Milk

Paulus Potter’s 1647 painting of a bull and several cows and sheep is a masterpiece of Dutch naturalistic painting, and celebrates the Dutch dairy industry, which has existed for centuries.

Reading Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood by Anne Mendelson
has made me think about cows, dairies, and above all milk!

Milk: Ideal and Reality

Mendelson’s book is sometimes fascinating in its presentation of history and foodways, and sometimes overwhelming with medical, industrial, and technical details. The book contains a great amount of information about cows: how they produce milk; how they digest fodder; and how they have been raised on small-scale, large-scale, and gargantuan scale dairy farms both now and in the past. It also describes the development of “drinking milk” — how sweet milk was identified as a key source of nutrition for adults and children in the US; the various fads and fallacies that  convinced the public of its benefits, and what processing methods keep it safe from bacterial contamination. A discussion of the economics of farmers, dairies, and retail sales at both large and small scale also makes interesting reading.

Spoiled covers the development of medical theories about the health-giving features of milk as well as describing the dangers it poses to many who drink it. Over half of the US population past infancy lacks the enzyme necessary to digest milk. Because the dominant population — that is, Northern European White people —evolved the ability to digest milk many centuries ago, the lactose-intolerance of the majority has been ignored, and milk has essentially been forced on many lactose-intolerant people, especially school children. Mendelson deeply questions the received wisdom that milk is of universal value to human health throughout the human life span.

Spoiled  describes the long history of human domestication of cattle and other milk-giving animals, and of how people have consumed milk products through the ages. In fact, milk from cows, goats, sheep, yaks, water buffalo and even mares historically was used mainly in soured forms like yogurt, koumis, kefir, and many types of cheese. The fallacy of modern imposition of milk-drinking on peoples throughout the world is summarize thus: 

“Large doses of white-man’s-burden thinking were involved in telling people in every corner of the globe to drink milk by the pint or quart—thinking whose evil twin spawned ‘scientific’ race theories still happily embraced by American political extremists chugging milk as a badge of white supremacy.” (p. 30)

Reading all this social history has made me think about the many works of art where one sees representation of milk and dairy activity throughout history. As I looked up these interesting art works, I decided that instead of a detailed review, I would share several images that I enjoyed as I was reading. Once I started looking for images, I couldn’t stop so here are a lot of them. Note that the book has no illustrations whatsoever, and did not necessarily mention these pictures — it’s all my doing.

Poster by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, 1894.

Pasteurization to sterilize milk was introduced at around this time,

and the history and science of this process are a major topic in the book.

The friendly cow all red and white,

I love with all my heart:

She gives me cream with all her might,

To eat with apple tart. 

—Robert Louis Stevenson

“Trees, Pasture, Cows” by Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966)

James Dean in "Rebel without a Cause" famously drank milk 
straight from the bottle that he took out of the refrigerator.

Selling and Promoting Milk

Borden’s condensed milk continues to be a popular ingredient in many home-made sweets. Throughout the 20th century, Borden milk was widely advertised by Elsie the Cow and her partner Elmer. In Spoiled, I learned that the Borden company had a very long history, beginning in the 19th century:

“An advertisement in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on April 30, 1858, announced that Borden’s Condensed Milk was available for delivery at 25 cents per quart, either in the form of ‘PURE MILK, from which when PERFECTLY FRESH, nearly all the water has been evaporated, and to which NOTHING is added’ or as ‘Borden’s Condensed Milk SUGARED, for Sea use and for long keeping on land.’” (Spoiled, p. 111)

 

Cows are a popular favorite image. Ben & Jerry's familiar cows appear in murals on the walls of
their scoop shops everywhere, and the company has a collection of favorites. I liked this one from Orlando, FL. (source)

Ben and Jerry’s cows. I doubt if the ice cream is made with
milk from happy, grazing cows.

Cows in an actual modern dairy do not graze in lovely fields. Giant dairy operations are discussed at length.

Milk was once delivered by milkmen.

An early 20th century milkman with his metal rack of bottles.
The milk would have been kept cool by large blocks of ice.
The era of horse-drawn milk trucks ended in the mid 1950s. 
Our milkman sometimes gave us chips of ice, and I remember its metallic taste.

A milk delivery truck from the mid-20th century. Today most milk is
purchased in supermarkets, not delivered to your door.

