and Southeast Asia, all the European and Middle Eastern cultures, and many Asian and African ones, have a shepherding
tradition.
Yogurt, the simplest form of preserved milk, is probably as old as milking itself. Milk "invites its own preservation," writes
food maven Harold McGee. Fresh milk curdles quickly, especially in hot weather. Yogurt would have been made— or rather, made
itself— simply for lack of refrigeration. The precise origins of yogurt are not known but easy to imagine. When fresh milk
is left to stand at room temperature, local bacteria begin to consume the sugars. The milk thickens and becomes tangy with
lactic acid. Depending on the bacteria, the result is yogurt, sour cream, or some other cultured milk that stays fresh longer
than "sweet" or fresh milk.
Another simple method of preserving nutrients in milk is to remove water. In Iran, milk was reduced to its essence, making
a sort of milk bouillon cube to be reconstituted with water. In the thirteenth century, the nomadic Tatar armies of Genghis
Khan carried a packed lunch of powdered mare's milk. After skimming off the cream for butter, they dried the skim milk in
the sun. Kept in a leather pouch, powdered milk made a convenient meal on the road. It wasn't perishable, and when mixed with
water and jostled about on horseback, it made a fermented drink something like yogurt.
Turning milk into cheese is the most sophisticated method of preservation. Gouda, Parmigiano Reggiano, and other traditional
aged cheeses mature for two years or longer. Most agree that cheese making is about five thousand years old, but as with yogurt,
no one knows exactly where cheese was born, and it's quite possible that shepherds living far apart invented cheese simultaneously.
Some of those pioneers were in the French Pyrenees, and in Sumeria, Egypt, five-thousand-year-old pottery bears cheesy residues.
Though cheese takes many forms, the basic method—-adding rennet to curdle milk— is unchanged, and even particular recipes
survive a long time. The recipe for Gaperon, a soft French cheese made with garlic and peppercorns, is twelve hundred years
old.
The effects of milk on human diet and culture were widespread and profound. In About Cows, Sara Rath says that six-thousand-year-old Sanskrit writings refer to milk as an essential food. The Hindus, who ate and celebrated
butter four thousand years ago, honor cows, as did the Sumerians and Babylonians. The Romans, too, were milk drinkers and
cheese lovers, and spread the habit throughout Europe. Cattle— in Latin pecus, from pascendum (put to pasture)— were even used to conduct trades; hence the Roman word for money, pecunia. Caesar was evidently irritated to find that Britons in his far-flung empire neglected to grow crops, preferring to live on
meat and milk instead.
The Bible makes dozens of references to milk, which represents privilege, wealth, and spiritual blessings, as in "land flowing
with milk and honey." Shakespeare's plays are replete with flattering comparisons to milk, butter, and cream, and modern idioms
glorify milk. To flatter someone, you butter him up-, the very best is la creme de la creme.
Whether from the human breast or the bovine udder, milk is the universal perfect food— delicious, soothing, nourishing. Milk
is delicate, sensuous, transient. It is both simple— a nutritionally complete meal in a glass— and marvelously complex, its
various ingredients interacting as if the milk itself were a tiny ecosystem. Indeed, traditional milk is alive, teeming with
enzymes and microorganisms that evolved right along with man and woman, usually in the belly.
Milk is diverse. The milks of the ewe and the cow, the mare and the nak, are each different. Even within one species, milk
is suggestible: the grass, flowers, and herbs the animal eats create further distinctions, affecting aroma, flavor, and nutrition.
The hint of garlic— or more than a hint— in
tradition.
Yogurt, the simplest form of preserved milk, is probably as old as milking itself. Milk "invites its own preservation," writes
food maven Harold McGee. Fresh milk curdles quickly, especially in hot weather. Yogurt would have been made— or rather, made
itself— simply for lack of refrigeration. The precise origins of yogurt are not known but easy to imagine. When fresh milk
is left to stand at room temperature, local bacteria begin to consume the sugars. The milk thickens and becomes tangy with
lactic acid. Depending on the bacteria, the result is yogurt, sour cream, or some other cultured milk that stays fresh longer
than "sweet" or fresh milk.
Another simple method of preserving nutrients in milk is to remove water. In Iran, milk was reduced to its essence, making
a sort of milk bouillon cube to be reconstituted with water. In the thirteenth century, the nomadic Tatar armies of Genghis
Khan carried a packed lunch of powdered mare's milk. After skimming off the cream for butter, they dried the skim milk in
the sun. Kept in a leather pouch, powdered milk made a convenient meal on the road. It wasn't perishable, and when mixed with
water and jostled about on horseback, it made a fermented drink something like yogurt.
Turning milk into cheese is the most sophisticated method of preservation. Gouda, Parmigiano Reggiano, and other traditional
aged cheeses mature for two years or longer. Most agree that cheese making is about five thousand years old, but as with yogurt,
no one knows exactly where cheese was born, and it's quite possible that shepherds living far apart invented cheese simultaneously.
Some of those pioneers were in the French Pyrenees, and in Sumeria, Egypt, five-thousand-year-old pottery bears cheesy residues.
Though cheese takes many forms, the basic method—-adding rennet to curdle milk— is unchanged, and even particular recipes
survive a long time. The recipe for Gaperon, a soft French cheese made with garlic and peppercorns, is twelve hundred years
old.
The effects of milk on human diet and culture were widespread and profound. In About Cows, Sara Rath says that six-thousand-year-old Sanskrit writings refer to milk as an essential food. The Hindus, who ate and celebrated
butter four thousand years ago, honor cows, as did the Sumerians and Babylonians. The Romans, too, were milk drinkers and
cheese lovers, and spread the habit throughout Europe. Cattle— in Latin pecus, from pascendum (put to pasture)— were even used to conduct trades; hence the Roman word for money, pecunia. Caesar was evidently irritated to find that Britons in his far-flung empire neglected to grow crops, preferring to live on
meat and milk instead.
The Bible makes dozens of references to milk, which represents privilege, wealth, and spiritual blessings, as in "land flowing
with milk and honey." Shakespeare's plays are replete with flattering comparisons to milk, butter, and cream, and modern idioms
glorify milk. To flatter someone, you butter him up-, the very best is la creme de la creme.
Whether from the human breast or the bovine udder, milk is the universal perfect food— delicious, soothing, nourishing. Milk
is delicate, sensuous, transient. It is both simple— a nutritionally complete meal in a glass— and marvelously complex, its
various ingredients interacting as if the milk itself were a tiny ecosystem. Indeed, traditional milk is alive, teeming with
enzymes and microorganisms that evolved right along with man and woman, usually in the belly.
Milk is diverse. The milks of the ewe and the cow, the mare and the nak, are each different. Even within one species, milk
is suggestible: the grass, flowers, and herbs the animal eats create further distinctions, affecting aroma, flavor, and nutrition.
The hint of garlic— or more than a hint— in
Similar Books
