I have read Salt and Cod and enjoyed them both but I felt that his book concentrated too much on the recipes provided and not enough of a story to keep me entertained. I am never going to make any of these recipes so fewer would have been nice.

Very entertaining history of milk (and dairy in general). Very readable, not at all dry or pedantic. Seemed very well researched, with an extensive bibliography. Poorly cited, though, since the author chose not to do footnotes. While I understand this was probably in the interests of keeping the book accessible for the general reading public, I found that to be a flaw. A bibliography isn't enough for me in a book of this nature -- I like to know where exactly where a particular claim or quote or fact comes from. That's what footnotes are for. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anybody who enjoys a good pop history.

This review was based on an ARC ebook received by the publisher in return for an honest, unbiased review.

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.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2312119909

I was given an advanced copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really like this kind of micro history that focuses on a single event or single topic, in this case the history of Milk. This book is a nice mix of history and historic and modern recipes so it's a bit different than some of single topic books but I really enjoyed it. The detailed uses for milk (and all dairy) across cultures, through history, is fascinating and it's interesting to see how the recipes changed/were refined over the years. It's an easy, entertaining and educational read.

There's a great deal of information on raw milk, historic adulteration of milk, as well as some really fascinating sections on the impact of formula in developing countries along with a deep dive into dairy consumption in China in modern times.

I'd recommend this to cooks, history buffs and anyone who finds this type of book as fascinating as I do.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2263527511

I have enjoyed Kurlansky's earlier food explorations, Salt and Cod. Like those books, he takes a deep dive into the history of a single subject, this time milk. While overall enjoyable and informative, this book was less successful to me for a couple of reasons. First, there were some stretches where there was, necessarily, some repeating of information (different cultures develop the same ideas, in this case yogurt, cheese, but at different times or slightly different ways) and the inclusion of a LOT of recipes.

I love dairy anything! Milk, cheese, butter, yogurts, kefir, fermented.... But I never knew how interesting a subject it could be! I enjoyed this little trip through time about milk and the recipes are amazing! Just sorry the book didn't cover fermented milk... I thought it was a neat twist that us lactose tolerant folks might well be the odd ones out as most of the plant is intolerant of lactose. Never really gave it a thought until the author mentioned it! This was a fun read and I'd recommend it to anyone curious about the beverage.

Master of microhistory Kurlansky once more takes a ubiquitous part of our daily livings that we never cared to think too much about if at all, and provides more information about it than I thought was imaginable.

Admittedly there are moments where this book will drag a bit. Throughout the book Kurlansky will add in blocks of relevant recipes from throughout history, as he’s done before. However, in this particular work it feels like he goes a little overboard at times with these primary sources. I realize what he’s trying to go far, but nevertheless it nearly slows the entire read to a stop at a couple points.

But despite this quibble with book’s flow, “Milk” is still a very fun and very, very interesting read. Kurlansky leaves no stone unturned as he gives detailed coverage to milk, milk products and their development, and the unexpectedly diverse array of heated debates and disputes that have been a part of their long history. Which animal provides the best milk, raw milk vs pasteurized, breastfeeding vs formula feeding….these are a few of the ongoing topics that receive great coverage inside and out in this book. Who knew that dairy could be so fascinatingly controversial?

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.