{"id":2989,"date":"2015-03-29T22:32:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T20:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=2989"},"modified":"2015-03-30T00:21:25","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T22:21:25","slug":"the-uncanny-valley-of-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2015\/03\/29\/the-uncanny-valley-of-milk\/","title":{"rendered":"The Uncanny Valley of Milk"},"content":{"rendered":"

The low-FODMAP diet is working out very well for me. After using lactose-free milk for a couple of months, I got the notion to try an entirely dairy-free alternative: coconut milk. (I tried soy milk a few years ago<\/a>, and vowed never to let it pass my lips again.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Technically, I don’t think this is really coconut milk<\/em>, but more “coconut milk drink”. Sure, it’s made with coconut, but it’s also fortified with rice and a variety of other substances. The first time I tried it, it threw me completely off-balance with a question I’d never considered before: “what are the essential qualities of milk that make me want to drink it?” Is it the mouthfeel? The flavour? What is<\/em> the flavour of (cold) milk?<\/p>\n

That led to other disconcerting questions like, why do we put milk on our breakfast cereals? What is about milk that transforms a bowl of muesli? It was a very confusing time in my life.<\/p>\n

So anyway, the substance itself: it has about the same viscocity as milk. It has a very similar, silky mouthfeel, with a fresh coconutty flavour over a milky (milkish?) base. It tastes like milk flavoured with coconut. As a standalone beverage, it is actually quite pleasant.<\/p>\n

(White Russians with coconut milk?)<\/p>\n

But pour it into a glass, and it looks…wrong<\/em>. It’s too white. When you swirl it around the glass, it doesn’t cling to the glass in the same way that milk would – it doesn’t have the right “legs”. Your hand hesitates ever so slightly as you move to pick up the glass. It’s in the Uncanny Valley of Milk.<\/p>\n

(It also doesn’t go off after two weeks in the fridge.)<\/p>\n

(Memories of watching non-Dutchies react after pouring themselves a glass of karnemelk<\/i><\/a> by accident, thinking it was ordinary milk.)<\/p>\n

So I ate it with my cereal for a couple of weeks. At first, coconut-flavoured rice krispies and corn flakes were an amusing novelty. But the fun wore off pretty quickly. Although the coconut flavour wasn’t overpowering, it provided more excitement than I was typically ready to deal with early in the morning.<\/p>\n

(Can you cook with it? Abi doesn’t want to consider it for her coffee<\/a>, but how would it do as the basis for Tuna Pasta? Would it add an exotic note, like in a Thai curry? Could you use it to make a white sauce?)<\/p>\n

I’ve gone back to plain old semi-skimmed lactose-free milk with my breakfast now. Sweet, familiar, milk.<\/p>\n

(So what is<\/em> that flavour of milk?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The low-FODMAP diet is working out very well for me. After using lactose-free milk for a couple of months, I got the notion to try an entirely dairy-free alternative: coconut milk. (I tried soy milk a few years ago, and vowed never to let it pass my lips again.) Technically, I don’t think this is … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Uncanny Valley of Milk”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2989"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3005,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989\/revisions\/3005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}