Milk: A 10,000-Year History

by Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic and culinary story of milk and all things dairy – with recipes throughout

While mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago. Today, milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurisation.

Profoundly intertwined with human civilisation, milk has a compelling and surprisingly global story to tell, and historian Mark Kurlansky is the perfect person to tell it. Tracing the liquid's diverse history from antiquity to the present, he details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Food, Science, Microhistory, Food History, World History

389 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 8, 2018

About the author

Mark Kurlansky is an American journalist and author who has written a number of books of fiction and nonfiction. His 1997 book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997), was an international bestseller and was translated into more than fifteen languages. His book Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea (2006) was the nonfiction winner of the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Mark Kurlansky, and Bloomsbury (USA) Publishing for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

I remember an advertising campaign from my youth that extolled the virtues and health benefits of drinking milk. It stuck with me and I have tried to present the same positive outlook to my son. When I saw the latest Mark Kurlansky book, all about the history of milk, I could not help but wonder if it would be an entertaining read, as I knew he had tackled some other interesting food topics. One may presume the topic is quite mundane or simplistic, but the attentive reader will discover that milk and its byproducts are anything but boring, though it is one area where history has only added to the controversies, rather than neutralise them. In a book that is as eye opening as it is refreshing, Kurlansky offers the reader much insight into this product that has been a central part of history as long as female mammals have roamed the earth.

Milk has long been a controversial staple through the centuries, from the debate between breastfeeding and delivering the essential nutrients to babies, to the best ‘type’ of milk for humans to consume, and even whether to treat milk to make it safer for consumption. Kurlansky details these and other debates throughout the pages of his book, presenting arguments and views as they were documented throughout history. There remains a strong debate over pasteurisation versus raw milk, which has led to various parts of the world to adopt varying rules and regulations. While many Western countries turn to cow’s milk, there are numerous other animals whose milk is widely used, utilising the higher concentration of such mammals on differing terrains.

Liquid milk is only scratching the (fatty) surface of the discussion, as Kurlansky talked extensively about the various byproducts. Often discovered by accident, byproducts include cheeses, butters, and creams, though their variety can easily be forked into hundreds of different outcomes. The history of cheese is both long and full of political intervention, as Kurlansky discusses at length. Creation of cheese can be a laborious process and is tightly regulated, creating different colours, flavours, and consistencies. Kurlansky explores not only how different milk determines key cheese creations, but also the food intake of the cow that can vastly alter the end result. Turning to creams, history has seen the evolution of different products, based not only on filtering techniques but also the ability to refrigerate or cool for lengthy periods of time. Different people claim fame for various inventions that many take for granted now, though there was surely a fierce debate at the time to launch the best clotted creams, ice creams, and desserts that stemmed from there. Kurlansky also explores how different parts of the world tapped into shaping these byproducts with the local ingredients, creating even more differentiation across the globe.

The political and social aspects of milk are firmly rooted, particularly when government health and legislative bodies learned that they could levy fees and fierce regulations. Milk can be a highly profitable industry, though strict adherence can also lead to marginalizing those who have spent their life trying to make a living off dairy production. Kurlansky turns the focus away from North America and delves deeply into the European and Asian markets, which may shock some readers in the West. There is surely a hierarchy when it comes to milk consumption, as well as a fierce debate about how to treat the animals and the food they consumed. There is no correct answer, nor does Kurlansky try to steer the reader in any single direction, but offers a wonderful cross-section of information for a better understanding. Readers and milk enthusiasts alike can enter the debate better armed for the battle.

Kurlansky’s delivery of the topic at hand is so seamless as to create a story that flows with ease from beginning to end. While there is so much to cover, Kurlansky offers detailed discussions throughout without bogging the reader down with minutiae. Not only does he provide a rich history of milk and its evolution, but Kurlansky offers hundreds of recipes embedded in the narrative, permitting the reader to explore the more amusing side of milk’s maturation. Offering education and entertainment in equal doses, Kurlansky provides the reader with a fulfilling historical tome that will fuel interesting discussions for all. Any reader with a love of history and curiosity about food will surely find something they can enjoy in this book. “Milk. It does a body good!”... and so much more!

Kudos, Mr. Kurlansky, for such a wonderfully diverse piece. I have learned so much and dazzled others with random facts that will stick with me for years to come. Now I am convinced that I will have to find some of your other food histories and see how they compare.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you like milk? Who doesn't? Well, actually, many. Lactose intolerance, which became fashionable a few years ago, filling supermarket shelves with soy milk, almond milk, rice, coconut, oatmeal, poppy seeds, is actually the norm for most mammals and some peoples.