Today, virtually all milk is homogenized to break up the drops of cream.
Without this process, the cream separates to the top. These 1930s milk bottles

enabled the consumer to skim off cream to use separately or to shake the bottle before pouring.

“Partygoers’ by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)

The Ancient Middle East

My favorite ancient figurine: a woman holding a butter churn on her head.
Chacolithic era from the sanctuary of Gilat in the Negev in Israel.
Dated 5500 to 6500 years ago.  (I have posted this several times.)

From the tomb of Methethi, Saqqara, Ancient Egypt c2371-2350 BCE
I enjoyed reading about this historic era, and how cows were domesticated.

A Final Word About Spoiled

One particularly interesting chapter of Spoiled describes the unfortunate pseudo-science of the raw milk proponents who have successfully argued against pasteurization during the last few decades. Mendelson particularly follows the influence of Sally Fallon Morell, “leader of a backlash against advocates of low-fat, low-cholesterol diets” in promoting the idea that raw foods, especially raw milk, are essential for health, based on a variety of scientifically unfounded theories:

“Her most recent book, cowritten with another anti-Pasteurian, casts doubt on the existence of viruses and posits that the great 2020 COVID-19 pandemic should have been recognized not as a virus-borne disease but as radiation poisoning from exposure to 5G frequencies.” (p. 365)

US government policy on raw milk is a response to serious discovery of pathogens in many sources of raw milk: “The FDA now treats unpasteurized milk as a substance so dangerous as never to be tolerated in the tiniest amount under any circumstances.” (p. 379) 

More and more evidence is coming to light about the value of pasteurizing milk and following established safety practices and regulations — even after 150 years since it began to be used, and nearly 80 years after it became standard in the US. For example, commenter Zenip Tufeci, writing last week in the New York Times, points out that new strains of avian flu have jumped from birds to cattle and affected several dairy herds this year. The emergent disease organism can be found in the milk of dangerously sick cows. “Unpasteurized milk, already a bad idea, would be additionally dangerous to consume right now.” (source)

In sum, the book Spoiled is mainly fascinating; full of wonderful bits of history, science, politics, and sociology; and well worth reading (even if you skip some of the most technical parts). I’m sharing my digressive discussion of the book with fellow bloggers at Sami’s Monday Murals and Altered Book Lover’s Tuesday Tea.

Review © 2024 mae sander

What is Milk?

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently announced that they will not object to the word “milk” in product names like coconut milk, soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, and other plant-based beverages. Evidently, the FDA experts think consumers are smart enough to know that these aren’t dairy products, and the public isn’t going to be confusing them with dairy milk. This seems very obvious to me as these products aren’t new at all — they’ve been in use and called “milk” for centuries! The problem isn’t with consumers, it’s with the powerful dairy industry that hopes to regain a market share that they enjoyed for several decades — but this hasn’t been true forever!

A number of historic discussions recently have been pointing out that in fact, almond milk has been made and used for nearly 1000 years. And soy milk was invented even before that in China, and has been in use in the US for well over a century. Oat milk only dates back a few decades. But the use of the word “milk” for any milky liquid whether from a plant or from animal milk is not new in the least. The dispute over the commercial use of the word “milk” isn’t even new: it’s come up before with the FDA and the milk producers.

Outside the discussion of plant-based milk, there’s another possibility on the way: lab-generated milk proteins and enzymes. Products made from such vegetarian but chemically identical substances are already on the market, competing with both dairy milk and with plant-based milk. 

According to the Washington Post:

“Dozens of companies have sprouted up in recent months to develop milk proteins made by yeasts or fungi,…. The companies’ products are already on store shelves in the form of yogurt, cheese and ice cream, often labeled ‘animal-free.’”

 

Journalists and Peevers “Protect” the Word Milk

I can’t fault the dairy industry for trying to hold onto their customers (even the ones who are lactose intolerant). But the milk of human kindness runs cold in my veins when it comes to really careless journalists that claim that the word “milk” has always meant only cow’s milk: not even goat’s milk! Lovingly, these self-satisfied boobs describe how they are utterly peeved to hear a customer in Starbucks ordering a coffee with “oat milk”! Or “soy latte.” 

From an Atlantic article titled “Milk has lost all meaning” this claim:

“At this point, it’s unclear what milk is anymore.”

This is stupid! Here are some historic views of non-dairy milk.

