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Who Was The First Person To Drink Cow's Milk?

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evilsprout

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Something I've always wondered... how human society make quantum leaps that led to stuff that we now take for granted?

For example, who was the first person to drink cow's milk? Who thought up the idea that these creature's lactations were worthy of human consumption? And why do we drink the milk of ruminants and not other mammals? Is it simply because it tastes better or more cultural reasons?

Also... bread. Something we take for granted, but who's idea was it? How was the bread recipe first "thought up"?

Any explanations/other examples?
 
As for milk, perhaps cattle were first domesticated simply as beef animals. But occasional deaths among calves must have left cows with surplus milk and in discomfort, so perhaps to preserve the animal to breed again the herders would have milked it. Maybe at first they thought of feeding other calves, but human curiousity being what it is someone must have tasted it for themselves! When they found they liked it, and didn't drop dead, well, bob's your uncle!

As for bread, I have read that it evolved as a by-product of brewing beer in ancient Egypt. Nice to know they had their priorities right!

(Thanks for the extra Hummingbird Moth info, 'sprout. I feel priviledged to have seen one!)
 
I have read conflicting accounts of why Chinese people prefer not
to eat dairy products. Some say that only early exposure to cow's milk
allows human babies to digest it later in life and that most Chinese come to
lack the enzyme. Other accounts say that this is a polite evasion and
the real reason is that they find cheese an especially disgusting product.

[I was quite surprised to find a deep-fried cheese among the appetizers
at a Chinese banquet meal last year. Delicious - to me anyway.]

I suppose that people were meat eaters before they were milk drinkers
as hunting came before domestication of beasts. When it comes to cultural
differences, there are the Massai whose staple diet is milk mixed with cattle
blood.

I doubt if we could trace milk-drinking back to a single first user. I guess we
followed the example of the calves who appeared to thrive. Yes I know
kittens and puppies thrive too but have you tried milking one of those things?
:cross eye
 
Not only Chinese: I believe a large proportion of negro peoples also cannot handle dairy food, for some physiological reason like the enzymes James mentioned.

I've also heard that a large proportion of Chinese and Japanese react badly to alcohol - ie get badly drunk very quickly. This is supposed to be a selection effect: in Europe the most common drink was beer or wine for many centuries, as the fermentation process purified the often less than perfect water supplies. By contrast, in the east they drank tea, where the boiling of the water purified it. (I beilieve I read that in New Scientist in the last few months.)
 
The Tartars on the Russian steppes, drank mares milk, milked from their own horses, they also fermented this milk to produce a kind of alcoholic yoghourt.
 
Why cow's milk and not bull's semen?

Actually, I remember a Channel4 documentary a while back about human genetics stating only european/white people can drink cows milk as adults.

-J.
 
Justin Anstey said:
Why cow's milk and not bull's semen?
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There must be a reason! Perhaps you'd like to give a demonstration? I'm sure the TV companies or film companies would pay you well....

On the other hand, if you didn't satisfy the bull's standard of foreplay and general tittilation, he might just gore you to death.

Still, everyone to his own.
 
Justin Anstey said:
Actually, I remember a Channel4 documentary a while back about human genetics stating only european/white people can drink cows milk as adults.
Click to expand...

Um, I know people of various races, and I'm sure as buggery it's not just the white ones who drink milk...
 
In Mongolia don't they drink fermented yaks' milk mixed with blood, or something equally disgusting?:cross eye

As previously stated, all these things were probably tested out by curious humans. Was it Charles Lamb who wrote that story called 'A Dissertation on Roast Pork?" I forget the exact details but some Chinese boy was detailed to look after some pigs and they somehow ended up being burnt to death. He touched one of the roasted corpses which was hot, put his burnt finger into his mouth and found it tasted delicious.

And how did people find out about making wine and beer?? And grinding wheat, etc, to make flour?

Carole
 
. . . and what idiot decided that sheeps'eyeballs were a delicacy??:cross eye

Carole
 
I guess it is human nature to find that culinary matters separate
us from other nationalities. M. Frog vs. Mr. Rosbif?

Yet even within the UK, there are foods which are anathema to
some sections of the populace. I was brought up to regard tripe
and black puddings as natural and palatable foods but the mere
mention of them would make some Southerners sick. I think they
must all have been reared on Orwell's terrifying description of the
tripe-hole in The Road to Wigan Pier!

