Ever since he was a half-pint, Mark Kurlansky has been curious about one of humankind’s most central commodities. Now he’s written a wide-ranging book you won’t want to just skim
NEW YORK — Author and James Beard Award-winning food historian, Mark Kurlansky, considers crème vichyssoise glacée — cream-based potato-leek soup — to be one of his favorite childhood treats. Served in a metal bowl perched a top a dish of shaved ice, it was cool perfection.
In his new book, “Milk! A 10,000-Year Food Fracas” Kurlansky describes how he loved pushing his spoon through the creamy soup.
Not that the book was borne of Kurlansky’s love for dairy.
“I don’t especially like milk. I liked it as a kid until it got homogenized but I don’t drink it now,” he said.
What he did like was the story of milk and the way economics, sociology and politics began swirling around this single commodity, ever since people domesticated animals more than 10,000 years ago.
“It’s a bodily liquid that women are born with to feed their babies and then we decided to substitute that with animal milk. So you can see, right there, there’s going to be controversy around this subject,” Kurlansky said.
Kurlansky spoke with The Times of Israel in an Upper West Side cafe over hot chocolate with whipped cream and coffee with milk. Fun factoid: the stirring of milk into coffee being something the French are thought to have introduced to the world once upon a time, according to “Milk.”
As in his previous books “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World” and “Salt: A World History,” this book not only tells the complicated history of the human relationship to dairy, it also includes many nuggets of history — some mundane, some borderline bizarre.
Centuries ago Christians were banned from drinking milk on meatless holy days because they believed milk was blood that had turned white. Buddhists in Japan called Westerners “butter-stinkers” because of their affinity for dairy, and George Washington was mad about ice cream.
Readers also learn how pre-European Hawaiian women breast fed puppies and that Londoners would pay $20 for a scoop of human breast milk ice cream flavored with vanilla and lavender.
Interestingly, “dairy don’ts” transcend kosher dietary laws.
“I grew up with part of my family who was kosher — fortunately not my part. My grandparents were kosher and I have a brother who keeps kosher,” said Kurlansky, 70.
“I think what my contact with kashrut did for me was give me a real dislike of arbitrary food restrictions. I don’t want to hear about vegetarian. I don’t want to hear about vegan. My father grew up in a strictly kosher home. His favorite sandwich was tongue and Swiss cheese,” he said.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
For a long time Americans have seemed to prefer rather bland milk and cheese, wrapped in layers of plastic and kept in steel case refrigerators reminiscent of morgues. Now you go in the dairy section of the grocery store and there are many more varieties of dairy desserts, cheeses, yogurts, etc. What accounts for this change?
What’s changed is basically New England, Vermont, western Massachusetts and upstate New York are making more interesting kinds of cheeses. A lot this is about is the ability of smaller dairies to get their products to New York City.
All sorts of interesting, quality dairies know they can sell for higher prices to cities like LA, Boston, and New York. In my book I quote this Welshman about [artisanal dairy] who said, “Cities are going to lead the way.” The same thing is happening near London. It’s where you find rich people. If you go out into the middle of America I don’t think you’re going to find these things there.
One of the things that bothers me about food trends is it’s all about rich people. Milk from only grass fed cows might be incredibly tasty — it is some of the most delicious milk I’ve ever had — but it’s very expensive. If you are struggling to make ends meet, it’s just not practical.
Speaking of food trends, what do you think about all the different kinds of milk that are available: almond, soy, and rice for example?
Dairy farmers have taken the issue to court to stop them from using the word milk. I think they’re right. It’s not milk. You know, it is what it is, and it’s perfectly fine, but it’s not milk. You can’t even call it a substitute for milk because nutritionally it’s nothing like milk.
In Canton, China, they have very little tradition of [consuming] milk, but they have a very long tradition of what we would call soy milk, which of course they don’t call soy milk.
Interestingly, almond milk was big in the Middle Ages because the Church wouldn’t allow milk on Holy Days. And then as the Church let up on that almond milk disappeared until it suddenly became trendy.
Can you talk about how breastfeeding has been politicized since the Hammurabi Code, seeming to prove “there is nothing new under the sun?” It appears men have long tried to control what women do with their bodies.
It didn’t surprise me. It was more of a feeling of, “Of course they did.” There is endless literature on this. I mean you even had Voltaire weighing in on the subject — what is that about? It’s another example of men trying to control women’s bodies. If men didn’t want women in the workplace, they said, oh, you need to be home and breastfeed.
Regarding social status, if you look at women’s clothes in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries it is clear that aristocrats, women with money, didn’t breastfeed. I mean it was all about suppression of the breasts.
You mention pig milk and how humans don’t drink it and you talk about monkey milk, how it’s actually the closest animal milk to human milk. Did you ever try pig milk? And why isn’t monkey milk used for artificial feeding?
I’ve never tried pig milk. Pig milk would be the ultimate treif. But in general we don’t use milk from animals that don’t have udders. I don’t know if it’s a taboo, or if it’s a practical thing. It would be a pain to milk them.
I don’t think monkey milk is any weirder than adults who breastfeed. I write about an instance in my book where an elderly man breastfed because he thought it was healthy. He was a weird guy.
What are the best and worst milks you’ve tasted in the name of research?
Mare’s milk was the worst. It’s awful.
The best? I have a friend who has a goat farm and I would get up in the morning and milk the goats. I thought it was fun. I’d get up and make an espresso in a large cup and I would go out and milk a goat straight into my espresso. I’d have the greatest cappuccino because it comes out hot and frothy. It comes out exactly like those machines that make lattes.
I know you get approached a lot with ideas for books. Can you explain to readers why not all commodities make for good books — like why a book on lettuce wouldn’t work?
First of all it has to be a good story. It has to mean something. It has to be counter-intuitive and there also needs to be a reason why people should care about it. I don’t know if milk is important, but people have always thought it was important. They attach tremendous importance to it; we keep having debates about it.
In the beginning of the book you write that “Jews have never been comfortable with dairy,” and you talk about kosher laws.
I think the aversion to milk was based on nothing except the ancient Hebrews were not comfortable with milk and they made this law about this once instance. However, I think in general they had this sense that milk was dicey stuff. Nobody in the ancient Middle East commonly drank milk because it was dangerous.
But I don’t really buy the theory that the laws of kashrut are all health based. I think they are based on much deeper mythological beliefs, they are cultural taboos not really based on anything.
You know in Europe it was taboo for a long time to mix dairy and fish. I don’t think it was health driven. Chowder originally didn’t have milk in it; milk came into it very late in the game in New England.
I was recently reading a book by Jimmy Carter who grew up in rural southern Georgia. It was like many of these pockets in the Deep South that held on to old English customs. He spoke about how they would have a big glass of milk with every meal — except for fish. It was perhaps a hold over from that taboo.
Some people say kosher cheese isn’t very tasty because it doesn’t have rennet. Do you agree with that and is there a kosher cheese that could be considered tasty?
In fact, there is a tradition of alternate rennet going back centuries. There are good cheeses that are made with nonmeat rennet. I just think the people making kosher cheese are more interested in being kosher than in making good cheese.
As reported by The Times of Israel