Stirring the Cauldron

New Moon Newsletters from Jessica Prentice

New Milk Moon

May moondark kitchen notes
from Jessica Prentice

The Moon is New! And aren't we all ready for a bit of a fresh start? We are moving into the lunar month of the Milk Moon -- a thought which makes me smile because I am an unabashed lover of milk and all things dairy. But before I dive into an homage to milk, I want to let those of you in the Bay Area know that I will be teaching a cooking class at Crissy Field Center on Sunday June 1st: Everyday Cooking from the Farmers Market. The class will be from 10am to 1pm and costs $25. You can register by calling (415) 561-7752. I would love to see you there.

This first day of the Milk Moon also happens to be Beltane -- May Day -- the first day of Summer in the old Celtic calendar. Beltane was the day when people left their winter homes and drove their herds up onto summer pasture, so it is only fitting that it should correspond to the Milk Moon. According to tradition, the sheep would go first, followed by the cattle in order of their ages, then the goats, and finally the horses. There is nothing that pulls at my heartstrings like the image of animals on open pasture, high up in the hills.

As a child, my favorite book was Heidi, Johanna Spyri's lovely story of a young orphan sent to live on a mountainside in the Alps with her cranky but devoted grandfather, the "Alm-Uncle." Her grandfather makes her a little three-legged stool and a bed of hay in a loft. Heidi spends her days following her friend Peter the goatherd up high into the mountains where they keep watch over the village goats whilst frolicking among the wildflowers. Each day they eat their lunch of rye bread, homemade cheese, and fresh goat's milk.

It is a vision that was endlessly romantic to me as a child, and I reread the book recently as an adult and was completely re-enchanted. I was also very interested to read between the lines of the story and find so much culinary healing wisdom. The story is really a paean to the healing powers of milk and of a traditional, rugged way of life.

Although Heidi is happy with her grandfather, she is taken away to the city to be a companion to the disabled daughter of a wealthy urban businessman. Heidi is ever-cheerful and a good companion to Klara, but is so homesick that she begins sleepwalking. Eventually Heidi is returned home to the Alps and her grandfather. Not long afterward, when it is decided that the country air might do her good, Klara is sent to the country to visit her. She has to be carried up the mountain in her wheelchair, and lifted up into the hayloft at bedtime. The grandfather puts her on a healing regimen of milk from one of his two goats. He feeds this goat special herbs and all her milk is given to Klara -- who drinks bowl after foaming bowl of it -- raw, of course. After a number of weeks of this healing food, Klara is able to walk for the first time in her life.

Perhaps it was my love of this story as a child that kept me always skeptical of the many accusations I heard about milk and dairy products over the years. I experimented with veganism for a while, won over briefly to the notion that dairy was, after all, a bad thing. But I hated it. Cream, yogurt, butter, cheese, and milk -- these are among my very favorite things. I was sulky without them. Soy milk always tasted chalky and fake to me, and too sweet. Rice milk was thin, like anemic milk, with unpleasant overtones. Almond milk was kind of tasty, but it tasted like almonds, not like milk. Soy 'cheezes' tasted like the rubbery imitations that they are; and I'd rather have my toast dry than spread it with margarine, which is awful. I am always amused when someone hands me one of these knock-offs and professes that it tastes 'actually pretty good.' I can never concur. I always wonder what kind of brainwashing (tastebudwashing?) it must take to make someone think that a soy cheeze tastes 'pretty good.'

But I can see why they have garnered a following. The conventional dairy industry is a disaster. Veganism and the yucky fake-dairy products seem preferable to miserable cows and over-processed milk. Heidi, those free goats munching on wild herbs, the healing milk -- these are things of the past, we assume, or fictional things. Things of another time and place, another planet almost... a distant memory nearly forgotten.

But when I was in Switzerland two years ago, I took a hike in the Alps. Climbing over a small incline, I heard the gentle ringing of bells break through the vast quiet. And then I saw them -- a herd of cows munching on grass, the large bells around their necks clanging as they chewed their cud... I was crying. I was ecstatic. I was home. But we climbed up higher, and saw a small herd of goats making their way over a crag. After a long and sometimes frightening hike along a high ridge, we descended the mountain, and ordered a drink at a little cafe. Sitting there we heard the clanging of bells again, far off, then closer. Looking up into the sunset, we saw that first herd of cows returning to the farmhouse after their day up the mountain. We sat and watched the cows come home. The cowherd and his dog followed, making sure none ran astray. The cowherd was on a motorbike, but other than that, it could have been a hundred years ago. The ranch hung a sign out that read, 'lait cru' -- 'raw milk.'

