A while ago while I was doing some routine grocery shopping a rectangular cardboard 
carton caught my eye. It was in the health food aisle, right next to the soy milk and the rice milk, but it wasn't soy milk or rice milk. It was almond milk. There were several varieties; unsweetened, sweetened, vanilla, and chocolate. I note that the flavored versions, vanilla and chocolate, are also available with or without sweetening. There are several different companies making almond milk, and they all seem to have the same basic types. The primary difference is that some of the makers are producing organic almond milk, and some use cane sugar as their sweetener, but others use a variety of other sweeteners.
I'd heard of almond milk before, but in the context of medieval cooking. I was pretty sure that the almond milk that was quite frequently used and made in the middle ages couldn't possibly be the same thing. In the middle ages, almond milk was was made quite simply by grinding roasted almonds up in water, then filtering or straining the resulting liquid. Almond milk in the middle ages was quite popular since it kept, unlike dairy milk, was very easy to prepare, and the basic ingredient, roasted almonds, could be stored quite easily for months. Almond milk was an important ingredient for Lenten cooking.
I've only tried the unsweetened variety of almond milk, so far. It's thinner, more watery than milk, roughly equivalent to 2% milk. It tastes fine; I can tell it's made from almonds, but it's not overpowering at all. I probably wouldn't pour it into a glass and drink it like I would with dairy milk, but it's not at all bad in coffee. Since it doesn't need to be refrigerated until it's opened, and it's much much better than canned milk or powdered creamer, I do think it might be handy to keep a box around for those emergencies when I've run out of milk and must have some for my coffee.
It's good with cereal, and I'm definitely going to try cooking with almond milk. You can, apparently, use almond milk as a one-for-one equivalent for milk, so I'm intrigued by the idea of making hot cocoa with almond milk, and making arroz con leche with it. The faint hint of almond flavor could be a definite plus in fruit smoothies, or pancakes, too.
Nutritionally, almond milk is not a bad thing, assuming you have no nut or almond allergies. It's a welcome addition to the diet of people who can't have cow milk, for instance. Almond milk does cost more than cow milk; the quart I bought was $1.80. The nutritional break down of the Blue Diamond Unsweetened Original I tried, in the short form are:
- Gluten, cholesterol and lactose free
- High in calcium, vitamins D & E
- Good source of vitamin A
It's pretty easy to make your own almond milk. I'm definitely going to try the chocolate version too, and am thinking about chili cocoa made with almond milk.