From SECONDS Food History:

“Coconut milk … has been used in Southeast Asian, African and Indian cuisine for centuries (possibly longer); horchata, a drink made from tiger nut milk, was introduced to Spain from North Africa before the year 1000 CE; and doufujian, a precursor to soy milk, has been popular in China since the 14th century.”

From Atlas Obscura:

“Almonds have been central to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines as far back as the Roman era, yet almond milk is likely a religiously-motivated, European innovation. The first mention of almond milk appears in a medical context in 12th century Salerno, but it quickly spread from the Mediterranean as far as Germany, England, and Denmark. During Lent, European Christians were barred from consuming milk, as well as eggs and meat. So they needed a substitute….

“Animal milks were typically destined for cheese and butter production, not drinking, thanks to a lack of refrigeration. One could make a faux butter by combining almond milk, salt, sugar, and vinegar and straining the result, even if it sounds like a far cry from today’s almond butter (or real butter).”

Nutritionist Marion Nestle on "What this is about"

"Simple. The dairy industry does not like concoctions made from soy, almonds, cashews, macadamias, oats, peas, or other such plants to get to be called 'milk.' It argues that they are not as nutritious as milk and will confuse consumers into thinking they are the same. Most surveys show that the public understands the difference quite well and has reasons for choosing plant-based alternatives that may or may not have anything to do with nutrient contents (think: animal welfare, dairy fat, environmental protection, industrial production, or what have you)....

"For the record, I like dairy products. But the dairy industry is a mess (overproduced, increasingly consolidated, fighting public health and animal welfare concerns) and needs to get its act together. The FDA is not helping it get there with this decision"

 

Cartoon by Joe Heller 

What next?

Non-dairy creamers have been around for a number of years, along with plant-based whipped toppings and similar foods. These are designed to please people who have any reason to skip dairy products, whether based on taste, on health, on religious restrictions, or on ethical objections to animal products. Starbucks, for example, now offers many alternative types of milk and cream in their hot and cold beverages, and I can’t see what the peevers are so bothered about!

I wonder if the linguistic and food-history ignoramuses will come after creamed corn next: after all, the white liquid in the can, sometimes called “corn milk,” came out of the corn cob and kernels not from the cream-top of a pail of cow’s milk. What about tiger’s milk? “Leche de tigre, literally ‘tiger’s milk,’ is the citrus-based, spicy marinade used to cure the fish in classic Peruvian ceviche.”

What about shaving cream? Face cream? Will they condemn a monarch butterfly for loving milkweed with its white liquid sap?

Maybe a clown will throw a pie shell filled with Cool Whip in their faces. 

Shared with Elizabeth’s Tuesday blog party.

Text © 2023 mae sander. Images from product ads.

Kefir

Kefir used to be an exotic drink, but it's now available in most supermarkets, at least where I shop. It was popularized in the US by the Lifeway company, beginning in 1986, but now is made by a number of brands. Kefir's origins are in Russia and several other countries in the East (for more history see the Wikipedia article).

For some time, Len and I have been enjoying this yogurt-like beverage. We also like other fermented milk products such as yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream, and many types of cheese -- a large family of foods that vary widely in taste and in how they are used in many different recipes. 

Micro-organisms, including yeast and lacto-bacillus, promote the fermentation that creates these distinctive products. These organisms have been found to confer at least some health benefits on people who consume them in sufficient quantities. Kefir, which is very rich in these organisms, is especially healthful.

The yeasts and bacteria in the cultures for each type of fermented dairy product are related to one-another, but not all the same. The processes for making them, such as the temperature and length of time for fermentation, also differ among the products, whether at home or in an industrial setting. Like sourdough starters for fermenting bread, you can buy commercial starters for home-made cultured milk products.

SCOBY is the name for these starter cultures. I thought it was a cute pet name but it's actually an acronym: "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast." When you make yogurt or sour cream, you can save out some of the product to use as the starter for the next batch. Kefir is a little different.

The starter for traditional kefir-making, which is what you would use if you wanted to make it at home for yourself, is made up of a cluster of fermentation-starter grains that are described as looking like cauliflower.  

Kefir "grains" shown with scale.

Source: Wikipedia.

