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About Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas
Product Description 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. According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But 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, originally as a source of cheese, yogurt, kefir, and all manner of edible innovations that rendered lactose digestible, and then, when genetic mutation made some of us lactose-tolerant, milk itself. Before the industrial revolution, 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.Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling and a 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. Review "Milk! A 10,000-Year Food Fracas is a feat of investigation, compilation and organization . . . Altogether a complex and rich survey, “Milk!” is a book well worth nursing." - Wall Street Journal"The sort of book that Proust might have written had Proust become distracted by the madeleine . . . you step away from this book with a new vantage on history, a working knowledge of exotic milk and cheese, acceptance of your mom, a sense of what makes Mark Kurlansky tick and a weird craving for buffalo mozzarella." - Editors' Choice, New York Times Book Review"[A] readable and almost unreasonably fascinating book." - The Times of London"Kurlansky’s entertaining, fast-paced history of milk exhibits his usual knack for plumbing the depths of a single subject . . . Kurlansky’s charming history brims with excellent stories and great details" - Publishers Weekly"Cod, salt, paper, oysters, 1968, and Havana―Kurlansky always picks a singular subject, then runs with it as he provides historical and cultural context. Here he examines our relationship to milk since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago. That relationship shifted with the Industrial Revolution, which meant out with the family cow and in with pasteurization and, eventually, food fights over industrial farming, animal rights, and GMOs. Pour a glass and get out the cookies before reading." - Library Journal’s Nonfiction Picks, May 2018"The author of Salt (2002) and Cod (1997) tackles another staple food in this chatty history of milk andsome of the many products made from it . . . Kurlansky's wide-ranging curiosity makes a familiar topic seem exotic." - Booklist"A wide-ranging history of a surprisingly controversial form of nourishment . . . Chock-full of fascinating details." - Kirkus"A fascinating and comprehensive book that will keep readers engaged and entertained . . . Will appeal to both foodies and readers of world history." - Library Journal"Fascinating . . . Every chapter of Milk! entrances with I-did-not-know-that facts and observations." - BookPage"As with Mark Kurlansky’s Cod and Salt, I wish I had written Milk! Never would I have thought that so elementary a liquid food had such an intriguing history, one that includes science, politics, economics, and gourmandize. A great read on a great subject!" - Mimi Sheraton"Mark Kurlansky, the best-
