SPOILED ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE ARTS AND TRADITIONS OF THE TABLE PERSPECTIVES ON CULINARY HISTORY Albert Sonnenfeld, Series Editor The Fulton Fish Market: A History, Jonathan H. Rees The Botany of Beer: An Illustrated Guide to More Than 500 Plants Used in Brewing, Giuseppe Caruso Gastronativism: Food, Identity, Politics, Fabio Parasecoli Epistenology: Wine as Experience, Nicola Perullo The Terroir of Whiskey: A Distiller’s Journey Into the Flavor of Place, Rob Arnold The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography, Brian R. Dott Meals Matter: A Radical Economics Through Gastronomy, Michael Symons Cook, Taste, Learn: How the Evolution of Science Transformed the Art of Cooking, Guy Crosby Garden Variety: The American Tomato from Corporate to Heirloom, John Hoenig Mouthfeel: How Texture Makes Taste, Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbæk, translated by Mariela Johansen Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey, Anne Mendelson Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food, Roger Horowitz Taste as Experience: The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Food, Nicola Perullo Another Person’s Poison: A History of Food Allergy, Matthew Smith Medieval Flavors: Food, Cooking, and the Table, Massimo Montanari, translated by Beth Archer Brombert For a complete list of books in the series, please see the Columbia University Press website. S P O I L E D The M Y T H of M I L K as S U P E R F O O D ANNE MENDELSON Columbia University Press New York Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2023 Anne Mendelson All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mendelson, Anne, author. Title: Spoiled : the myth of milk as superfood / Anne Mendelson. Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2023. | Series: Arts and traditions of the table | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022037361 | ISBN 9780231188180 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231547703 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Milk as food—History. | Milk consumption—History. | Milk—Pasteurization—History. | Advertising—Milk—History. | Milk—Health aspects. | Milk trade—Environmental aspects. Classification: LCC TX379 .M46 2023 | DDC 641.3/71—dc23/eng/20220922 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037361 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky Cover image: P Maxwell Photography/Shutterstock.com To the memory of my friend Nach Waxman: bibliophile, champion of good food and honest research, irreplaceable mensch. He took a lively interest in this project but did not live to see it completed. B CONTENTS Preface ix INTRODUCTION 1 1 MILK: SOME SCIENTIFIC INS AND OUTS 14 2 FROM THE CRADLE OF DAIRYING TO THE ENGLISH MANOR 31 3 THE RISE OF DRINKING-MILK 53 4 SETTING THE STAGE FOR PASTEURIZATION 70 5 PASTEURIZATION: THE GAME-CHANGING YEARS AND NATHAN STRAUS 104 VIII(cid:2)CONTENTS 6 SOUR MILK, BRIEFLY RETHOUGHT 140 7 MILK FOR THE MASSES: THE PRICE TO BE PAID 177 8 TECHNOLOGY IN OVERDRIVE I: THE ANIMALS 208 9 TECHNOLOGY IN OVERDRIVE II: THE MILK 241 10 REVIVING THE RAW MILK CAUSE 274 11 THE FUTURE 311 Acknowledgments 341 Notes 343 Select Bibliography 375 Index 385 PREFACE T his book never would have existed without the efforts of three distinguished editors. Elisabeth Sifton welcomed my proposal for a report on the state of the milk industry some forty years ago and we worked on it together for several years before I realized that I simply didn’t know enough to complete the massive survey I’d promised. Much later, Judith Jones skillfully saw me through a completely different project: a cookbook exploring the uses of fresh milk and dairy products, with a brief sketch of its route from the prehistoric Near East to today’s supermarket shelves. Most recently, Jennifer Crewe listened to some of the obstinate ideas that had grown on me since the cookbook was pub- lished and not only didn’t laugh them out of court but encouraged me to turn them into a book. Curiously, writing about milk from a cook’s perspective steered me to a historical puzzle that I could not have noticed otherwise. Eating and shopping in new immigrant communities of the Greater New York City area—Balkan, Turkish, Indian, Central Asian—I grasped, first, that their cuisines were linked by an intense devotion to yogurt under many names and in many culinary roles and, second, that their home countries con- tained some of the most ancient centers of dairying. To quote myself: Slowly it dawned on me that in simple fermented yogurt I was tast- ing something that might have been eaten or drunk by Old Testament