My first food column for Tricycle Magazine about learning how to make yoghurt. From the October 2009 issue of the magazine. Full text since the article is behind a paywall for non-subscribers. Subscribers can link here.
Curd. It’s not a pretty word. It brings to mind tea accidents, milk slipped into lemon infusion, coagulation, spoilage, and mysterious nursery rhymes involving innocent girls and dangling spiders. But I began using the term with regularity during an extended stay in Bodhgaya.
It was near there that, yearning for the cessation of birth and death, Prince Siddhartha spent six years as an ascetic in the woods, his daily diet consisting of one jujube, one sesame seed and one grain of rice. The sight of his emaciated body was, “a source of joy to the eyes of others, as the moon in autumn is to the night lotuses,” wrote Asvaghosa in his singularly beautiful text, the Buddhacarita.
But then Siddhartha changed his mind. Inward tranquility, he realized, requires and outward appeasement of the senses. He stepped out of the forest and was met by Sujata, the daughter of a cowherd chief, dressed in a sari like “dark blue water wreathed in foam.” From her he accepted his first proper nourishment and thus the strength to sit under the bodhi tree where he attained enlightenment. Some say it was milk, some say rice pudding, but most agree it was a form of curd.
Bodhgaya is a place of lepers and lamas, golden stupas and stinking ditches, piles of guava fruits and marigolds, living Buddha’s, dying traditions, brilliant colors, brilliant faith, fake pearls, fake preachers, authentic yogis, sycophants, blessings upon blessings upon blessings…And a lot of flies. It was difficult to eat anything with complete confidence during my stay. I had seen enough larvae-studded carcasses at Indian butchers and enough truckloads of sickly chickens to swear off meat for the duration. But after hours of prostrations under the tree, I would teeter around the dusty streets of Bodhgaya with the greenish palor of an anemic. I craved protein, something, anything other than bleached rice, watery daal, overcooked vegetables, and starchy momos found at the stalls.
Then I met a my own Sujata, a lovely Brazilian pilgrim who gave me a pot of her homemade curd, also known as yoghurt, or dahi. Tasting this pure, cool, probiotic substance, I think I might have had my first experience of Buddha, a revelation, even if it was merely gastronomic. There was a thick layer on top where the creamier part of the milk had risen. She’d purchased the milk from a paju ama, a Tibetan woman who kept cows, boiled it and strained and then made the yoghurt using little red clay pots from the market. It had been tended to every step of the way. It was incredibly satisfying.
The tale of Buddha’s first meal could be read as symbolic. Something pure provided the strength and clarity necessary for a seeker of the truth in his final lap toward enlightenment. Something motherly and whole, sensual, created by the sacred and gentle cow.
When told I could manufacture my own, I doubted, and then practiced and then believed.
Science and Math:
Yoghurt is made by introducing certain bacteria, usually streptococcus thermophilus and lactobacillus bulgaricus, into milk and encouraging it to grow. The bacteria-produced lactic acid coagulates the milk into a curd.
Sounds scientific but making your own is so easy, and saves money. A little yogurt math: A 32 oz. container of organic yogurt will cost about $5.00 in New York City. One gallon of organic whole milk is about $6.00. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, so one could potentially make four times more yoghurt for about the same amount of money.
What You Need:
Two things: milk and starter culture. Starter means either a prepackaged bacteria or one cup of plain, live culture (i.e. not pasteurized) whole-fat yoghurt from the store. You don’t need any fancy equipment, just a saucepan, a strainer (optional), and a clean, air-tight container (yoghurt bacteria needs warmth to grow as do other less-friendly bacteria, so make sure that your containers are sanitized).
Sujata didn’t have a thermometer and neither did my Brazillian yoghurt guru. She gave instructions that have never failed me: “boil the milk until the heat goes into the finger” (recite this with a Portuguese accent for full effect). Meaning, when you dunk your pinky, the heat strikes deep through the finger but doesn’t burn. Try it with hot water first until it makes sense. You don’t want to kill the live bacteria. Think incubation. Or, if you don’t trust your finger, 110°F is the standard.
How to:
Heat a gallon of milk until it goes into the finger, take off the burner, skim off the “skin”, push the starter yoghurt through the strainer and gently stir into the milk (too much air will slow the process). One nice touch is to add dry milk powder to the pot before adding your starter, you will get a thicker, more rich yoghurt. Pour the milk into your container, which should be warmed up so that it doesn’t change the temperature of the milk.
The trickiest part of the process is making sure the inoculated yoghurt remains warm enough to breed the bacteria for 4-5 hours. In India, I would seal it in a soup thermos and leave it in the sun. On cooler days I would wrap it in a blanket or put the whole thermos in a larger pot of hot water. I’ve seen others use a switched-off gas oven, The pilot light alone is often enough.
Enjoy:
You can tell if the yoghurt is ready by tilting your container and seeing if it holds together. Before you start eating, set aside a half cup to use as starter for the next batch. There may be a watery layer on top. My friend Shyang Jen, the Martha Stewart of Taiwan explained that this is the whey, finally answering my childhood quandary about the mystery. When I told her I was writing about yoghurt she set about making several varieties in a variety of pretty containers, showing me that fruits or slivered almonds can be placed at the bottom of your container. She said that it can be used as a moisturizing mask if you like.
Then, if I may borrow the words of Asvaghosa, as your frame reaches full roundness, as your skin bears the loveliness of the moon, and as your digestive track develops the steadfastness of the ocean, may it benefit your practice!