Therefore, the statement about lactose intolerance from the mouth of an attractive young townswoman is in fact a social marker designed to state: "I'm a thin thing and it's not easy to please me, I'm not one of those big-footed people who wash down a loaf of milk and are happy with it." Although it is possible, on the contrary, it is a sign of cosmic humanism, of classifying oneself to a broader community.

After all, the cubs of most mammals in the wild are fed with mother's milk only until they are ready to switch to solid food, and then a gene comes into play that cancels the ability to digest milk. Lactose - milk sugar - can be digested only if lactase, a genetically controlled enzyme, is present in the insides.


Молоко: продовольственный скандал. длиною в 10 000 лет

Там высоко-высоко
Кто-то пролил молоко,
И получилась Млечная дорога.
Любите молоко? Кто ж его не любит? Ну, вообще-то, многие. Непереносимость лактозы, которая сделалась модной несколько лет назад, заполнив полки супермаркетов соевым молоком, миндальным молоком, рисовым, кокосовым, овсяным, маковым - на самом деле норма для большинства млекопитающих и некоторых народов.

А потому, заявление о непереносимости лактозы из уст привлекательной юной горожанки - по сути социальный маркер, призванный заявить: "Я тонкая штучка и угодить мне непросто, не из тех сиволапых, что батон молоком запивают и тем довольны." Хотя возможно, это, напротив, признак космического гуманизма, причисления себя к более широкой общности.

Ведь детеныши большинства млекопитающих в дикой природе кормятся материнским молоком только пока не готовы к переходу на твердую пищу, и тут в игру вступает ген, который отменяет способность переваривать молоко. Лактоза — молочный сахар — может перевариваться, только если во внутренностях присутствует лактаза, генетически контролируемый энзим.

Как бы там ни было, у большинства европейцев, а человеческая культура европоцентрична (пока) в ходе эволюции развилась способность вырабатывать лактазу и во взрослом возрасте, что, в свою очередь, позволило разнообразить рацион, насытив его продуктами, богатыми жирами и белком для строительства физического тела, сахаром - .для работы мозга. И, в конечном итоге, выжить.

Мне скажут: Южная Америка не знала молока, и ничего, жила потихоньку. Отвечу: Пока не пришли испанцы, кроме прочего, принесшие микробы, к которым тысячелетия животноводческой культуры взаимно адаптировали людей и молочный скот. То есть - иммунитет еще один косвенный плюс потребления молока.

Собственно споры о том. насколько полезно или вредно молоко - не примета исключительно нашего времени, они сопровождали человечество с начала эры приручения и одомашнивания, неслучайно оригинальное название книги американского писателя и популяризатора науки Марка Курлански звучит более броско. чем в русском переводе, буквально: "Молоко - продовольственный скандал длиной в 10 000 лет", как у меня в заглавии.

Пить или не пить? Полезно или вредно? Грех употребление молочных продуктов или праведность (не связано с убийством ради еды)? Признак варварства и отвратительная пищевая привычка или знак здоровой близости к природе? Божественный нектар вечной жизни или медленно убивающий яд? Вопросы-вопросы-вопросы, тысяча вопросов, на которые внятно, доходчиво и захватывающе-интересно ответит книга.

Почему в Плодородном полумесяце, где зародилась и откуда распространилась молочная культура, молока в чистом виде не пили? Как появились йогурт, творог, сыр, пахта? Какое полезнее: коровье. козье, овечье, оленье. верблюжье, кобылье, ячье? Что лучше: грудное вскармливание или прикорм молоком животных и почему во всех культурах есть мифы о диких зверях, вскормивших героев своим молоком?

Свежее или пастеризованное? Почему европейцы солят масло, а в Исландии кислят? Что такое "валлийские кролики"? Какое отношение к мороженому имеют Марко Поло и Екатерина Медичи, как начиналось, в каком направлении развивалось и почему производство мороженого в тысячу раз выгоднее, чем молока? Легко ли управлять нацией, у которой тысяча сортов сыра?

На все эти вопросы (и еще примерно на тысячу) ответит "Молоко! Самый спорный продукт", подарив, в придачу тысячу рецептов самых разных молочных блюд от самых разных культур со всех концов света. Отличный нон-фикшн.

