I understand that people also eat quail eggs, goat milk or etc etc due to geography (?) – but at what point and why did many settle on chicken eggs and cow milk?
Thank you
ETA: WOOAAAAAAH a great deal of responses here. thank you!!!!
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Nobody could get all the hair out of Yak milk and finish the whole omelette from an ostrich egg
You have it backwards. We didn’t settle on Cow’s milk and Chicken eggs. Instead we bred these animals to give us these products in the first place.
You see, both the bovine (cow) and chicken as we know them do not – nor ever did – exist in the wild on their own. We humans created these animals ourselves by generations of domestication and breeding. Cows come from an ancient extinct animal called an Auroch, and chickens come from a bird called the red jungle foul.
Since we have put so much effort into domesticating these animals over thousands of years to give us the highest yield, highest quality product, it only makes sense that we use them for this purpose.
I haven’t seen anyone say yet: chickens are flock animals with strict pecking orders. They self regulate their heirarchy, which allows them to be kept in large flocks without too much conflict.
In India we drink mostly Buffalo milk some drink cow’s milk too but cow’s milk is mainly used for religious purposes and for making ghee a type of butter which is also used for religious purposes as far as I know.
CGP Grey has an nice [youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo) on why we domesticated some animals but not others and why more animals were domesticated in some places than others.
Chickens evolved in China alongside bamboo. Well bamboo only blooms once every x years, depending on the type. They release seeds which cause the chickens to multiply like crazy. Eventually, chickens evolved so that getting overfed meant making more eggs, which was a good source of food. About 6000 years ago, chickens spread from China to the world, making them a great source of eggs. Most other animals only lay eggs to reproduce, and only every so often. Chickens just do it 24/7 given the right circumstances, which are easy to produce.
Other people have pointed out the facts on cows, but basically, the butter fat separates out easier than other milk sources, meaning butter is easier to make from it. Butter is important, great for cooking. The milk is just a plus from there.
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