Dairy Products

Milk and cheese are conspicuous in their absence from old Lowcountry cookbooks. Every plantation and many town houses had their “dairy,” but animal husbandry was not a major part of Lowcountry farming practices prior to the Civil War. Cows were kept for cream, butter, and buttermilk, but it was just too hot in the Lowcountry for serious cheese making before the age of refrigeration. And according to recent findings, 78 percent of Jews, 70 percent of black Americans, and 83 percent of American Indians are milk intolerant; many of the early Carolinians would have found dairy dishes nauseating.