Here is a highly technical description of kefir and kefir grains:

"Kefir is a complex fermented dairy product created through the symbiotic fermentation of milk by lactic acid bacteria and yeasts contained within an exopolysaccharide and protein complex called a kefir grain. ... The beverage itself typically has a slightly viscous texture with tart and acidic flavor, low levels of alcohol, and in some cases slight carbonation. Kefir is traditionally made with cow’s milk but it can be made with milk from other sources such as goat, sheep, buffalo, or soy milk. One of the features that distinguish kefir from many other fermented dairy products is the requirement for the presence of a kefir grain in fermentation and the presence and importance of a large population of yeasts. The aforementioned kefir grains are microbially derived protein and polysaccharide matrices that contain a community of bacterial and fungal species that are essential to kefir fermentation. Traditionally, fermentation was initiated through the addition of kefir grains, which originally formed during the fermentation of milk, to unfermented milk in a sheep or goat skin bag. Commercial, industrial-scale production rarely utilizes kefir grains for fermentation, but rather uses starter cultures of microbes that have been isolated from kefir or kefir grains in order to provide more consistent products." (quote from: The Microbiota and Health Promoting Characteristics of the Fermented Beverage Kefir.)

Making kefir at home appears to be a bit challenging. Theoretically when you are using kefir grains to make the product, you can retrieve some of the grains each time you make a new batch, but it's difficult to do so consistently. However, some people find it less difficult and demanding than others. 

In order to keep kefir grains going, you could find it necessary to make new kefir every day. This might be more than you want, but if you don’t do it often enough, the grains can become less effective. Thus you might need to purchase starter for kefir more often than you would purchase the starter for yogurt. Alternately, there are freeze-dried kefir starters available that may be easier to use. I have never made kefir, so I can't offer much help with this.

I'll just mention that appropriate SCOBYs are used to make fermented foods from other liquids as well as from dairy milk. For example, kombucha, soy-milk yogurt or kefir, and water kefir are non-dairy fermented foods from similar cultures.

Fermented milk products like yogurt and kefir are familiar in America today. Though very little known here before the 1960s, beginning with yogurt they have become steadily more popular over the years. I enjoy drinking kefir (sometimes with sugar) or eating it with granola or fruit. Over the years, I've also tried a number of recipes using kefir, including chocolate cake and frosting, "buttermilk" brined chicken, sourdough-discard pancakes, kefir-based salad dressings, kefir smoothies, and more. Kefir is considered a good substitute for buttermilk, and recently I have used it in baking when buttermilk is called for. The website Serious Eats kitchen-tested several buttermilk substitutes for making biscuits, and found that kefir was by far the best (link -- kefir is the last one discussed in the article). My mother's favorite buttermilk sub was milk + lemon juice -- this popular choice was rated as the worst option by Serious Eats.

Once again, I'm sharing my thoughts on a beverage with the bloggers who join Elizabeth at the blog Altered Book Lover each week. This blog post is copyright © 2021 by mae's food blog.

Exploring the American Breakfast

What do Americans eat for breakfast? Ask them and they will tell you they eat something very healthy and admirable -- probably never a donut. Survey takers have an explanation for this: when you ask someone what they eat, they will tell you what they think you'll find admirable. You could put it this way: they lie. (Source)

Vintage ad for Sara Lee cakes in foil pans.
Probably still very good for breakfast.

I have a vivid memory of a family whose children I often babysat when I was a teen-ager. They normally ate Sarah Lee cake for breakfast, especially chocolate cake. The children promised faithfully that if asked in school what they had for breakfast they would say eggs, toast, and orange juice. I was impressed, as virtually every day our family actually did eat orange juice, cold cereal with milk, and toast, in that order. Occasionally oatmeal. We never ate Sara Lee cake, not even for dinner. Also, I don't remember any teachers ever asking what we had for breakfast.

The question of what Americans eat for breakfast -- and what they should eat for breakfast -- is still a fraught one, discussed by numerous long articles. The breakfast industrial complex that produces boxed cereal, single-serving yogurt cups, toaster-ready pastries, breakfast bars, frozen breakfast burritos, and similar things for home consumption constantly tries to keep up with changing tastes and changing willingness to prepare or clean up from breakfast. Cereal is losing. Pop tarts and yogurt may be gaining. The fast-food and to-go coffee industry has its own issues with consumer desires -- not to mention the current coronavirus disruptions to any eating out. 

My most recent diner breakfast in Florida last January.

