2019-09-01 Reader\'s Digest

About 5,000 years ago, a wandering
group of you noticed another way I go
from perishable liquid to a more long-
lasting solid. Shepherds transporting
me from field to home would open the
bags in which they carried their milk
and discover me curdling. There was
something about those bags, made
from the stomachs of sheep and goats,
at work: The stomachs contained an
enzyme called rennet, which helps
young animals digest their mothers’
milk. Thus began the epic food tra-
dition of making cheese. To this day,
rennet from calf stomachs is still used
to make many cheeses, including
Parmesan, Gruyère, and manchego—
which means that your vegetarian
friends would do well to check before
eating them.
Time-tested as I am, Americans have
been drinking less and less cow’s milk
since the ’70s. Over the past five years,
the market shrank by more than $1 bil-
lion, while sales of soy, almond, and
other nondairy “milks” grew. This was
apparently threatening enough that
the National Milk Producers Federa-
tion started taking issue with the use of
my name—milk—to describe anything
plant-based. I’m not totally sure what

the fuss is about, though, since I’m

fairly certain no one is confused about

whether an almond has nipples.

(Speaking of nipples: Platypuses,

those furry, duck-billed mammals,

don’t have them, so they secrete milk

through their skin, where it gathers in

creases and folds, like sweat, for their

young to lap up. Scientists think that

mammary glands are just adapted

sweat or sebaceous glands and that

platypus moms operate the way an-

cient milk-producing protomammals

might have.)

Almonds and platypuses aside, the

cattle should perhaps worry: As cow’s

milk sales continue to decline, America

has increasingly shown interest in the

ruminant that dominates the rest of the

milk-drinking world: the goat. Excel-

lent as fresh cheese, a bit gentler than

cow’s milk on a lactose-sensitive stom-

ach, and often a main ingredient in the

recently popular drinkable yogurt ke-

fir, goat milk is trendy. In other words,

what’s centuries old is new again.

Kate Lowenstein is a health editor

currently at Vice; Daniel Gritzer is the

culinary director of the cooking site

Serious Eats.

Professional Logic

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen are

defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted,

musicians denoted, and cowboys deranged?

virginia ostman

rd.com 35

I Am the Food on Your Plate