[Stephen Robert Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Choice Cuts is one of my favourite historical food books, so When Heard about this book I had to buy it.
Everybody has had milk at some time their lives with out milk the human race would not exist. End of story.
This a culinary history of the animal milk not mothers but Also like Choice Cuts got your crazy fun recipes, odd ball milk tools for the kitchen to the farm.
Full of illustrations & facts to have you laughing, felling sick & wowing!
It is only when think about milk that you resizes what you won't have no pancakes,fish & chips, no Yorkshire puddings on Sunday,no cheese oh shit no cheese I live on cheese, the list is endless No ice cream or chocolate bars. You can hear the chocolate screams from the .females across globe all way to Mars No Chocolate.
This very serious book on the history of milk from how cows could not have been the first milked animal to the arguments of Christian doctoring of 'blood of Christ' been milk.
We have a 18th century Cookbook by Gervase Markham to the early pancakes to the cheese arguments. We have other authors such as Hannah Glasse who Dr.Johson claimed was a man her book is still available today(look her up ) & Elizabeth Cleland a 18th century Author.
They are things I never heard of 'Hot' & 'Cold' foods I heard it before but Didn't know that it has nothing to do with temperatures of food but Religious beliefs Hot is meat or blood foods but Cold is in water such as fish if read the book it explains it all very complexed & very silly in a modern society but Roman Catholics ruled the world.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

By definition, all mammals produce milk for their young. Thus it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that in writing a history of milk consumption this book is an account of the history of mammalian life culminating with humans in charge of the world. As humans began utilizing milk from other mammals it also becomes the story of human progress and civilization from the perspective of diet. And of course a significant part of the story is that of humans learning how to change milk into forms that circumvent issues of lactose intolerance and storage (e.g. cheese, yogurt, dried milk solids).

Before the era of refrigeration the prevention of spoilage or even poisoning by milk was a serious issue. Freshness was of important concern and it was common for families to keep dairy cows and produce their own milk. But during the nineteenth century mass production and urbanization made milk safety a leading issue of the day, with milk-borne illnesses a common cause of death. Pasteurization slowly became a legislative matter. And today milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement, and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurization.

Most of us think of cows as the logical source of milk, but through history different cultures had different favorites. At various times, donkey and mule milk have been preferred. Ditto buffalo, goat, sheep, horse, pig and camel, which is said to be salty but otherwise not bad. Seal milk is the heaviest, 53.2 percent fat, whereas human is 4.5 percent. The benefits of human milk caught on in recent years and has developed into a niche specialty market. Cows of course are the most common source used today in the dairy business.

I grew up on a dairy farm and had a number relatives involved in the dairy business in various ways. Thus I've always had an interest in how the business has changed since my family left it in 1960. It's interesting to note that average production per cow has doubled since 1960. I attribute most of this increase to artificial insemination which allows the semen from a bull of proven genetic characteristics to impregnate thousands of cows.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kurlansky is justly famous for his earlier works about Salt and Cod, among other things, so when I saw this 2018 Bloomsbury Publishing nonfiction about Milk, I was interested. I was particularly interested to see what he would say about humans consuming milk after infancy, when approximately sixty percent of the world's human population appear to lose their tolerance for and ability to digest lactose. Europeans, Middle Easterners, North Africans and some of the Indian subcontinent appear to lack a gene which shuts off production of lactase--an intestinally-controlled enzyme which digests lactose present in all milk.

In 2006 Cornell University's T. Colin Campbell published his thirty-year study on the eating habits of Chinese people called The China Study. The findings of Campbell's study blew me away, one of which was that consumption of milk products can cause osteoporosis in adults, a finding exactly opposite to what we have been told here in America. Kurlansky does not mention this startling information, sadly. But Campbell's study made me look closely at where the promotion of milk products was coming from—the industry itself, and lobbyists targeting government scientists, commercial attachés, and spokespeople.

Kurlanksy does remark on lactose intolerance briefly at the beginning and again in the section on China. He indicates that while there is a growing tolerance for dairy products gradually in China among the wealthier and more worldly citizens, it fights with the notion that the Chinese are genetically lactose intolerant. It may be that livestock was discouraged in a country which needed all possible land for food production, and that reintroducing dairy stimulates the production of lactase.

Kurlansky mostly elucidates the uses of milk in the part of the world that uses it daily, giving recipes that have survived the ages, showing some changes in those recipes over time. And certainly coincidentally but with a weird synchronicity he discusses breast-feeding throughout the world and throughout history. Breastfeeding has come and gone in popularity, with scientists in the past forty years generally concluding that until clean water and sterile bottles and low pricing for formula could be achieved throughout the world, perhaps breast milk was superior to any industrial formula.

It is now de rigueur to pump breast milk, offering convenience and nutrition. Pumping breast milk induces lactating mothers to produce more than they need, which has led to an oversupply. Some entrepreneurs have endeavored to sell soap made with breast milk; those selling breast milk ice cream in London found they couldn’t keep up with demand. Some sell breast milk on the internet to athletes who believe it makes them stronger. Some people buy it when they are ill, believing it has medicinal qualities. Some testing internet purchases found 10% of the time cow’s milk was mixed in, while 75% was contaminated with bacteria and/or pathogens.

