On Food and Cooking

grapes, the nomadic Tartars even fermented
mare’s milk into lightly alcoholic koumiss,
which Marco Polo described as having “the
qualities and flavor of white wine.” In the
high country of Mongolia and Tibet, cow,
camel, and yak milk was churned to butter for
use as a high-energy staple food.
In semitropical India, most zebu and
buffalo milk was allowed to sour overnight
into a yogurt, then churned to yield buttermilk
and butter, which when clarified into ghee (p.
37) would keep for months. Some milk was
repeatedly boiled to keep it sweet, and then
preserved not with salt, but by the
combination of sugar and long, dehydrating
cooking (see box, p. 26).
The Mediterranean world of Greece and
Rome used economical olive oil rather than
butter, but esteemed cheese. The Roman Pliny
praised cheeses from distant provinces that
are now parts of France and Switzerland. And
indeed cheese making reached its zenith in