You can eat breakfast out when circumstances are favorable. Trendy cafes serve iconic avocado toast or egg-white omelets -- or whatever is newly trendy. Roadside motel chains present plastic tubes of Fruit Loops or corn flakes, gummy bagels with plastic tubs of cream cheese, a fruit bowl with bananas and flavorless apples, and do-it-yourself waffle makers for the guests to argue over. Wannabe classic diners serve ham-and-eggs or shrimp-and-grits or biscuits-and-gravy or pancakes-and-bacon or even eggs Benedict, all maybe with a side of hash-browns. Fancy hotel dining rooms serve huge buffets with every breakfast item imaginable and some that aren't imaginable. Much has been disrupted by the social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus outbreak, of course.

And who needs to mention McDonald's, Starbucks, or Dunkin'? 

Regional exotic or homey favorites abound: New Jersey's Taylor ham on a roll, Hawaiian Loco Moco, New Orleans beignets, New York bagels and lox, Southwest huevos rancheros, Southern chicken-and-waffles, Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple and many more. For rather comprehensive lists of state and regional favorites see "The Best Breakfast in Every State" and "51 Regional American Breakfasts."

From our cross-country trip in 2014: breakfast at Best Western motels. 

Breakfast offers an opportunity to start each day anew. You can skip breakfast entirely as many Americans do, or you can buy the manufactured-by-advertising idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You can find many hundreds of recipes online for breakfast dishes both simple and elaborate. You can try to choose a healthy breakfast that's right for a need to slim down or at least not gain weight -- a choice that changes with constant new "research" about what's healthy and what isn't. Or you can go to Cheesecake Factory and eat a 2,180 calorie breakfast in the form of French toast with bacon or ham: this is the most caloric of the breakfast menu items listed in "The 17 unhealthiest breakfasts in America," dated Sept. 26, 2020. Runner up: Bob Evans' double meat breakfast with eggs, pancakes, and hash browns, at 2020 calories and "more than a day's worth of fat, saturated fat, and over two full days' worth of sodium."

The other day I was so stressed by the election aftermath that I had ice cream for breakfast. That was unusual. I won't mention any more specifics of my breakfast practices, you would think I was lying. 

Anyway, I miss diners in these days of restricitons.

Blog post © 2020 mae sander.

Traditional Food that Keeps Well: Butter and Cheese

Having a reliable supply of food on hand has become a necessity for large numbers of people throughout the world in the past week or so. My recent discussion of preparations for the rapidly growing outbreak of coronavirus received comments from people on several continents who were also starting to feel the necessity to stock up on food and other necessities. Before I continue with some thoughts on good food to have on hand, here are some photos I took at my local Whole Foods store this morning. Yes, the fear of being quarantined or isolated has really affected people!

Frozen pizza: gone.

Canned tomato products: almost gone.
According to the butcher, meat supplies are running out.

I saw many people with huge quantities of groceries, such as this scene in the checkout line.

Just like everyone else, I've been thinking about what foods have a long shelf life. My mind has turned to cheese.

From my refrigerator: cheddar, parmesan, and swiss.

These cheeses have a shelf-life of 3 to 6 months before you unwrap them, and last pretty long when opened. Despite the extreme fears of some people, I’m convinced that we won’t be without electricity during even the worst possible outbreak of disease, so cheese seems to me a very good choice to have on hand. I’ve read a lot of discussions of what to buy and keep — I don’t think most of the discussions mention cheese and butter, though jam and peanut butter often make the list.

With bread or crackers, cheese makes an instant meal. It also adds important flavor and nutrition to dishes from a wide variety of cuisines. For example, in the book Taco USA, Gustavo Arellano mentions many many types of tacos and other Mexican-style foods that use jack cheese, cotijo cheese, or the Tex-Mex queso. So besides a few extra packages of cheese for your fridge, think about adding a package of tortillas to the supplies in your freezer and some jars of salsa for your pantry!

Cheese has a wonderful long history, too. Preservation of milk by making it into cheese or butter has been around for thousands of years. Before refrigeration, cellars and natural caves provided cool storage for food and wine, including these processed dairy products. Discussions of processed foods often ignore the long traditions that enabled early agricultural societies to eat better throughout the seasons. Milk spoils fast and shelf-stable milk has been developed only in the last century or so, as a result of industrial food-processing techniques. On the other hand, cheese and butter are very good, traditionally processed, long-lasting foods to have on hand for whatever we are facing.

