “less than human” (Fratelli Tutti, pr. 39).
Have a recipe or a story you'd like to share? These can be submitted to the FSPA Eco Pact Team at ecopact@fspa.org.
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