The humble glass of milk — fresh from the fridge, beaded with condensation — is an evocative symbol of twentieth-century attitudes toward food, health, and nature.

To many people in the industrialized world, those eight ounces of opaque homogenous white make non-homogenized milk — also known as ‘milk’ — look somehow unsafe, barny and unsavory, with its morbid yellow fats floating uncannily close to the lips. Natural milk has of course returned to popularity, thanks to the total Brooklynization of our present century, with its artisanal sourcing, responsible and sustainable farming, and farm-to-table practices, not to mention its tattersall shirts, sleeve garters, muttonchops, sleeve tats, Edison bulbs, live-edge wooden tabletops, leather aprons, chalkboards, family-style share plates, lack of advance reservations, and offers to explain the menu. But before the hipsters, there were the Anti-Gaulinites.

Standing in opposition to August Gaulin, who in 1899 patented the first process for homogenizing milk, the Anti-Gaulinites had unsuccessfully agitated against homogenization at the dairy, so instead turned to re-heterogenization at the breakfast table. These attractive countertop centrifuges were designed to accomodate four servings of milk, and spin it at such velocity as to separate its contents back into liquids and solids — a force of 10000g, ten thousand times the power of the earth’s gravity. Ultimately, the critique of homogenized milk faded, as people’s nutritional and gustatory concerns were answered by both science and custom. But these handsome food centrifuges remain useful kitchen appliances — at least for homes wired with direct current, as the Anti-Gaulinites also inveighed against the evils of alternating current.

Published February 8, 2023. Copyright © 2023 Jonathan Hoefler.