 A prehistoric woman holding a butter churn on her head.
Chacolithic era from the sanctuary of Gilat in the Negev in Israel.
Dated 5500 to 6500 years ago. (Israel Museum, Jerusalem, my photo.)

As my trip to Whole Foods impressed on me, there's suddenly been considerable acceleration of the urgency of the now-global pandemic. As more and more new cases were reported, including here in Michigan, the two of us became convinced that we should stay home rather than take a planned trip to visit family. Concerts, meetings, and lectures that we planned to attend have been cancelled or probably will be cancelled. All classes and seminars at the University of Michigan have been cancelled, along with those of many other institutions in the country.

On every level -- family, city, state, country, and the whole world -- we're facing a challenge that never happened before.

Blog post copyright © 2020 mae sander for maefood dot blog spot dot com.

"Sacred Cow Mad Cow"

Madeleine Ferrières, a professor of social history at the University of Avignon, France, published Sacred Cow Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears in 2001; the English translation was published a few years later. Unfortunately, the early chapters of the book are very boring accounts of the way meat was raised, slaughtered, butchered, and inspected in the medieval and early modern eras. On my second try reading it, I managed to get into the much better chapters about the 18th and 19th centuries!

The book made one thing clear: food fears in the past were almost always fears of the unknown. Before the 19th century research by Pasteur and others, microorganisms caused the most mysterious and frightening effects of food preparation and consumption. Accidental poisoning was another source of disaster and fear, especially lead poisoning, copper-kettle poisoning, and poisoning from dangerous colorants used to improve the look of foods.

I was fascinated by the way people tried to deal with the evidence of these unseen agents in past times, and how terrifying these processes could be. Although the level of detail about food regulation in the medieval and early modern periods is somewhat excessive, the book offers a very fascinating portrait of how people tried to avoid food poisoning and food-borne disease.

A few examples of fear and awe towards effects of microorganisms before science explained them:

• Contagious diseases that humans could catch from animals quickly, like anthrax, were very frightening. Often no one had any solutions except maybe supernatural explanations like witchcraft.
• Slow contagion from diseases like TB (which cows definitely suffer from and transmit) were even more baffling, and often led to disfunction such as the belief that milk prevented TB.
• Catastrophic diseases from spoiled crops, like ergotism in rye bread, were especially alarming. People realized that rye flour could harbor the cause of the disease, but their reactions were often dysfunctional.
• Above all, many efforts to recognize the causes of contaminated food were partially correct, but often led to difficulty. Especially, farmers were always reluctant to discard potentially dangerous animals or crops. Many people who could afford it attempted to keep all food prep and much of the production under their control. For example, there were milk sheds where cattle lived in cities because people liked to buy milk directly from the cow or goat. Of course this resulted in hygiene disasters in dealing with animal waste inside cities.
• Even beneficial organisms like the yeasts and lactobacillus that work on bread, beer, and wine, were the subject of much superstition, fear, and ineffective beliefs and practices. 

Little was known about nutrients until the 19th century, and what was known was often incorrect. Scurvy, a recognized risk, could be cured by eating produce, but fresh fruit was not always trusted because, it seems, you can make yourself sick by eating too much green fruit when it first comes into season and you have a vitamin deficiency due to no produce in late winter and early spring. Early analysis of nutritional value was also off track, as they concluded that vegetables and fruits were not worth eating because they were too low in energy/calories. The discovery of vitamins didn't occur until the early 20th century.

In the 19th century, scientists discovered quite a few important facts about nutrients, poisons, and microbiology. However, new inventions like canning and preserving methods or addition of nitrates to salted meats caused new problems. Botulism and other spoilage were a new experience when the invention of canning was applied without full understanding of sterile conditions -- thus new fears! Many new additives were tried, some with bad consequences, especially the addition of verdigris, a copper salt, to make canned foods like peas or pickles look "naturally" green. More fear!

Of course we have our own irrational reactions to new dangers, as well as scientific efforts to understand and curb them -- the book's title refers to the panic over Mad Cow Disease that took place shortly before its publication. We also have our own problems with the state of science in knowing what's good for us: eggs, for example. Harmful or beneficial? Clearly, however, people today have access to much better information for understanding the foods they eat, and regulation of dangerous substances, food processing, and agricultural practices is hopefully based on better science.