It turns out that yogurt made from yak milk makes that made from cow’s milk seem boring and tasteless due to the high percentage of fat in yak’s milk. Consumption of milk in the United States has declined almost 40% since the 1970s, and now large scale industrial farming is the key to survival of the industry. At the end, Kurlansky takes another quick trip around the world to look at how dairy farms manage and what problems they are encountering now, including some of the profit calculations small producers are making.

Kurlanky is a wonderful writer of nonfiction who manages to take on big subjects and make them intelligible to the non-specialist. If you are looking for specific information, this book may simply be too diffuse, but Kurlansky is a wonderful host for a general reader.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Kurlansky. He's probably the most famous writer of microhistories currently, a genre I adore. Microhistories he's written include "Salt" and "Paper", books on oysters and cod, a history of just the year 1968 or the song “Dancing in the Street". You get the idea.

In this book, he takes on milk. Or, well, not only milk; Kurlansky also covers butter, cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and all the other things that can be made out of milk. It's not just cows' milk either! He includes recipes that use the milk of sheeps, goats, horses, donkeys, camels, and yaks. There's even a lot of discussion of human milk – is it better to breastfeed or to use formula? And what is the history of that debate? How does one choose a wet nurse? What about grass fed cows vs cows given fodder? Pasteurized milk vs raw? Is milk a health food? Kurlansky doesn't take a position on any of these debates or try to prove one side right with evidence; he's simply interested in how the same questions have been asked over and over again throughout history, with the pendulum frequently swinging back and forth between the same positions over the centuries.

All of this probably sounds very interesting, and indeed I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately I didn't. Kurlansky includes many recipes (126 of them, he says on the opening page), which means that many of the chapters devolve into listing one recipe after another with barely any discussion between them. Even if I wanted to try making them (a feat often barely possible, since recipes before the 1600s rarely bother to include amounts, times, or temperature), it doesn't make for interesting reading. I especially don't want multiple recipes for junkets, syllabubs, phirni, kalakand, etc, when I don't even know what those things are. Lists of ingredients are even more uninteresting than usual when you can't picture what the final product is supposed to be. I wish Kurlansky had included fewer recipes and instead spent more time on each one: a description of what the dish would look and taste like, how it functioned in the society of its time and place (is this an everyday meal? something fancy? something for breakfast, or for dinner?), and when and why it came into or out of popularity.

Kurlanksy also seems to assume a certain level of milk-knowledge from his readers that, personally, I simply don't have. I vaguely know cream is fattier than milk, but how one gets cream or what its exact definition is, I have no idea. Same for whey (Miss Muffet ate it?), curds, buttermilk, or how churning milk actually turns it into butter. After reading Milk!, I know not a single thing more about these topics than I did before, despite Kurlansky using these terms frequently. For example, he repeatedly insists that skyr (the Icelandic product that's recently become popular in the US) is not technically a yogurt but a soft fresh cheese. That's cool trivia to know, I guess, but what I'm really curious about is why. What separates yogurt and cheese? Is the line between them strict, or does one fade into the other? Is it based on method of production, taste, ingredients, something else? I could google these answers, of course, but if I'm reading a book for fun, I'd like not to have to turn to a different source just to understand what I'm reading. I wanted to learn about milk, but Milk! is just not interested in providing these sorts of basic facts.

Finally, Kurlanksy includes at least one blatant mistake: Was the first milking animal a goat, as goat enthusiasts always claim? Or was it a gazelle, the wild ancestor of goats? This is possible, but gazelle farming would have been difficult unless they were soon domesticated into goats. I try not to be overly critical when non-archaeologists make mistakes about archaeology, because I feel like it's an intensely difficult subject to make your way into without being a specialist, but c'mon, surely this is obviously nonsense? Even if one is not an archaeologist of early farming or a biologist, isn't it self-evident that gazelles and goats are not the same species, and no magic process is going to turn a gazelle into a goat? They're not even in the same genus! They don't even look alike! (Not that 'looking alike' is a reliable way of telling what is or isn't the same species, but wouldn't that send up warning signals in your subconscious?) Also the fact that it occured on page 13 may have prejudiced me against the rest of the book.

Anyway, a fascinating topic, but unfortunately not a good book.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

To paraphrase an old joke, Now I know what milk looks like.

"Milk!" contains many interesting factoids and is well-researched with lots of references on important topics, e.g. "the milk question." Inexplicably however, a huge chunk of the book is taken up by historical recipes, and the text just rambles along in circles without a clear theme. In comparison with Kurlansky's best, it is very disappointing.

