Land of Milk and Honey

It is nearly miraculous how many delicious dishes can be made based on a couple of glorious ingredients. The very term milk and honey represents abundance and freedom from want and a wholesome prosperity. Even in these technology-driven days, over 750 million people live in the households of dairy farms. Last year global honey production came in at about $2.2 billion. Take that Silicone Valley.

Honey bees are not the only insect to produce honey. There is also a sugar ant that makes honey, but harvesting is problematic and the yield low. Enterprising Alaskans, their climate being too cold for bees, developed “squaw honey” which is made by boiling down nectar filled flowers into a sugar syrup, reducing it to the consistency of honey. It tastes like honey. Perhaps not the finest, but honey nonetheless. While honeybees seem to be one of the most recently endangered species, the northeast of the U.S. is still home to many bees and their beekeepers. Not least those in our own market. Are beekeeping and catkeeping similar in terms of who is actually keeping whom?

All mammals produce milk. Milk produces not only its own liquid form, but cream, butter, cheese, yogurt and ice cream. There was once a time when milk was delivered directly to your door and frequently along with butter and eggs. Today it is available in every corner convenience store and supermarket. But soon, they say, we’ll have it and everything else delivered to our doorsteps by drones. Is there such a thing as egg insurance? Will drones be smart enough to leave the butter in an insulated container? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Wherever there are milk and honey, bakers, bakeries and sweet-toothed people will soon follow. Whole libraries of cookbooks have been devoted to myriad methods of conducting honey and some form of dairy into the mouth. These week’s recipe is Honey Yogurt Cheesecake which is a lighter version of the classic with the savory twist of fresh thyme and lemon zest. It is also gluten free as the cookie crumbs are from oat cookies.