Fourth Be with You

A Long Time Ago, in a Universe Far Away…

May 4th marks Star Wars Day around the world. (May the 4th…be with you.) Theaters are showing the original – and arguably the best – trilogy and the cosplayers come out of the woodwork. While other sci-fi films of the 1970s focused on a precarious food supply, such as Soylent Green (1973), Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) was just plain weird about food. In one of the film’s quieter, domestic scenes, Luke Skywalker sits at the kitchen table while his adoptive mother, Beru, casually pours what looks like blue milk for all to drink. Blue milk? While a minor detail in an otherwise visually-stunning film, the blue milk has become the stuff of legend, even returning in Episode VIII where we see it milked right from the source. Apparently, the blue milk of the original film was Bantha milk – a shaggy, wooly mammoth-type desert beast. Disneyland even offers Star Wars kinds of milk to enhance the magical experience. 

Today’s Cafe is Not Yesterday’s 

Back in the day, one would have one choice at an eatery: cream with coffee, or without. These days, cafe-goers have a dizzying array of choices regarding milk(s), and patrons have gotten pickier. There’s almond, cow, goat, coconut, buttermilk…the list goes on. The dairy section of many supermarkets has grown in response! 

Milk and Cookies…or Bex Bars

What would you have blue milk with? Goes great with a Bex Bar! It is easy to dye milk since white is a great base for other colors. As we’ve written about earlier, dyeing food and liquids is commonplace, but natural dyes are a better way to go than artificial ones. If you want to be true to the original film and the milk’s appearance, it was long-life milk most likely dyed with an artificial dye available at the time (the mid-late 1970s). Dyeing foods for occasions is a good skill to have since as soon as one holiday is through, the next one is fast on its heels! 

May the Fourth Be with You 

So choose your side: the Rebellion or the Empire (are you sure which is the good guy?), charge up your lightsaber, and grab a glass of Bantha milk! Chef Becky will be in Princess Leia mode on the Fourth and leading the charge every day in the kitchen. 

Bex wishes you well and that the Fourth be with you.