One reason I chose to read this book is that its author is French and much of the information in it is about France. (Though there's an interesting discussion of Chicago and the famous book The Jungle.) I've mentioned before that I try to find books that reflect a French point of view on food: so many Americans write about French food, which is fine but not complete.

This post will be shared as a final contribution to Tamara's blog event called Paris in July, which is wrapping up this week. I'm also sharing with Beth Fish's weekend cooking blog event. This review is the work of Mae at maefood dot blogspot dot com. If you are reading it elsewhere, it's been stolen.

Copyright © 2019 by Mae E. Sander.

Disappointed in Mark Kurlansky's Latest Book

Just published last week: Milk: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas by Mark Kurlansky. As a big fan of Kurlansky's earlier books -- including Cod and Salt as mentioned on the cover of Milk -- I'm very sad to say that he hasn't maintained his earlier standards. Milk is a poorly organized, disjointed, and badly thought-out book, in my opinion.

Maybe the topic is just too wide for a single book. After all, cows, goats, sheep, camels, yaks, water buffalo, mares, and other domestic and even a few wild animals have provided milk to many societies over the last 10 millennia. In several places, Kurlansky compares human milk and the milk of other species in terms of fat content and other nutritional values. He describes a large number of societies that use milk products. The early chapters are in more-or-less chronological order -- but not entirely consistently. Eventually the organization becomes even worse. For example, there are two separate discussions of the Icelandic dairy product skyr in widely separated chapters.

Many millennia is a lot of time for people to argue about whether it's healthy to consume dairy products, whether it's ok to feed babies animal milk rather than breastfeeding them, and a lot of time for humans to evolve away from lactose intolerance. These issues are also presented at great length -- somewhat beyond my tolerance. The same issues keep coming up again and again, but the narrative seems to jump around in a disconcerting way.

Humans have consumed a lot of milk as well as a lot of cheese, butter, ghee, yogurt, creamy soups and sauces, milky alcoholic drinks, and baby formula! In 10,000 years we humans have had vast experience with contaminated dairy products. We've put in a lot of effort to learning how to make dairy products safer. Disasters have afflicted the dairy industry -- up to and including Strontium-90 in the mid-20th century. Kurlansky covers these and many ongoing issues: GMOs. antibiotics, organic farming, "mad cow" disease, what it costs to run a dairy in America now, and more. But it doesn't add up to a coherent story, at least not in this book.

Recipes appear throughout the earlier chapters. They are often quite amusing, for example:

"TO MAKE A FINE SYLLABUB FROM THE COW"

"Sweeten a quart of Cyder with double refined sugar, grate nutmeg into it, then milk your cow into your liquour, when you have thus added what quantity of milk you think proper, pour half a pint or more, in proportion to the quantity of Syllabub you make, of the sweetest cream you can get all over it." (pp. 109-110).

Some recipes, like this one, really illustrate the ways that milk has been used in the past, though few of them would be any use in a twenty-first century kitchen. Eventually, the large number of recipes and some of the other details and repetitions make quite a few of the chapters seem padded, as if the author didn't really have enough to say about a particular time, place, or issue.

In conclusion: I'm disappointed!

More about "Butter"

Reading about butter in Elaine Khosrova's book Butter: A Rich History -- it's the next selection for my culinary book group. I enjoyed the historical accounts of butter and the mythology of butter in earlier times, such as in Ireland, and descriptions of using and making butter in India, France, 19th century America, and many other times and places. I was thinking about a few other areas where very early people made butter.

Here are a few photos showing some of my butter-themed thoughts --

My favorite ancient figurine: a woman holding a butter churn on her head.
Chacolithic era from the sanctuary of Gilat in the Negev in Israel.
Dated 5500 to 6500 years ago. (Israel Museum, Jerusalem, my photo.) 

How milk was churned in these vessels: they were hung up and shaken
back-and-forth, as shown. The figurine above, and others in the sanctuary,
also used churns for an unknown symbolic meaning in grave goods. (My photo)

Similar Chacolithic churn (Haifa Museum, Wikipedia)

And in contemporary culture...

Last year's Minnesota Butter Princess and her sculpted head in butter. We saw the butter sculpting a number of years ago.
Note that she's wearing a coat: the sculpting is done in a very cold glass kiosk where passers-by can watch. The princesses
are the daughters of Minnesota dairy farmers, and they get to keep their own sculpted head, I believe. (link)

Smen: a butter product from Morocco,
which I have not tried but would like to.

