In the very center of medieval Cockaigne, a mythical land of milk and honey, there once was a volcano that spewed cheese instead of lava. Everyone could eat as much of it as they wanted, since it flowed endlessly in this paradise. For centuries, happiness in the real world was considered incomplete without milk and other dairy products.
No other food product has had such good press throughout history. Milk, one might say, flowed across the divides that governed culinary culture, and culture in general: it bridged the gap between wine- and beer-loving Europe, between the worlds of wheat and rice, and the extremely hostile realms of olive and butter (although butter is nothing but processed milk). Wine—a Mediterranean legend heavy with Eucharistic symbolism and portrayed as a noble drink in the Bible—can also be dangerous and one must be careful with it. Even bread, which seemingly evokes only the best associations—as a product created through hard work and patience, made to be shared with others (the etymology of the English word “company” can be traced back to the Latin companio, meaning “one who eats bread with you”) and connected to Christian transubstantiation—is not worshiped as enthusiastically as milk. The same goes for meat, the primeval product (hunting came before agriculture) that was rejected by anchorites and the more earnest monks. Only milk has always been praised (or wasn’t mentioned at all).
Among Mammals
When Hera spilled her own milk while breastfeeding little Hercules, the drops turned into stars. The Greek word gala, “milk,” forms the beginning of the word Galaksias—the Milky Way—which later became “galaxy” in English. This isn’t the only cosmogony that includes the motif of milk, but what differentiates it from similar origin stories is that the breast milk is “human” (divine, to be precise). This awareness of the mammalian nature of humans contributed to the popularity of milk as a nutritious drink in the Mediterranean. Little Hercules suckled Hera’s milk, while the prophet Isaiah constructed a vivid picture of the people of Jerusalem suckling the breast of the city itself, depicted as a woman: “That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the
