Skyr is right up there with volcanoes and Björk as being one of the most Icelandic things I knew about before visiting Iceland. Wonderfully thick and creamy, skyr tastes somewhere between tart Greek yogurt, crème fraîche, and soft-serve. And Icelanders have been eating it forever; there are even medieval literary records of skyr being eaten in the Sagas as early as the 11th century. So, despite its recent boom in the yogurt market, skyr ain't just a new fad. Let's see how that Viking mjolk (Icelandic for "milk") becomes skyr! Take a tour of a skyr factory with us. More

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has many responsibilities in overseeing the national agricultural industry. One of its most relevant duties is to provide accurate nutritional guidelines to Americans. The USDA formulates the food pyramid recommendations and oversees national food assistance programs. As an extension of these responsibilities, the USDA works to publicize healthier eating habits in an attempt to address our national health crises. Or at least, that's what we think they do. More

Twelve years ago, two brothers, Mateo and Andy Kehler, bought a farm in Greensboro, Vermont and set out to make beer; it's a good thing they failed. Then they tried their hand at tofu, and it's a good thing that didn't work out either. This isn't schadenfreude; what happened next is that the Kehler brothers turned their attention to cheese. That worked out really, really well. In a mere decade, they have gone from novices to leaders in one of the one busiest cheesemaking states in America. More

I started making yogurt to put an end to my ever-expanding collection of plastic containers. I found that a pure and delicious yogurt—without the added thickeners, flavor and color enhancers, and large amounts of sugar or corn syrup found in many store-bought brands—is not hard to make. Now I'm hooked. See how it's done and you might be too. More

I'll be honest, before I talked to David Wright and Corey Hinkel, I would have bet my life that you couldn't find something like the artisan dairy operation they run in a place like Northeast Alabama. But a conversation last week with the duo shattered my Northerner-biased expectations and has given me a mind to visit the Heart of Dixie. They're churning out Gouda, Cheddar, Abodance, and an Asiago cheese they call Wanda. More

No, it doesn't simply tell you it comes from cows. Or goats or sheep. Simply plug in the numeric code found on the milk container and Where Is My Milk From? names and maps the dairy it came from. Also works with yogurt, chocolate milk, soy and organic milk, coffee creamer, cottage cheese, and ice cream. Only works for U.S. dairy products, though. [via The Presurfer] More

Did we figure out a cheese-making method that's completely idiot-proof and makes clean-up a snap? Yep. Just combine your ingredients in a glass container, microwave on high for a couple minutes, stir once, and drain. Ta da! You have just made ricotta. More

Your mother made you drink three glasses each day. There’s probably a carton in your fridge right now. And, as Anne Mendelson likes to remind us, it was every mammal's first food. But even though milk is a staple of Americans’ everyday lives, most of us know virtually nothing about it—where it originated, how it’s being produced, or how unique our milk-guzzling tendencies are. In her James Beard-nominated book, Milk: The Surprising History Of Milk Through The Ages, Anne Mendelson sets out to educate us. Sweeping through the human history of dairy and the advent of modern milk production, before diving into recipes for everything from New England clam chowder to Indian panir cheese, Mendelson pens “the culinary guidebook,... More

What does a student-teacher brawl involving launched chalk missiles with Matrix-like martial arts moves and music have to do with dairy? After watching it four times, I still don't really know. But maybe somebody out there wants to drink milk and eat cheese after watching this. Video, after the jump.... More