Drinking Yogurt

What do you know about the human biome?

Personally, I know next to nothing, just the little pieces of information I’ve picked up along the way. But it’s an interesting idea that each of us is made up of more things that aren’t human, than our own human being parts. We are each an entire universe of microorganisms.

Where it starts to get weird is that these microorganisms can have an impact on behavior. It sounds like make believe, but it’s science. Have you read the thing about mice and the toxoplasma parasite?

That made the news a few years ago, and I’m not quite sure how far this line of scientific inquiry has come since then. Perhaps, just perhaps, my current love and interest in fermented foods is driven by the bacteria I’ve already consumed trying to increase their numbers. It may be the only thing that helps explain the following interest in drinking yogurt.

Let’s be clear about one thing. I absolutely adore fluid dairy.

Gently pasteurized whole milk, that has not been homogenized, and is available in glass bottles is one of life’s great pleasures. The entire experience of consuming it is rich with sensory joys, from the scooping off the cream on top, the the feeling of the cold glass bottle on your hand, to the silky texture of the full fat milk on your lips.

Shaking it up, to momentarily distribute some of that glorious milk fat within the liquid, and then pouring the slightly frothy milk over a bowl of crunchy granola? That’s a simple indulgent breakfast, which can be enjoyed by anyone.

As a beverage, I remain less convinced.

Sure, paired with some foods, a glass of cold milk is simply glorious. Warm cookies and brownies top the list, but milk is also the perfect foil to a peanut butter sandwich. However, for the most part, it’s just not what I want to drink.

That makes me feel terrible. Mostly for New York’s dairy farmers who are struggling. Part of me thought the answer was cheese. But I just recently learned about the cheese surplus. And the yogurt boom from a few years back has had unintended negative consequences for local producers.

So maybe it’s not just the human biome, maybe my new desire to drink yogurt has something to do with wanting to support regional dairy farmers. Whatever the case, I’ve been exploring the wide world of drinking yogurt.

It started simply enough, with some yogurt, a mason jar, a bit of water, and a splash of maple syrup. The idea is that you seal that baby up, shake it around, and it’s a probiotic rich drink. The amount of water depends on how thin or thick you want the resulting beverage to be. My goal is to get it relatively thin, so that it’s more of a refresher and less of a smoothie.

Then, last week, I found myself at Mazadar on Central Avenue in Colonie. It’s a relatively new Afghani restaurant, and they had a much more traditional yogurt drink. It is both herbed and salted, making for an entirely different experience. Salted yogurt drinks can be found all over the middle east and south Asia.

I’ve long avoided salted yogurt drinks, assuming that one had to grow up with them to enjoy the experience. While it may be a bit jarring at first to take a sip of something savory and cold, I am definitely warming up to this category of beverages.

Although that could be just the bacteria talking.