initial reason for keeping
animals. The first shepherds tended sheep and goats, small and easy to handle. They are also rugged: they thrive on poor farmland
and don't mind harsh climates. Sheep tolerate cold, wind, and snow, while goats scamper up the steepest mountain and live
off brambles or any weed that happens to grow in hedgerows. On the rocky slopes of Greece and the hills of hot, dry Provence,
sheep milk cheese (salty, crumbly feta) and goat milk cheese (creamy chevre) have been made since ancient times.
About eighty-five hundred years ago, somewhere in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), we began to milk the larger and more productive
cow. Cows are more delicate than sheep and goats— in bad weather they prefer the barn, and for grazing they favor lush rolling
pasture— yet of all the mammals humans have tried, including asses, buffalo, camels, llamas, mares, reindeer, and yaks, the
cow is the champion milker.
That's the conventional chronology of milking, at any rate, but several clues suggest we were drinking milk for much longer
than ten thousand years. One clue lies in the popular understanding, or misunderstanding, of early agricultural history. Most
people believe that "farming" (meaning both plant and animal husbandry) began about ten thousand years ago in the Fertile
Crescent. It is more likely, however, that we herded animals long before we grew corn, wheat, and beans. There is no agricultural reason to link milking with growing grains. The natural diet of ruminants is grass. Early shepherds didn't need to grow grain:
they needed only meadows and some skill in handling animals.
Fences imply that we were shepherds before we were farmers. "Thirty thousand years ago, people in the High Sinai were confining
and breeding antelope with the aid of fences, a human invention arguably as important as the spear," writes Grohman in Keeping a Family Cow. Fences were the best means of keeping the best milkers close at hand and choosing the most docile and productive cows to mate.
The friendly, efficient dairy cow has been the focus of so much intensive breeding over thousands of years that today she
has no wild cousins left, and lives only at our whim.
All meat and dairy cattle are descendants of the original wild ox, a six-thousand-pound giant called an aurochs, described
by Julius Caesar as only slightly smaller than an elephant. "The aurochs became extinct in the seventeenth century, the last
one dying alone in a private park in Poland," writes Gina Mallet in Last Chance to Eat. "But it can be seen depicted in cave paintings: a large, bony animal with sharp horns impaling stick humans." How the fierce
aurochs— a symbol of strength in Viking runes— was eventually domesticated is a mystery. In A Cow's Life, M. R. Montgomery suggests that Neolithic man tamed an aurochs midget first.
In time we were master of bull and cow alike. Fish and game made up most of the typical Paleolithic diet, but this new food,
milk, had its advantages and before long it was popular. As a source of daily protein, milking wild ruminants was more reliable
than hunting, which was hit-or-miss. Hunting also presented a practical problem. Because it was impossible to keep meat fresh
without refrigeration, fresh kill had to be eaten quickly. The immediate family of the successful hunter couldn't eat a wooly
mammoth in one sitting, so the bounty was shared with the tribe or village. Thus sharing meat with other men— or trading meat
(dinner) for sex with a woman— is one of the oldest human activities. Even now, serving a roast is a symbol of hospitality.
Milking, by contrast, did not present the feast-or-famine dilemma; it was a steady business.
Technology plays a big role in the history of milk; every advance in fencing, breeding, and preserving milk made milking more
efficient. The result is that consumption of dairy foods is nearly universal in human groups. With the notable exception of
East
animals. The first shepherds tended sheep and goats, small and easy to handle. They are also rugged: they thrive on poor farmland
and don't mind harsh climates. Sheep tolerate cold, wind, and snow, while goats scamper up the steepest mountain and live
off brambles or any weed that happens to grow in hedgerows. On the rocky slopes of Greece and the hills of hot, dry Provence,
sheep milk cheese (salty, crumbly feta) and goat milk cheese (creamy chevre) have been made since ancient times.
About eighty-five hundred years ago, somewhere in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), we began to milk the larger and more productive
cow. Cows are more delicate than sheep and goats— in bad weather they prefer the barn, and for grazing they favor lush rolling
pasture— yet of all the mammals humans have tried, including asses, buffalo, camels, llamas, mares, reindeer, and yaks, the
cow is the champion milker.
That's the conventional chronology of milking, at any rate, but several clues suggest we were drinking milk for much longer
than ten thousand years. One clue lies in the popular understanding, or misunderstanding, of early agricultural history. Most
people believe that "farming" (meaning both plant and animal husbandry) began about ten thousand years ago in the Fertile
Crescent. It is more likely, however, that we herded animals long before we grew corn, wheat, and beans. There is no agricultural reason to link milking with growing grains. The natural diet of ruminants is grass. Early shepherds didn't need to grow grain:
they needed only meadows and some skill in handling animals.
Fences imply that we were shepherds before we were farmers. "Thirty thousand years ago, people in the High Sinai were confining
and breeding antelope with the aid of fences, a human invention arguably as important as the spear," writes Grohman in Keeping a Family Cow. Fences were the best means of keeping the best milkers close at hand and choosing the most docile and productive cows to mate.
The friendly, efficient dairy cow has been the focus of so much intensive breeding over thousands of years that today she
has no wild cousins left, and lives only at our whim.
All meat and dairy cattle are descendants of the original wild ox, a six-thousand-pound giant called an aurochs, described
by Julius Caesar as only slightly smaller than an elephant. "The aurochs became extinct in the seventeenth century, the last
one dying alone in a private park in Poland," writes Gina Mallet in Last Chance to Eat. "But it can be seen depicted in cave paintings: a large, bony animal with sharp horns impaling stick humans." How the fierce
aurochs— a symbol of strength in Viking runes— was eventually domesticated is a mystery. In A Cow's Life, M. R. Montgomery suggests that Neolithic man tamed an aurochs midget first.
In time we were master of bull and cow alike. Fish and game made up most of the typical Paleolithic diet, but this new food,
milk, had its advantages and before long it was popular. As a source of daily protein, milking wild ruminants was more reliable
than hunting, which was hit-or-miss. Hunting also presented a practical problem. Because it was impossible to keep meat fresh
without refrigeration, fresh kill had to be eaten quickly. The immediate family of the successful hunter couldn't eat a wooly
mammoth in one sitting, so the bounty was shared with the tribe or village. Thus sharing meat with other men— or trading meat
(dinner) for sex with a woman— is one of the oldest human activities. Even now, serving a roast is a symbol of hospitality.
Milking, by contrast, did not present the feast-or-famine dilemma; it was a steady business.
Technology plays a big role in the history of milk; every advance in fencing, breeding, and preserving milk made milking more
efficient. The result is that consumption of dairy foods is nearly universal in human groups. With the notable exception of
East
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