Ingredient: Almond Milk

Almond milk feels like a new thing, but it’s actually been in English kitchens since at least the 1300s. Medieval cooks used it as a dairy stand-in during Lent, and it crops up in the Forme of Cury, one of the oldest English cookery manuscripts we have.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you, though: most commercial almond milk is only about 2–3% actual almonds. The rest is water, plus fortification with calcium, vitamin D and vitamin E to bring it closer to what you’d get from cow’s milk. It does the job for a lot of people, but it’s worth knowing it’s naturally quite low in protein compared to dairy or soya, so it’s not a like-for-like swap nutritionally.

The environmental picture is controversial too. Almond milk produces fewer emissions than dairy, which is genuinely good, but almonds are incredibly thirsty to grow. Almost all of them come from drought-hit California, and a single almond needs around 12 litres of water.

I prefer it unsweetened. It works nicely in porridge, smoothies and baking, anywhere you want something light and slightly nutty without the richness of dairy.