My grandmother had a much wider range of offal-products she
would eat which were never seen on our table. Cow heels and
Elder (ie udder - now, I think, banned from sale) Brawn etc. were
things she had learned to enjoy as a child and continued to buy
as long as she could obtain them.

Before Macdonalds, even before the Wimpy bar there was a UCP
chain of cafés in virtually every Northern town selling tripey snacks
and tea. They still exist selling their products wholesale from premises
in Manchester's Smithfield district. No cafés now, though. :(

I think the books usually suggest that fermentation by natural yeasts
was an accident which people began to encourage. I imagine the
early wines were started, like yoghurt, by adding a starter-culture
from another pot? I gather that wines and beers were much safer
than water to drink. Maybe still true in Manchester. Cheers. :)
 
When I was a kid there used to be a stall on Stockton market (manned by two elderly ladies wearing white coats and trilbies, which to me was fascinating in itself) which sold tripe, cows' udders and pigs' trotters. My mum used to occasionaly buy trotters and tripe . . . oh, I can't go on, I feel sick:cross eye

Carole
 
Here in central Indiana we have many"delicacies"like deep fried hog or sheep's testicles,beef tongue,or one of my deceased grandfather's favorites,fried pork brain.
 
Originally posted by Major Kraut
Here in central Indiana we have many"delicacies"like deep fried hog or sheep's testicles,beef tongue,or one of my deceased grandfather's favorites,fried pork brain.
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Here in the States, some people (although very few) eat "mountain oysters" and turkey fries. I'm not sure if they're referred to the same way in the UK. These are hog and turkey testicles, people! How hungry did someone have to get to actually try them? I live in the southern part of the Midwest where there is a strong Southern influence, and pigs feet, tails, ears, and chitterlings (intestines, typically called "chitlins") are all big sellers in the African-American community. The only caucasians to buy them are predominantly rural folk.
 
As far as the early taste-testers of a lot of foods, people often went hungry in the past. People starved unless there was something to eat, so if something looked edible, some poor shmuck's gonna eat it. By the same logic, think of all the people that first discovered the foods you couldn't eat, and the ones that tasted horrible. And the people that got splinters in their gums after discovering that eating wood was not a desirable thing.
 
TorgosPizza said:
....I live in the southern part of the Midwest where there is a strong Southern influence, and pigs feet, tails, ears, and chitterlings (intestines, typically called "chitlins") are all big sellers in the African-American community. The only caucasians to buy them are predominantly rural folk.
Click to expand...
An American friend of mine, white and originally from Kansas, told me it used to be a saying in rural parts that they used every part of the pig except its squeal! But this wasn't new to me - they used to say that in UK too.

I guess it's no longer true, now that we've discovered so many new diseases to frighten ourselves with. Brain material especially is seen as decidedly iffy after BSE, especially as it's known that there was some disease (I forget the name) that flourished amogst cannibalistic societies that ate their victim's brains.
 
um maybe i can add some info to this very interesting thread. The disease allegedly spread among the cannibal societies of Papua New Guinea was called Kuru. A type of spongiform brain eating disease which (and im not sure) may have been prion related like CJD. The enzyme lacking in most non-caucasian adults is called lactase. In our lectures we got told that although all humans have it at birth (to digest breast milk) it gradually stops being made by the body normally. Some mutation enables europeans to keep producing it although they too will suffer if they go for a long time without taking any dairy products and then try some again.
One anecdote told to us by a lecturer was that during a famine in east africa in the '80s the americans sent out a convoy of planes carrying aid. This consisted of food packages and powdered milk. The poor guys drank the milk and the stomach cramps and associated problems from lactose intolerance finsihed a lot of them off. Killed by kindness i suppose.
 
Testicles aside!

I don't want to offend anyone, but isn't the basic premise of this thread influenced, probably unconsciously, by the notion that our ancestors were somehow stupider than we are? Its very easy to slip into this type of thinking, given the construct of the shambling, bone-club carrying, semi-ape that is the cliche of the 'caveman'.

