SC - Sixteenth Leeds Food History Symposium

[Christine A Seelye-King]

margali wrote:
>It has a fairly bland sweet mildly almond taste, very wishy washy. All
>of the solids have been filtered out and the carageenan is to texturize
>it in place of all of the almond oil they seem to have filtered out.
>Other than the fact it seems to be a product to replace regular milk on
>cereal or to drink, it isn't too horrid. I personally wouldn't cook with
>it, unless I was making a fairly sweet rice or bread pudding or a
>dessert.

There is another brand - Pacific Foods Naturally Almond - which i 
think has a better flavor than the Blue Diamond brand, and which can 
be found in health food stores. I only buy the "original" flavor - NO 
vanilla for me.

Original Naturally Almond contains:
almond base (filtered water, almonds)
brown rice sweetener (filtered water, brown rice)
natural flavor
malt (barley)
sea salt
guar gum
xanthan gum
carrageenan
locust bean gum

That's a lot of vegetable gums, but this "healthy non-dairy beverage" 
(to quote the box) doesn't feel "gummy".

I've used commercial almond milks to cook with at camping events. As 
i have no medical issues, the sugars aren't a problem for me 
physically, but i don't like sweet things, and i found that Naturally 
Almond doesn't taste particularly sweet. Since many Medieval recipes 
utilizing almond milk also have some added sugar, i just don't add 
the sugar or only add it to taste.

Commercial almond milks are useful for camping and on-the-fly 
cooking. But for feasts and home cooking, they can't compare with 
"home made".

However now that i've been to Morocco, i have to say that giant 
American almonds don't have half the flavor of the tiny Moroccan 
almonds - and i am very careful to buy the freshest almonds i can, 
and never the sad stale almonds one finds in little sacks at the 
supermarket.

Mmmmm, Moroccan almond milk...

Anahita al-shazhiyya al-Andalusiyya