Images of Califia, a fictional queen and the namesake of California, serve as the focus for this inquiry into the influence of pastoral imaginaries on the production of dairy and nondairy milk, especially almond milk. With effectively all US almond production occurring in California, almond milk is a uniquely Californian product. Milk, in both its traditional dairy and newer nondairy varieties, offers a rich aesthetic as well as agricultural history. These pastoral trends emphasize the vision of a tamed, benevolent nature and the faith in technological innovation to resolve agricultural struggles. From the establishment and expansion of dairy farms and almond groves, to recent dairying and drought crises, consumers have associated milk with the bounty of California's land and the skill and dedication of its farmers, a sentiment also apparent in depictions of Califia in California murals and in the packaging of Califia Farms almond milk.

The reinvention of food is also a matter of re-localization. This means rethinking food chains in terms of their spatiality. This article deals with milk and cheese and their reinvention in Italy through two distinct, even opposing, strategies: automatization and face-to-face involvement of critical consumers with producers. Each of these strategies associates trust with different spatial arrangements. In the case of raw milk automated distributors (locally named the equivalent of “milk ATMs”), trust is associated with the short distance to the raw milk producer, with whom, however, there is no direct interaction. In the case of food activist circles, notably Italy’s Solidarity Purchase Groups or GAS, trust lies in actual interaction with the producer. This acquires a specific meaning in a culture that assigns added social significance to the act of food provisioning and cultivates plural practices of social interactions that are mediated through food.

Obsession with dessert is widely shared by the residents of Kolkata. Life's passages and religious rituals are all celebrated with sugary creations. Bengali desserts are typically made with some sort of milk product. Among these are mishti doi a custard-like dessert made by adding yogurt cultures to sweetened evaporated milk. However, Bengal is best known for desserts based on chhana. This is a fresh cheese with a consistency similar to ricotta. Some chhana is made into fritters, which include pantua, a doughnut-brown ball about the size of a lime, and kalojam, a nearly jet black sphere of dough. Both of these are soaked in syrup. Rossogolla is made from a similar dough but is boiled rather than fried. When soaked in a milk-based syrup, it is called rossomalai. In a simpler preparation, the fresh cheese is cooked down with sugar and formed into many kinds of sweets called sandesh. One of the city's best know sandesh shops is Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Nandy, or Nakur, in the old Shyambazar district. At Nakur they begin with raw milk, process it into cheese, and then cook, form, and flavor it into many types of sandesh of often unorthodox flavors. This artisanal approach cannot be followed by smaller neighborhood confectioners, called moiras in Bengali. They often use ready-made chhana for their confections. Trying to keep up with the times, new confectioners have tried to expand their operations and offer new products some of which are artificially sweetened.

Maine farmer Jesse Haskell delivers raw milk from farms to processing plants. The 24-year-old works two sides of Northern New England's dairy industry: He milks cows for a national cooperative that sells organic milk to yogurt manufacturer Stonyfield Farm and he transports hormone-free milk from Maine's conventional dairy farms to Oakhurst Dairy. In an increasingly specialized industry, Haskell has the unique vantage of both a farmer and a milk hauler. En route, he works hard but tries to make light of the serious, long-term commitment he has made to the uncertain future of the region's niche dairying business.