Milk Read Online Free PDF Page B

primacy and the flowering of vegetarianism throughout India would have been impossible.
THE SOUL OF A GREAT CUISINE
    From prehistoric times, the swelteringIndian climate ensured that, as in theDiverse Sources Belt, milk would be more often used soured than fresh. But there are several critical differences. Not only Western-style agedcheeses but the fresh and brined cheeses of the earlier milking region are conspicuous by their absence from Indian tables. In fact, so are most dairy foods made from raw rather than cooked milk.
    Boiling milk after milking and before using it for most other purposes seems to be a very ancient Indianculinary tradition. It changes the milk’s receptiveness to different culturing organisms, discouraging those that would produce fresh cheese. (A second anticheese factor is that killing young animals forrennet would violate the principle of ahimsa.) But boiling makes milk all the more suitable foryogurt, which depends on having “thermophilic,” or heat-preferring,bacteria introduced at a temperature close to 110°F. Most of the favorite Indian dairy products start off with milk being boiled and allowed to cool until it reaches the right stage to be inoculated with a little of yesterday’s yogurt.
    You might not guess how thoroughly yogurt from both cows’ and buffaloes’ milk pervades the cuisine from the many Anglo-Indian books about food that insist on saying “curd” or “curds” for indigenous words such as the Hindi dahi and Tamil thayir. Yogurt is a dish in its own right and the foundation of various beverages and cold relishes, as well as an element in innumerable sauces, dressings, soups, and desserts. It is also the starting point of churnedbutter (Hindi makkan, Tamil vennai ). Because of its basis in yogurt, thebuttermilk (Hindi chhas, Tamil moru ) resulting from butter churning has nuances that would be hard to duplicate here in America.
    In fact, anything based onyogurt—highly nonstandardized throughout the subcontinent—is likely to taste different even from oneIndian region to another. In addition, there will be differences between thecows’-milk and buffaloes’-milk versions. Buffalo yogurt starts out creamier and denser, and yields more butter in churning. The butter itself is almost pure white because it contains more finishedvitamin A than the yellowish precursor beta-carotene that predominates in most cows’ milk.
    Freshly churned butter of either kind can be eaten as is, but is more often slowly simmered to produce the ambrosial cooking fat calledghee (Tamil neyyu ), which is also yellow or white depending on the animal it came from. The long, gentle cooking evaporates any remaining water and makes it easier to “clarify” the milkfat, or separate it from any residual milk solids; without such treatment it would be extremely perishable.
    Plain fresh milk does play a part in Indian cuisine, but there are distinct regional preferences that perhaps reflect different degrees of lactosetolerance. Though it is hard to sort out the many statistical claims that have been published with very hazy scientific documentation, people in the northern states appear much more likely to maintain lactose-digesting ability into adulthood. In those regions, people occasionally drink milk as a beverage—but usually when it has been heated and partly cooled, and usually with some kind of sweetening.
    The north has also produced a milk-based specialty that arouses curious reactions in other regions of India. It is a kind of curd made by heating milk (sometimes buttermilk) and adding an acidulant like lemon juice that causes casein (the major milk protein) to precipitate out of the whey in a semisolid white mass. Called chhenna in that form, panir when cut into cubes, this very bland and slightly rubbery substance often turns up on English-language restaurant menus as “cheese” or something like “cottage cheese,” “soft cheese,” or “pot cheese.” In fact it is none of the