Milk [electronic resource] : a local and global history / Deborah Valenze.
Valenze, Deborah M., 1953-
2011
GT2920.M55 V35 2011eb
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Title Milk [electronic resource] : a local and global history / Deborah Valenze.
Author Valenze, Deborah M., 1953-
ISBN 9780300117240
9780300175394 electronic book
Imprint New Haven : Yale University Press, 2011.
Language English
Description xv, 351 p. : ill., ports.
Call Number GT2920.M55 V35 2011eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 641.3/7109
Summary "How did an animal product that spoils easily, carries disease, and causes digestive trouble for many of its consumers become a near-universal symbol of modern nutrition? In the first cultural history of milk, historian Deborah Valenze traces the rituals and beliefs that have governed milk production and consumption since its use in the earliest societies. Covering the long span of human history, Milk reveals how developments in technology, public health, and nutritional science made this once-rare elixir a modern-day staple. The book looks at the religious meanings of milk, along with its association with pastoral life, which made it an object of mystery and suspicion during medieval times and the Renaissance. As early modern societies refined agricultural techniques, cow's milk became crucial to improving diets and economies, launching milk production and consumption into a more modern phase. Yet as business and science transformed the product in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, commercial milk became not only a common and widely available commodity but also a source of uncertainty when used in place of human breast milk for infant feeding. Valenze also examines the dairy culture of the developing world, looking at the example of India, currently the world's largest milk producer. Ultimately, milk's surprising history teaches us how to think about our relationship to food in the present, as well as in the past. It reveals that although milk is a product of nature, it has always been an artifact of culture"-- Provided by publisher.
"A history of milk and its many uses in different cultures of the world"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
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pt. 1. The culture of milk
pt. 2. Feeding people
pt. 3. Industry, science, and medicine
pt. 4. Milk as modern.

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