Go Milk A Potato

 I'ts getting that dairy may be obsolete in another decade.Nut milks have taken over and now there's the chance that veggie based milks may also join their ranks. It seems that there will be little use or taste for cow's milk  which is good for the cows.

Regular contributor and food writer Victoria Peterson write about this new phenomena in the New York Times Wednesday's Food section. Plant  based milks are up in sales and usage, thanks to the pandemic.When dairy ran out , thanks to panic buying and supply chain problems many turned to the variety of plant milks and liked them according to Denise Purcell, the vice president of content and education for Specialty Foods. They then branch out into other plant milk based products like ice cream and yogurt. There's also a hot topic at the moment according to Professor David Julian McClements of University of Massachusetts. He has been a food scientist for more than thirty years and in the last five focused solely on plant based foods. His reasoning behind this is that they're one of the food industry's main trends right now. Consumers want them for sustainability, health and ethical reasons. Also the pandemic has forced people to cook at home and they're discovering  that cooking with plant based milks are better than cooking with dairy.

What are these alternative milks made from? Soy, which is one of the most popular, followed by almond, oats, cashews, macademia nuts.hemp seeds, sesame seeds and flax. Even peas can be used to make milk. Now potatoes are getting their due, thanks to a Swedish company Dugg that creates a creamy   milk from emulsified potatoes and rapeseed oil.It's becoming popular in London where many coffee shops have added it to their menus. Sarah Bentley who runs a plant based cooking school Made In Hackney was excited about this. She wants to try it in her recipes and also not rely on cow's milk so often. She and her students have tried to make potato milk on their own but did;'t come up with quite the right one. Dugg will help them create creamy sauces and desserts. Hopefully Dugg will come up with by products like whipped cream, yogurt and ice cream with a potato milk base. Plant based milks are nothing new. Surprisingly they have been around for thousands of years. There are caveats though to this. Almonds grow in water scarcity areas and require a lot of water to be trucked in. Coconuts involve deforestation, increased cultivation and the loss of biodiversity.

Soon potato milk will be joining the ranks of other non dairy milks. It will be just as healthy as the other milks. It will also be just as delicious as the others, a perfect sub in for cow's milk.

Saving Detroit With Every Bite

 Food nourishes the body and soul. It can also nourish a whole town and bring life into its; veins. The restaurant industry is bringing vitality back to Detroit in a big way. it provides not only food but employment as well.

 Regular  contributor Brett Anderson wrote about this in yesterday's New York Times Food section.Detroit was unlike other cities during the pandemic. It was resilient thanks to a long history of enduring hardships going back decades. Most business owners reported their businesses being less profitable than before the pandemic and that conditions were worse than three months ago. Yet the city provides the result that communities can expect when entrepreneurship and activism can occur>Many like  bakery owners April Anderson and her wife, Michelle received help from a network of private and public agencies. They were able to get grant money to keep their Good Cakes And Bakes financially afloat. Other food industries have received aid from philantthropist, civil servants and activists.Another boost comes from Detroit Food lab, started in 2013 by Devita Davison. She was the one who believed in Ms. Anderson and her goals for her bakery.

Despite the "whitewashing" of Detroit, that is  mostly white men owning businesses and trendy restaurants, the Black culinary scene is holding tis' own.There is the drive to stimulate local businesses.Hamissi Mamba and Nadia Nijimbere , owners of Baobab Fare ,a restaurant featuring their native Burundian fare got a boost from Food Lab and Folk Detroit.This was a godsend because many contractors refuse to deal with immigrants for fear of not getting paid back. Other eateries like Yum Village and Warda Patisserie have also benefited. There is a problem with this, The more popular a restaurant becomes there's more of a chance of attracting well heeled clients who move into the neighborhood and gentrify the area. There is also the looming fact of real estate prices also rising.As Mark Kurlyandchik, a writer for The Detroit Free Press fears that the city may be getting "too vanilla". THey shouldn't be cheerleading every business that opens. Local point to his articles as well as ones by Tunde Wey another writer for the Detroit Free Press  about how Detroit's development is not always for good.Another problem is that non profits also suffer as well, as seen in Harriette Brown's Sister ON A Roll that feeds the homeless. She has yet to receive decent funding.

Detroit is a hardy town , resilient as a diamond. The same can be said for its' food industry. It will survive, no matter what comes its' way.