I have never quite understood the argument against milk that asserts that because humans are the only species that drinks milk after weaning, somehow it isn't a 'natural' food. Those of you who saw the movie MicroCosmos about the fascinating world of insects may remember an amazing scene featuring ants and aphids. After the movie, I inquired about what was going on in that scene, and was informed that ants do something that could be described as 'keeping herds' of aphids, and 'milking' them. A kind of entomological ranching. But I don't see anyone pointing to ants and saying, "well, they're the only species that milks aphids so they should stop..." It would be ludicrous.

The way I look at it, humans evolved over thousands of years in relation to other species on the planet, including dairy animals, honey bees, and many others. We are not the only species who will drink milk after adulthood (my dog and countless cats are proof of that), just the only species that developed the skill and practice of keeping dairy animals and milking them.

Then comes the argument that the ability to digest milk is a genetic mutation. But unlike other genetic mutations such as eye-color, hair-color, or skin-color, the ability to digest milk is somehow unnatural. Not far around the bend from this argument is the notion that dairy products are inextricably tied to Europeans and European history and that milk is somehow a colonial or even racist food. I'm not kidding -- I read an article that made this argument. Yes, Heidi was European and her very local and indigenous diet of milk, cheese and dark rye bread was a part of that cultural heritage. But dairy products are a part of indigenous foodways in many places around the world -- among those peoples that had access to dairy animals and a climate and landscape conducive to grazing. Yak dairy, especially butter, is a critical part of the Tibetan diet high in the Himalayas. The famed Masai warriors of Africa lived largely on raw milk and blood from their cows. Cultures in the South Asian subcontinent such as India use dairy products liberally, especially in the form of yogurt and ghee (clarified butter). Bri Maya Tiwari, who grew up in an Indian community in British Guiana, writes beautifully of the milk of her childhood:

To portray milk as an oppressive 'white man's food' is to completely misrepresent reality. The true culprits of culinary colonialism are white sugar, white flour, and 'soft drinks.' These foods have invaded and colonized the diets of people around the world. They are the foods we should be worrying about, not milk.

There are of course those who have trouble digesting dairy products, and others who are very allergic to them. Some people will die if they eat peanuts, and others, shellfish. I can't eat mangoes without getting violently ill. This doesn't mean that peanuts, shellfish, and mangoes are bad foods. The well-publicized problem of 'lactose intolerance' seems to me to be a combination of factors: natural patterns of allergies; the genetic evolution of certain peoples that did not have dairy in their native diet; the heavy use of chemicals and hormones in modern milk production; and the widespread pasteurization of milk, which kills bacteria but also enzymes which help us to digest lactose.

We have abused milk, both in production and in processing, tainting its goodness. Then we reject it as being unhealthy. This strikes me a bit like a husband hitting his wife, and then rejecting her because her face is bruised. If milk has become unhealthy, it is because of what we have done to it and the animals who produce it. But the milk of Heidi's Alpine village helped make Klara strong enough to walk; and the milk of Maya's tropical childhood was an Ayurvedic healing food.

The worlds of Heidi and Maya seem very far away -- as far away as the Celtic Beltane pilgrimage to pastureland. But they aren't as far as we think. I seek out dairy products from small farms; from herds of cows, goats and sheep that are managed humanely and without hormones or the prophylactic use of antibiotics; and from herds that get to eat green growing grass at least part of the year. Doing this brings me closer to that world of my childhood dreams. It is not the dairy products you find in most chain grocery stores, but it is out there (click for local resources). And I feel a growing movement, a growing demand, for rich, full-fat dairy from pasture-fed animals. As the myth of soy-as-panacea gets debunked (click for more info), and the dangers of trans fats in foods such as margarine are finally proclaimed in our daily newspapers, those of us who always thought that fake cheeze was just another processed imitation product can sit back and enjoy our bread spread thick with butter or creamy chevre. We can give thanks for that most feminine and nurturing of foods -- symbol of a mother's love -- milk (more on milk: realmilk.com).

Let yourself be nurtured and fed with goodness, Happy Milk Moon, and Happy Beltane. An easy recipe follows. It will help to revive our collective memory of the land of milk and honey.

Moon-time Milk with Honey and Vanilla

• whole milk from pasture-fed cows or goats (or sheep, or yaks!), preferably raw
• a dash of vanilla extract
• raw unfiltered honey

Warm milk and vanilla over low heat in a small pan. When it is barely hot (but not too hot to keep your fingertip in), pour into warmed cups. Stir a little honey (to taste) into each cup. Drink by the light of the milk moon, in bed, and then dream of a better world.