[Mich Must Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for this ARC.

We luxuriate in the richness of yummy butter, or at least I do. There is nothing more delicious to me than a simple croissant, flaky dough that has been laboriously layered with butter, and a cup of coffee. But apparently in certain cultures, I would be called a “butter stinker”. It’s these little tid-bits that I enjoyed in Milk. Milk is a social history that ignites a thoughtful conversation for such a simple product. It follows the human ingenuity of sustenance and cultural arguments of use or disdain in all things related to milk.

Every aspect of milk is discussed: Uses, symbolism, cultural preferences and norms. There are 126 recipes, although they are not in the sense that I was thinking. Some are not in recipe form, but often in parenthetical quotings on cheese making, or what have you. The recipes towards the end of the book sound really delicious, but some of these parenthetical ones in the rest of the book can get a little tedious. However, it is quickly dispelled with lovely confectionery journeys like Italian Ice Cream in France, and then later the U.S., to lead us to African American Ice cream parlors in Philadelphia. By the by, I would love to see a book about just these Ice cream parlors in particular or the ice cream goddess Agnes Marshall Somebody get on that.

The religious symbolism was of the most interest to me. I was completely in the dark for a lot of this. Particularly the Christian symbolism and the changes as time progressed. For example, how the milk of the Virgin Mary might be bestowed on the blessed, or the ceremonial blood of Christ was originally milk. Also, the religious morality regarding breastfeeding was interesting.
The technology of keeping milk and the problems that arise are discussed as well as the later industrial changes in the milk industry. Refrigeration, canning, milk bottles, formula, condensed milk, pasteurization, milking machines, etc. are all mentioned.

This is the kind of book that is easily digestible. Milk is great for someone that is looking for an entry level book into history or non-fiction reading, but not boring to the more advanced reader. There is an immense amount information in Milk that is touched upon and woven together. I would love more detail on some of these topics and I think this is a good springboard for a curious reader.
On an odd note: I like milk, but as I was reading this I craved milk products more than normal. I went out of my way to find a local dairy that made fresh dairy products. I also craved ridiculous, fancy ice cream. And so, I blame this book for the extra cardio I had to endure.
michmustread.com

[John Devlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might've given this one star.
But it’s my fault. Read a book about a topic I’m vaguely interested in…hey, I like milk I’m thinking and this book does deliver.

The history of breastfeeding, and animal milk, and the dairy industry and how all these cultures have used milk…it’s all there.

But then there’s the recipes…I don’t need to read a recipe on English fudge…and there’s lots of recipes—An obvious way to pad a slim volume.

What was going to be the clincher for a one star review was his preaching to the Woke. There’s a dozen references to sexism and the plight of women, and then the anecdote about Gandhi and meeting “racist Churchill”

Really? Did the author of a book on Milk needed to editorialize about the most impactful man of the 20th century in that way? And btw Gandhi was quite the racist himself. Read about what he thought of Africans form his long sojourn in South Africa.

The last fifty pages though are a well balanced take on the realities of dairy and gmo’s and some clear insights on how capitalism works…so wheezing, pulling on the edge of the two stars the Milk author got there.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley

I have to have milk with breakfast unless I am getting breakfast at work. But at home, a glass milk, cold milk, and then coffee. I need that nice cool glass of milk.

But I didn’t know much about milk until I read this book.

Kurlansky’s book is a tour of milk in history, but also a tour of yogurt, cheese, and ice cream.

And it has recipes!

Kurlansky starts with ancient history, exploring when milking first developed as well as pointing out that being lactose intolerant is actually the biological norm and those of us who aren’t are freaks. He also notes the belief that where the milk came from was important – in short, there was a reason why Zeus couldn’t keep it in his tunic. There are interesting discussions about whether milk was a meat and why butter stinker is an insult.

I also learned that aurochsen is the correct plural for more than one auroch.

The book doesn’t just focus on Europe and America. In fact, Asia (and not just India) gets much attention. Perhaps the Southern hemisphere doesn’t get as much attention, though Australia gets covered.

What is most interesting is how Kurlansky shows how certain debates keep recurring, for instance breast-feeding, which he links to the idea of men trying to control women’s bodies. This makes sense when you think about it, not only in terms of child rearing but also in terms of what a woman can do. The bit about the sexy milkmaid also makes sense too, come to think of it.

There are few weak points in the book. The one that sticks out the most are the cow illustrations. Now, look, the illustrations are far, far better than what I could do, but in general even though the drawings are of different breeds of cows, the illustrations are pretty interchangeable. Still, far better than what I could do.

