The Milk Factory The mammary gland is an astonishing biological factory, with many different cells and structures working together to create, store, and dispense milk. Some components of milk come directly from the cow's blood and collect in the udder. The principal nutrients, however -- fats, sugar, and proteins -- are assembled by the gland's secretory cells, and then released into the udder. In its principal homeland, central and south India, the zebu has been valued as much for its muscle power as its milk, and remains rangy and long-horned. The European dairy cow has been highly selected for milk production at least since 3000 BCE, when confinement to stalls in urban Mesopotamia and poor winter feed led to a reduction in body and horn size. To this day, the prized dairy breeds -- Jerseys, Guernseys, Brown Swiss, Holsteins -- are short-horned cattle that put their energy into making milk rather than muscle and bone. The modern zebu is not as copious a producer as the European breeds, but its milk is 25% richer in butterfat. McGee, Harold (2013). "Chemistry: A festive ferment". Nature. 504 (7480): 372–374. Bibcode: 2013Natur.504..372M. doi: 10.1038/504372a. PMID 24352277.

There are three basic methods for pasteurizing milk. The simplest is batch pasteurization, in which a fixed volume of milk, perhaps a few hundred gallons, is slowly agitated in a heated vat at a minimum of 145°F/62°C for 30 to 35 minutes. Industrial-scale operations use the high-temperature, short-time (HTST) method, in which milk is pumped continuously through a heat exchanger and held at a minimum of 162°F/72°C for 15 seconds. The batch process has a relatively mild effect on flavor, while the HTST method is hot enough to denature around 10% of the whey proteins and generate the strongly aromatic gas hydrogen sulfide (p. 87). Though this "cooked" flavor was considered a defect in the early days, U.S. consumers have come to expect it, and dairies now often intensify it by pasteurizing at well above the minimum temperature; 171°F/77°C is commonly used. With Dave Arnold and Nils Norén, McGee teaches a three-day class, The Harold McGee Lecture Series, at The French Culinary Institute in New York City. This is the revised and expanded second edition of a book that I first published in 1984, twenty long years ago. In 1984, canola oil and the computer mouse and compact discs were all novelties. So was the idea of inviting cooks to explore the biological and chemical insides of foods. It was a time when a book like this really needed an introduction! Fresh milk, cream, and butter may not be as prominent in European and American cooking as they once were, but they are still essential ingredients. Milk has bubbled up to new prominence atop the coffee craze of the 1980s and '90s. It's still the practical things that prove the most compelling, however, and I have a list that I present to him:McGee was born on 3 October 1951 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Louise (Hanney) and Charles Gilbert McGee, raised in Elmhurst, Illinois, and educated at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), initially studying astronomy, [4] [9] but graduating with a B.S. in Literature in 1973. He went on to do a Ph.D. on the romantic poetry of John Keats supervised by Harold Bloom at Yale University, graduating in 1978. [1] [8] Career [ edit ] First a few words about the remaining components. Milk is slightly acidic, with a pH between 6.5 and 6.7, and both acidity and salt concentrations strongly affect the behavior of the proteins, as we'll see. The fat globules carry colorless vitamin A and its yellow-orange precursors the carotenes, which are found in green feed and give milk and undyed butter whatever color they have. Breeds differ in the amount of carotene they convert into vitamin A; Guernsey and Jersey cows convert little and give especially golden milk, while at the other extreme sheep, goats, and water buffalo process nearly all of their carotene, so their milk and butter are nutritious but white. Riboflavin, which has a greenish color, can sometimes be seen in skim milk or in the watery translucent whey that drains from the curdled proteins of yogurt. The great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredients

As science has gradually percolated into the world of cooking, cooking has been drawn into academic and industrial science. One effective and charming force behind this movement was Nicholas Kurti, a physicist and food lover at the University of Oxford, who lamented in 1969: "I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus, we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés." In 1992, at the age of 84, Nicholas nudged civilization along by organizing an International Workshop on Molecular and Physical Gastronomy at Erice, Sicily, where for the first time professional cooks, basic scientists from universities, and food scientists from industry worked together to advance gastronomy, the making and appreciation of foods of the highest quality. McGee, Harold (1998). "In victu veritas". Nature. 392 (6677): 649–650. Bibcode: 1998Natur.392..649M. doi: 10.1038/33528. PMID 9565025. S2CID 4383793.

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The box below shows the nutrient contents of both familiar and unfamiliar milks. These figures are only a rough guide, as the breakdown by breed indicates; there's also much variation from animal to animal, and in a given animal's milk as its lactation period progresses. The first fluid secreted by the mammary gland is colostrum, a creamy, yellow solution of concentrated fat, vitamins, and proteins, especially immunoglobulins and antibodies. After a few days, when the colostrum flow has ceased and the milk is saleable, the calf is put on a diet of reconstituted and soy milks, and the cow is milked two or three times daily to keep the secretory cells working at full capacity. Coping with Lactose Intolerance Fortunately, lactose intolerance is not the same as milk intolerance. Lactase-less adults can consume about a cup/250 ml of milk per day without severe symptoms, and even more of other dairy products. Cheese contains little or no lactose (most of it is drawn off in the whey, and what little remains in the curd is fermented by bacteria and molds). The bacteria in yogurt generate lactose-digesting enzymes that remain active in the human small intestine and work for us there. And lactose-intolerant milk fans can now buy the lactose-digesting enzyme itself in liquid form (it's manufactured from a fungus, Aspergillus), and add a few drops to any dairy product just before they consume it. First thing - this is not a recipe book and it is a pretty serious book. You can use it as dictionary, using the very good index to browse and learn snippets at will. Reading a chapter from beginning to end takes its time and it is incredibly rewarding. I have been reading about cooking, and experimenting since I was a child, I own too many cookbooks to easily confess, and this is finally a book which puts things in context, which makes me understand the science of why this or that, put into cultural and historical context. For example did you know about differences between american and european flour?