Product Description

Part cookbook—with more than 120 enticing recipes—part culinary history, part inquiry into the evolution of an industry, Milk is a one-of-a-kind book that will forever change the way we think about dairy products.

Anne Mendelson, author of Stand Facing the Stove, first explores the earliest Old World homes of yogurt and kindred fermented products made primarily from sheep’s and goats’ milk and soured as a natural consequence of climate. Out of this ancient heritage from lands that include Greece, Bosnia, Turkey, Israel, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, she mines a rich source of culinary traditions.

Mendelson then takes us on a journey through the lands that traditionally only consumed milk fresh from the cow—what she calls the Northwestern Cow Belt (northern Europe, Great Britain, North America). She shows us how milk reached such prominence in our diet in the nineteenth century that it led to the current practice of overbreeding cows and overprocessing dairy products. Her lucid explanation of the chemical intricacies of milk and the simple home experiments she encourages us to try are a revelation of how pure milk products should really taste.

The delightfully wide-ranging recipes that follow are grouped according to the main dairy ingredient: fresh milk and cream, yogurt, cultured milk and cream, butter and true buttermilk, fresh cheeses. We learn how to make luscious Clotted Cream, magical Lemon Curd, that beautiful quasi-cheese Mascarpone, as well as homemade yogurt, sour cream, true buttermilk, and homemade butter. She gives us comfort foods such as Milk Toast and Cream of Tomato Soup alongside Panir and Chhenna from India. Here, too, are old favorites like Herring with Sour Cream Sauce, Beef Stroganoff, a New Englandish Clam Chowder, and the elegant Russian Easter dessert, Paskha. And there are drinks for every season, from Turkish Ayran and Indian Lassis to Batidos (Latin American milkshakes) and an authentic hot chocolate.

This illuminating book will be an essential part of any food lover’s collection and is bound to win converts determined to restore the purity of flavor to our First Food.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141613 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-07
• Released on: 2008-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In a recipe book that is part cultural critique and part culinary history, Mendelson (Stand Facing the Stove) reaps nearly 400 fascinating pages from that most elemental of ingredients. Yet the story of dairy is perhaps not quite so surprising as the title suggests--it's more or less the story of all industrialized food production through the last century, in which the flavor and quality of natural foods have been subjugated to dietary concerns, food safety and the sheer volume needed for mass consumption. As a result, Mendelson argues, the product most Americans call milk bears very little resemblance to what initially spurts from the cow's udder. Mendelson exhaustively traces milk production and consumption back to 6000 B.C. and through the Middle East, India and Europe, where milch animals were first herded and bred. The final two-thirds of the book are divided into chapters devoted to fresh milk and cream; yogurt; cultured milk and cream; butter, true buttermilk and fresh cheese, each with traditional recipes from around the world. Aspiring cheese makers will find some basic science, and the eclectic recipes (such as French Vichyssoise, Turkish Ayran and Eastern European Kugel) are reliable and detailed. Mendelson is optimistic that a brighter future for dairying lies in the rise of small farm operations--a future in which more consumers can share her obvious passion for the product. (Oct.)
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From Booklist
Whether or not it’s “nature’s perfect food,” the milk people buy at the supermarket has been processed, heated, deconstructed, and its parts reassembled in ways that consumers have been persuaded are good for them. The twin developments of pasteurization and refrigeration began this, abetted by advances in dairy-cow husbandry and transportation. Tuberculosis and other pathogens have virtually disappeared from the milk supply, but at the expense of milk’s native flavors. Moreover, mechanical separation of milk into its constituent fats, sugars, and proteins has flooded the market with all manner of fluid milks, each claiming some health benefit depending on the nutritional fad of the moment. Mendelson reminds that virtually no one today knows what milk really tastes like. To help people nevertheless enjoy available milk, she presents a host of recipes featuring milk, from milk toast through rice pudding. She includes exotica such as India’s panir cheese, Mexico’s dulce de leche, and a home method for producing English clotted cream. --Mark Knoblauch

About the Author
Anne Mendelson grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania in an area where small dairy farms were once common. In addition to Stand Facing the Stove (a history of The Joy of Cooking and its authors), she collaborated with chef-writer Zarela Martínez on three cookbooks exploring Mexican cuisine. She has written for Gourmet, Saveur, and The New York Times. Mendelson lives in northern New Jersey.

Customer Reviews

Great Information, Not an Easy Read
The book was interesting, but was not an easy read. It was like a college level textbook. The writing style was dry and academic so it satisfied my desire to learn about the history of milk, but I found myself having to re-read pages because I couldn't keep my mind of what she was writing.

There are a fair amount of recipes and I plan on trying a few. Compared to "How to Pick a Peach" for example the book pales in terms of readability.

Delicious Book!
I loved this book from start to finish. It would have been easy for her to pick sides in a raw-milk argument or something like that, but instead she just promotes the pros of real, fresh milk.
The history section as well as the section about the modern milk industry were very interesting, but the recipe sections, complete with "milk experiments" takes the reader on a truly delicious adventures. Start with the Lemon Sponge Pudding!

Excellent and creamy!
Beautiful! Part cookbook, part history text....I love it - simple yet ingenious.
Beware: You will get cravings reading this book!