Almond Milk and Butter
Closely related to horchata is almond milk which was so essential for fast day cooking in the Catholic world when milk was not permitted.
And luckily my long-standing buddy Ken Albala who is the expert on such things has just posted on almond milk and butter on his blog. Well worth a gander. As well as the rest of the blog and his multitudinous books.
An email comment from Kay.
About 30 years ago I visited a friend in Taiwan for a few weeks with three teenagers in
tow. We discovered almond milk and everybody loved it. (This morning I learned that
before 1949 it was better known on the island than soy milk, which was much less of a hit
with the teenagers.) We had taken a whole frozen turkey to our friend in our luggage for
Thanksgiving so there was plenty of room in the suitcases for several cans of almond milk
powder on our return. We were sad when it was gone and I never could find it then, even
in Chinese markets, and was too busy to even THINK about making it from scratch.