The other weak part is the almost lack of science. But this seems to be because different studies contradict each other. Yet, one did want a little more scientific fact, if possible, about the contradicting claims. To be fair, Kurlansky is brutally honest about how a dairy farm works.

These flaws aside, the book is charming. You can learn all sorts of facts about ice cream, milk, and ice cream.

Did I say ice cream twice?

For instance, the inventor of the hand cranked ice cream maker (Nancy Johnson) and the where the soda fountain was invented, and the fact that Philadelphia is “a city that liked to brand its food”. The focus on ice cream is more on the idea and popularity, with more detail given to smaller businesses than bigger ones such Breyers.

I haven’t tried any of the recipes, though many of them do look quite good and yummy.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m the kind of person who likes to make everything in my life about reading--including food. When I come across an unfamiliar food mentioned in a book, or online, I’m likely to Google it, learn the etymology, find out where it’s from and when it was most popular in history, and, most importantly, make it for myself. Things like Welsh rarebit (mentioned in this book) or marrons glaces (I spent 3 days making them because they were mentioned in one of Proust’s novels). I’m the only vegetarian in my family and have been since I was a tiny tot, so I’ve been cooking my own meals since I was about ten, and bookish ten-year-olds are fanciful, dreamy-headed things.

Which is why I love books like this! Ones that not only provide fascinating facts about food, but which also trace the historical context and even provides recipes which say so much about daily life at the time of their writing.

Although not as personally involved in his stories as, say, our Lord and Saviour Michael Pollan, Kurlansky still has a way of subtly putting his personality in the story. For instance, “Markham emphasized cleanliness. But as often happens when men lectured women, the subject of hygiene got jumbled up with the urge to judge women.” I like that. I don't like when writers are too detached; I like to get to know my writers a little. So that’s nice.

I also appreciate the fact that this book was global, not limited to American or European histories of milk.

Fast fun facts:

>> Modern cows are descended from aurochsen (singular "aurochs"), a wild species--but most interestingly, the last aurochs only died, not in prehistoric times, but in the 1600s!

>> Almond milk was popular in the Middle Ages.

>> “Jean-Jacques Rousseau, after abandoning five children to orphanages, expressed strong opinions on appropriate child-rearing and denounced wet nursing.” I love the dry humor.

>> “In London, milk vendors, who were women, famously cried out, “Miow,” which meant “Milk below.” I WANT TO BE A MILK VENDOR NOW.

>> Punch comes from the Sanskrit word for “five” (i.e. five ingredients).

[Bon Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible richness of fascinating details.
Many of the recipes make me want to try them, the others are there to raise the wonder and mystique about past times.

I would have preferred if the book took clearer stance about consuming unadulterated raw milk, which it doesn't. It simply lists pros and cons, with what I consider outdated "facts" about dangers of fat.

It would be 5 stars book if not for totally misplaced and very strange input of feminist viewpoints, even propaganda. Since the book is written by a man, I assume it was just copy pasted from somewhere without any critical reasoning. Which almost makes it even worse.

What is it doing in book like this, you wonder? Me too.

[Iryna Chernyshova]

Цікаво про набіл, економіку і усілякі історичні факти з ним повʼязані.

[Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an ok read. The first half or so was difficult to slog through because of formatting. Kurlansky includes a ridiculous number of recipes in the early chapters, and while recipes are certainly important to food history, they were poorly integrated. The text was choppy and topics jumped wildly between some paragraphs. The later half of the book was much better—but there were no recipes there. Interesting topic, but not as well put together as his other work. Also not entirely sure what was up with the sub-par pencil drawings of cows.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

The weakest of Kurlansky's books that I have read. Little coherence, way too many recipes, and no overarching themes or arguments. There were a few interesting tidbit but hose could be reduced to thirty pages or so.

[Lee Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this book is about milk in human history. It also necessarily discusses milk products: cheese, ice cream, yogurt, custards; since I have a nearly pathological love for cheese, I was quite engrossed in this book from the beginning. It also served somewhat as an enabler of my cheese abuse, since it is quite difficult to curtail a craving for fermented curd without indulging in the consumption of cheesy comestibles.

While it deals mostly with cows, there’s also lots of discussion about goats and sheep, with occasional mentions of other milks: buffalo, camel, yak (which is apparently quite good), donkey, even horse milk. The consumption of milk has ever been controversial, even in ancient times, and the topics for debate seem endless: what animal provides the most nutritious milk? Should adult humans drink milk at all? If so, should it be hot or cold? How fresh should the milk be in order to be considered safe? Must milk be pasteurized, or is only raw milk truly healthy? What about animal welfare? What about hormones? Antibiotics? What should cows eat, anyway?

