Milks - update

[Victor Steinbok]

Actually, there is one more thing that's not just out of date, but plain
wrong:

> 2. a. 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.

In current usage, coconut milk (and coconut cream) are decidedly NOT
found in the hollow of the coconut, although, historically, this might
have been common usage. The closest to this content is "coconut water"
which has seen a recent culinary and marketing surge--although this can
also refer to coconut infused water. I've also heard people refer to it
as "coconut juice"--which is, of course, technically incorrect, but if
the question is of distribution rather than prescriptive correctness
then it should be possible to find attestations. Also, the "watery
liquid" is not milky--it's usually clear or has a slight green or
brownish tint--milkiness indicates spoilage.

Coconut milk is a product prepared from shredded coconut, thus falling
closer to 5.a., rather than 2.a. This is precisely the use in the 1994
citation, although not in the ones from 1945 and 1951. I am not sure if
the 1757 quote refers to a coconut or cacao plant.

Coconut milk is most common in Malay and Indonesian cuisine and there
satellites, and is the base of Thai curries and a smaller number of
Laos, Hmong and Cambodian dishes. There is also some culinary use in the
Caribbean and in Central America, Surinam and Guyana. A sweetened
concentrated variety is used in preparation of pina coladas and other
cocktails. It is also a significant component of fusion cuisine.

We also have the same "plant" issue discussed earlier. The "milk" sap is
also characteristic of some mushrooms (notably /Lactarius/ species) and
some lichens, which no longer fall under "plants". Despite the "acrid"
and "toxic" disclaimers, some such plant "milks" (not in mushrooms,
though) can also be sweet, although that is rare. All tend to be sticky
and oxidize rapidly, changing color and staining anything they come in
contact with (e.g., milkweed).One such reference is also to what is more
common as "poppy juice" (compare the 1797 quote)--at least when it's not
used in opium production. "Milk" can also be extruded from poppy seeds,
although most poppy seeds commercially available in the US tend to be
too old and dehydrated for this effect.

AFAIK "soya milk" is not used in the US at all--not in print (cookbooks,
newspapers), marketing or production, not in organic foods nor in
Chinese market labels or menus. The only exception is labels on some
canned brands coming out of Hong Kong and occasional freshly made products.

Also note the reference to cloudy occlusions in diamonds (milk 10.)--a
similar reference is sometimes made to cataracts, especially with
animals (dogs, cats).

There is also something else that's entirely missing--obviously it's
subsumed into entire category of milk 1.a., but that's hardly the point.
There is no entries for flavored milk--chocolate milk and strawberry
milk being most common, but also coffee milk, caramel milk and
occasionally a couple of other relatively disgusting concoctions. At the
base of it, it is, of course, milk, but it's a particular kind of milk
that, so far, apparently has no place in the OED. When I searched for
"chocolate milk", I only got definitions for milk chocolate (and
chocolate mill, but that's another story). There are 8 quotations, but 6
are under milk chocolate. Here are the other two:

post-test B. adj.
> 1943 /Jrnl. Business Univ. Chicago/ *16* 71   In the post-test period,
> when chocolate milk was made available again, the average per capita
> consumption reverted to the pretest level of 1.67 half-pints.

put v. 4.c
> 1922 /Milk Dealer/ Nov. 73   The milk company ... had planned to put
> out a chocolate milk.

Coffee milk actually has two meaning--coffee-flavored milk and milk for
flavoring/diluting coffee.

     VS-)


On 12/30/2011 10:53 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 10:43:36AM BB wrote:
>> 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:
>>
>> -----
>> 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.
>> -----
>>
>> 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.
> If you keep moving down to sense 5.a., you'll get what is actually the
> relevant definition here: "A culinary, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, or
> other preparation resembling milk, esp. in colour. Usually with the
> principal ingredient or use specified by a preceding or following word."
> This is followed by cross-references to _soya milk_ (not, at the moment,
> _soy milk_), _almond milk_ (which is, indeed, extremely out of date,
> though it is currently under revision, and has a detailed definition and
> a good quotation paragraph) and _rice milk_.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED

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