Dairy
Milk
Milk is the foundational dairy ingredient, a nutritious emulsion of fat, protein, lactose, and minerals drawn from domesticated mammals. Its mild sweetness and creamy body make it a drink, a cooking liquid, and the raw material for cream, butter, cheese, yoghurt, and countless other products. Fat level, animal species, breed, and processing (raw, pasteurised, UHT, homogenised) reshape flavour and culinary behaviour. From Jersey cream-top bottles to buffalo milk for mozzarella and camel milk on desert tables, milk reflects geography, farming tradition, and kitchen technique worldwide.
Also known as: Doodh, Suu
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Breeds, cuts & preparations
Variety
Source
Provenance
Preparation
CommonCharacteristic
Grading systems
United Kingdom — UK Whole
UK Whole
United Kingdom — UK Semi-Skimmed
UK Semi-Skimmed
United Kingdom — UK Skimmed
UK Skimmed
United Kingdom — UK 1 Percent
UK 1 Percent
United States — USDA
Grade A · Grade B
History
Neolithic pastoralists in the Near East began milking domesticated ruminants, establishing dairy as a dietary staple.
Residue evidence from European pottery shows early cheese-making and lactose-tolerant dairy cultures spreading northward.
Louis Pasteur's heat-treatment research led to commercial pasteurisation, transforming milk safety and urban distribution.
Mechanical cream separators, bottling lines, and refrigerated rail cars industrialised fresh milk supply chains.
Homogenisation, UHT processing, and powder milk made long-shelf dairy staples available far from production regions.
Specialty milks including A2, organic, grass-fed, and non-bovine species gained mainstream retail presence worldwide.