And we haven’t even begun to discuss breastfeeding, a practice that falls in and out of favor so frequently that there are contradictory accounts about its benefits versus bottle-feeding (i.e., using either a mixture of animal milks and/or formula, depending on the time period) dating back to antiquity. In short: if you want to know what the prevailing wisdom about breastfeeding happens to be in any era, examine what the poor women of society would do, then assume that the opposite action is considered to be superior. Wet nurses were another matter altogether.

There’s so many fascinating tidbits of trivia in this book that I will probably need to re-read it in ten years after I have forgotten most of it. Consider this: before the milkman existed, some large cities had farmers provide door-to-door milk delivery directly from the cow. Or how about this: President Richard Nixon hated cottage cheese, though he ate it “till it [ran] out of [his] ears” because he felt it helped keep his weight down. To make it palatable for him, he ate it with ketchup because “At least that way it doesn’t taste like cottage cheese.”

Fidel Castro loved cheese to epic proportions. When the U.S. trade embargo cut off his supply of milk, he cannily used Soviet subsidies to support the creation of Cuban dairying. Having imported thousands of cows from Canada, he attempted to create a breed that would thrive in his torrid Tropical climate. While this was not hugely successful (over one-third of the original cows perished within a few weeks), he was not stymied: he decided Cuba - even though France still existed - could make the best Camembert in the world. He once attempted to get a visiting Frenchman named André Voisin to proclaim the excellence of his Camembert; while the visitor declared the cheese to be of high quality, Mr. Castro would not leave him alone until Mr. Voisin demanded if Mr. Castro supposed that France could make a better cigar.

I also never knew that Häagen-Dazs was created in the United States; in fact, that was the whole point of the name:

“...a few entrepreneurs realized that there was a market for higher quality ice cream in small containers at high prices. In 1961 Rose Mattus and her husband, Reuben, developed such a brand and called it Häagen-Dazs. The success of this brand name proves that Americans like their food to have foreign names - the way they will use coriander only when it is called cilantro and the way sherbet has made a come-back under the name ‘sorbet.’ The Mattuses intended ‘Häagen-Dazs’ to sound Danish, though there is no umlaut in Danish. But if you wanted a word to look foreign, what could be better than an umlaut?” p. 143

He later goes on to mention that Häagen-Dazs is now popular in China, “dubious umlaut and all…” p. 250.

I have decided that when I start my Post-Industrial German Punk Metal Band, we will call ourselves Dubious Umlaut.

The author clearly had a lot of fun writing this book, and it is an entertaining read, dubious umlauts and all.

[Perri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read both Salt and Cod by this author and enjoyed them very much. This one not so very much. The long running controversy about drinking a product intended for baby calves, lambs and kids was the most interesting part. There's also dairy's long stretching history and varied use by cultures. And recipes soooo many recipes-it felt like half the book. But the biggest problem was feeling bored by mid read. It's too bad because I do love milk-the drink not the book.

[Mike Cross · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is pure pulp non-fiction. It seems that the author just grabbed every fact and story about milk he could and loosely organized them into chapters. Very little if any depth on any topic. You could pick the book up from any page and start reading without missing anything. Very disappointing given the potential of the subject.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disappointing. Sure, reading another book on a single subject was a hoot. But I do expect more from this author. And for that matter on any book. The idea is to find the story in the history and not just dump everything you can on the subject. So no, I didn't appreciate almost any of the recipes for making cheese or milk products from the last 100 years. There were also bits of the history of cheese and milk production and that I did like. So this was basically okay. But a slow-ish read.

[TMac · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a disappointment. I didn't learn much, the recipes were too many and not of any interest to try. Some of the "facts" seemed questionable but the book content was so uninspiring I didn't even research anything on my own.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fire your editor.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milk through the ages and across the world. I had no doubt this would be interesting and it was. I always love books about basic things in our lives because it always turns out to be more interesting than a person might think at first glance.

I grew up drinking milk and plenty of it. When I was little, I used to spend summers at my grandpa’s dairy farm in the interior of British Columbia. (Canada’s westernmost province. Mountainous and beautiful.) When my mom was a kid, the family immigrated from the Netherlands so that my grandfather could get his own farm. I’ll never forget getting underfoot at the barn during milking time and watching the silky white liquid pour into that huge, super clean stainless-steel tank. All that in a gorgeous postcard-worthy setting. I feel privileged. You can’t buy memories like that.

The story of milk is every bit as epic as I imagined it would be and it’s well told in this book. I found the recipes a bit of a slog, but otherwise, I have no complaints.

Books like this are always worth my time.

