Episode 99: Milk Through the Ages

Is milk “nature’s perfect food”? This week on A Taste of the Past, Linda Pelaccio is joined by cookbook historian Anne Mendelson to debunk this myth. Anne is the author of Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, a cookbook and overview of milk’s history. Learn about milk’s volatile chemistry, the differences between different mammals’ milks, and Anne’s thoughts on the raw milk debate. Also, Anne explains the beginnings of the pasteurization and homogenization processes, and how it changed the lives of urban dwellers in the late 1800s. Hear about modern pasteurization processes, from small to large scale. This program has been brought to you by Cain Winery.

“It [milk] is intended to be supplied in one particularly way, and one alone…under those circumstances it is quite safe to drink, even if it’s raw. But if you divert it, if you interrupt that closed system… it changes as soon as you divert it into the outside world; you’ve already interrupted nature the moment you do that.”

“Raw milk’s sales allow farmers to sell directly to consumers without a middle man. And it’s one of the ways that farmers can sell their product for a price so that they can make a living.”

—Anne Mendelson on A Taste of the Past