My favorite source of butter-rich recipes! (link)

AND...

Food Fraud

I have just read Bee Wilson's book Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee. Food adulteration with poisons (like lead-based or cancer-causing dyes), with unreasonable additives (like alum in bread), or with cheaper substances (like adding water to milk or injecting chickens with dilute broth) has been a problem for centuries, as documented throughout the book. Outright cheating by false labeling, false weighing, or overcharging customers is another fraud that's far from new.

"The rich can eat unadulterated food without much bother, whereas for most of the poor, it is a constant effort." (p. 101) Poor people have suffered more than those with the resources to purchase better quality foods and the time and energy to pay attention to what is happening. But money is far from an adequate protection against food frauds. "The motive to swindle -- greed -- is a constant in human history," Wilson writes. (p. 322)

Swindled is closely related to several other books I've read, but has an interesting approach to the topic of food safety and food regulation. Wilson profiles a number of crusading chemists, medical doctors, journalists, and others who have attempted to inform the public about major problems in the food supply. Their efforts were sometimes successful, sometimes not, but she uses their discoveries to illustrate exactly what frauds were common at several times in the past. Wilson also adds a number of other historic and ongoing frauds into her narrative, up through recent baby-milk scandals in China. Swindled was published in 2008: I wish it continued right up until the present.

Here are some of the most interesting people I learned about:

• Frederick Accum (1769-1838) wrote A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons in 1820. Wilson says: "It would be an exaggeration to say that this book changed everything; after it was published, the swindlers carried on swindling, and more often than not they still got away with it; no food laws were changed on account of Accum... . But his treatise finally opened people’s eyes to the fact that almost everything sold as food and drink in modern industrial cities was not what it seemed; and by being not what it seemed, it could kill them." (p. 1)
• Arthur Hill Hassall (1817-1894) discovered how to use a microscope to detect adulteration of food. He documented the widespread use of alum in falsifying white bread, adulteration of coffee, artificial substances in mustard, impure drinking water, and many other frauds.

  "Hassall analysed more than 2,500 samples of food embracing 'all the principle articles of consumption, both solids and liquids' and found that purity was the exception, adulteration the rule. Earlier writers might say vaguely that cinnamon was 'often' or 'sometimes' adulterated (with cassia, wheat, mustard husks, and colouring), whereas Hassall could state with absolute certainty that out of nineteen samples of ground cinnamon, only six were genuine; that three consisted of nothing but cassia; that ten were mixed up with bulking agents such as sago, flour, or arrowroot; and that these faked cinnamons were not always cheaper than the real thing, meaning that the public was being consistently cheated in the purchase of cinnamon.Unlike the scaremongers, Hassall was not afraid to say when a food was not adulterated." (p.127)  

• Thomas Wakley (1795-1862) was founder and editor of The Lancet, dedicated to enlightening the public about medical affairs. The power of the free market was a given at the time in English politics -- and the idea was especially applied to food, for which there was no regulation.  "Wakley argued for public health in the widest sense—and this necessarily entailed a frontal assault on the evils of adulterated food." (p. 126) In disseminating the facts about food fraud in his day, Wakley particularly publicized the work of Arthur Hassall. Under their influence the first pure food act was passed in 1860, though it was weak.
• Harvey Wiley (1844-1930) was a strong advocate for regulating food during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Eventually he was the author of the first food and drug laws in the US. His role in developing the FDA has come up in other books I've read. (See my recent post titled Food Safety and its History).
• Caroline Walker (1950-1988) was an advocate for better food regulation in England in the 1980s. She wrote The Food Scandal with Geoffrey Cannon. 
• Mark Woolfe at the time Wilson wrote was head of the British Food Standards Agency (FSA) and more recently has been a member of the RSC's Analytical Methods Committee. Woolfe's role in developing DNA tests to identify falsely labeled Basmati rice, as described in Swindled, is an interesting study in modern technology that just barely manages to stay ahead of the fraudsters!

Swindled is an enjoyable book despite the depressing subject matter, because it's engagingly written. I enjoyed the many anecdotes and factual discussions of food frauds in the past, including examples of recipes for "mock" dishes that playfully imitated real foods without including the "real" ingredients. The book also offers lots of amusing illustrations like this one (p. 98):