[Talia Scibetta · Rating 2 out of 5]

My biggest issue with this book was that it was extremely disorganized in topics. Also I think I don’t like world history that much and prefer reading about the U.S. history side of it as well as the science of recalls and environmental issues. Other than that I learned a lot of interesting things.

Like how:
Organic milk can’t ever also be Humane Certified because organic requirements restrict use of any antibiotics in the animal’s life even after it has been passed out of its system. So these farms either have them killed, sell them off to nonorganic farms, or separate them from the organic herd indefinitely.

[Dree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to netgalley for providing me with a Kindle edition galley of this book.

I have read Kurlansky's Salt: A World History, and actually enjoyed this one much more. Not surprisingly, he uses a similar writing style. Much more of this book, however, focuses on post-1800 history, and on the US. Few cultures really drank milk before the 19th century, and most milk went to cheese and yogurt on a small-scale local basis.

I have also read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, but had no idea there was a similar scandal involving milk in the 19th century US. Breweries often had attached dairies, and the cows were fed the grain byproducts of brewing. But this milk was cheap for a reason—the bluish cast and nickname of "swill milk" showed that the public knew it was not the best. They did not, however, know how sick the cows often were and how bad the milk therefor was for them (and especially their children). I was also somewhat familiar with other milk scandals in this book: the Nestle formula scandal in the 1970s, and the adulterated milk scandal in China c2000.

So this book was fascinating and easy to read. Perhaps because I read a galley, there were also some errors that jumped out at me--interestingly, they were also all near the end of the book.
• at 92% "Alfalfa ...is a leading high-protein grain for milk-producing cows." Alfalfa is not a grain, it is a legume.
• at 88% "The most traditional dairy states, New England and New York..." New England is not a state LOL!

And this one, while not an error, could only have been written by someone who has never breastfed:
• at 86% "Breast pumping...[frees] mothers from the burden of breast-feeding." OMG! Pumping is sooo much more of a "burden". The cleaning your pump parts, the remembering all the parts, the bottles, the ice packs (and keeping them frozen!), the finding a place and the time to pump, to having extra batteries if you can't use a plug, to repackaging the milk at home (and having the supplies), to dating, and freezing, and cycling the frozen milk. It is a PAIN IN THE ASS and takes a lot of mental energy. A lot more mental energy than breastfeeding does.

[Lance L · Rating 1 out of 5]

"... a book with 126 recipes..."

Almost stream of consciousness rambling broken occasionally by repeated recitations of centuries or millennia old “recipes” which only serve to encrenulate the monotony. I loved Cod. I really liked Salt. I thought Paper was sort of phoned in. This book feels more like it was cut and pasted and forwarded in by tweet.

Full disclosure - could not take it any more. Quit after 4 chapters.

[Natalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Kurlansky is one of the best writers of social/anthropological history, and Milk! continues his success. The history of milk is fascinating and Kurlansky makes it accessible to the public without it being too dry, from the modern dairy industry to different uses of milk around the world. There are some interesting recipes too!

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for an advanced copy of this book.

[irem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book did a really good job of approaching the subject of milk from all the different standpoints based on its different aspects. It seemed very well researched too. I listened to this on audiobook. Enjoyment wise, I was really interested by the first 15 minutes, bored by the following couple hours and then really enjoying it again. Considering it was longer than 12 and a half hours I think that’s pretty good. Especially for a nonfiction book. As I am in no way a cook I found it hard to follow the recipes and often found myself zoning out during them. I enjoyed reading about the scientific advancements, public opinion changes and the controversies more. Not to say the recipes were bad or shouldn’t have been included. They were still interesting. My biggest critisizm of the book is that I think it focused too much on Europe and North America. Considering the title of the book I would have liked it to be more diverse.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed all of the books by Kurlansky that I have read, and Milk is one more. Kurlansky adds interesting recipes to augment the history of his topic, and the recipes in Milk are definitely interesting. It is funny to see that the health benefits and negatives have been argued about for mellennia, and probably will be for the next. This is a good book, good bibliography, and over 100 recipes. Check it out.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you know that feeling of trying to find a video analysis of a book and clicking on a video promising to be an analysis only to find that it is in fact a summary of the plot? Well. I often find myself wondering why Kurlansky enjoys parroting comments made by men circa 1867 and it makes me question how much of this has been verified by him and how much of it is just quoting the sources without further thought.

[Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and solid read. I do think there were a few too many recipes and more time could have been devoted to discussing the culture/history around those recipes instead of just listing all of them out. Overall, it's written in an enjoyable style, and I like the concept of 'micro-history.' I just wish it had been organized a bit better and cut down on the recipes.