Milks - update

Benjamin Barrett gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM
Fri Dec 30 07:16:34 UTC 2011


The people at the coffee shop I was at today had forgotten to pick up almond milk. (According to a barista at another coffee shop, almond is the up-and-coming thing, but you should order it not foamed because it doesn't turn out very good.) The barista suggested I try hemp milk. She assured me it has omega-three and no THC.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_milk, almond milk is made from ground almonds. Similarly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_milk says that hemp milk or hemp seed milk is made from ground hemp seeds.

The OED has "almond-milk" (time to drop the hyphen, perhaps), but no definition. Looking at the relevant definition of milk, it seems a little out-of-date:

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A milky juice or latex present in the stems or other parts of various plants, which exudes when the plant is cut, and is often acrid, irritant, or toxic. Also: spec. the drinkable watery liquid found in the hollow space inside the fruit of the coconut.
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Probably the most common substitute milks for coffee lattes are soy and rice. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_milk, soy milk is made by grinding, and according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_milk, rice milk is made by pressing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_(disambiguation) gives these milk types, along with grain and plant milks.

The grain milk article says: "Grain milk can be made from oats, spelt,rice, rye, einkorn wheat or quinoa."

The plant milk article adds barley to those, and goes on to list legume, nut and seed milks, to wit:

Legume milks:
        • Lupin milk
        • Pea milk
        • Peanut milk
        • Soy milk

Nut milks:
        • Almond milk
        • Cashew milk
        • Coconut milk
        • Hazelnut milk

Seed milks:
        • Hemp milk
        • Quinoa milk
        • Sesame seed milk
        • Sunflower seed milk

Doubtlessly, other milks exist as well.

The OED has a leg up when it comes to tiger's milk, which is not listed in Wikipedia.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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