In fact, as for example, Richard Rudgely's 'Secrets of the Stone Age' book and C4 TV series showed, our ancestors were as clever and resourceful as we are. Pretty obvious, really, seeing as they were pretty much identical to us physically. There isn't anything surprising to me about the fact that they experimented with the stuff they found around them in order to improve life. And, of course, any discoveries that conferred an advantage would presumably be tradeable and/or make that group/culture more successful.

There would have been Einsteins/Leonardos in prehistoric times. I think we still have difficulty with imagining that, just as we have difficulty recognising that tribal/traditional peoples will contain individuals of genius.
 
No, I think the basic premise is that someone had to be first to do something, so how did it come about. No implications about brain power, except that it probably was the brighter individuals who did grasp the wider significance of some everyday detail.

Maybe one day, when a few more civilizations have risen and fallen, but certain technologies managed to survive, people will wonder who first discovered electricity or nuclear power or the Rubik Cube.....
 
Re: Testicles aside!

wintermute said:
I don't want to offend anyone, but isn't the basic premise of this thread influenced, probably unconsciously, by the notion that our ancestors were somehow stupider than we are?
In fact, as for example, Richard Rudgely's 'Secrets of the Stone Age' book and C4 TV series showed, our ancestors were as clever and resourceful as we are.
Click to expand...

They could even have been cleverer than us, after all, Pot Noodles are a modern delicacy . . .;)

Carole
 
I didn't mean to imply that we are"smarter"than our predessecers.If anything,it could be seen by many as a sign that the younger generations often become"soft"and perhaps somewhat overly sophisticated.
 
Evilsprout said:
Um, I know people of various races, and I'm sure as buggery it's not just the white ones who drink milk...
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Quite right, it's not just whites who drink milk.

However, the gland which produces the enzyme which allows humans to easily digest milk (typically) atrophies swiftly once adulthood has been reached in everyone except the mutant minority of humans , ie the whites and certain other groups.

I've had many black firends over the years who have drunk milk, and more who havn't, complaining that it gives them digestive problems, normally diarhoea (or something similar but spelt rather better than my effort here).

Jon
 
Jonny B said:
I've had many black firends over the years who have drunk milk, and more who havn't, complaining that it gives them digestive problems, normally diarhoea (or something similar but spelt rather better than my effort here).

Jon
Click to expand...

Just write 'the runs', it's easier!:p

Are there any foodstuffs, then, which caucasian groups cannot tolerate?
 
And another thing which puzzles me - the banning of certain foods by some religions, notably pork. The Jewish and Moslem religions both originated in the same general area, so presumably there must have been some common reason (not necessarily because God told them not to) for not touching pork.

Did other, earlier, cultures in that region forbid the eating of pork. Did, for example, the Ancient Egyptians eat it. I can't remember seeing any depictions of pigs in ancient Egyptian art.

Carole
 
I always thought is was to do with the taboo of canabalism. Human flesh isn't known as long pig for nothing..

Niles
 
Pork is notorious for carrying tapeworm, and if not cooked properly can easily infect people. This wouldn't have been ideal for those wandering in the wilderness.

I also presume the left hand for this/right for that was for hygiene where water may not have been seen for days.
 
I've also wondered how the idea of bread and such things came about. It seems they would need to have had a lot of food to be doing such elaborate experiments.

As for milk, I love milk and drink a lot of it. But the idea of cheese seems quite disgusting to me. I don't like milk gone bad and that seems to be pretty much what cheese is. Come on, if you sterilized a cheese there would be nothing left. I'm a white person, but I understand the chinese don't like dairy products.

As for other races, what about adopted kids and such? Is it simply a matter of getting used to it from being a baby?
 
More to the point, who discovered that you could get milk from cows, & what did he think he was doing at the time?!!!!
 
To me that one doesn't seem so weird. And they probably also tried it with a lot of other animals, finding that it was only the cow and goat that could really be used for anything.

But really, if you see that you can drink milk from women and at one point you're really thirsty and in the middle of nowhere. Trying to drink cows milk doesn't seem very strange.
 
Charlotte said:
More to the point, who discovered that you could get milk from cows, & what did he think he was doing at the time?!!!!
Click to expand...
This is where we came in!!

But Charlotte is not the only one who appears not to have read earlier posts on this thread...!
 
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