The history of the dairy cow is the history of America. Dairy cows, like many Americans, came from Europe — and as soon as they got here they started to “improve” the land by shitting on it. Then they began to fill the air with greenhouses gases and drank up all of the water in California.

But let’s not dwell on the negative. American dairy cows are big, beautiful creatures responsible for producing many of the taste treats you and I love. Behind every container of Chunky Monkey is an artificially inseminated bovine hitting the milking parlor twice a day to produce the milk solids necessary for smooth sugar intake. We should give credit where credit is due.

Like most hard jobs, making milk is a female occupation. It is high stress, has bad hours, and competence is a liability. The more milk cows make, the more we demand of them. Per capita consumption of cheese has risen from about 19 pounds in 1975 to over 35 pounds in 2013. The “cultured product” market (cottage cheese, fermented beverages, refrigerated dips, sour cream and yogurt) is exploding.

Fat, like velvet, never seems to go out of style.

Perhaps we should worship these producers of milk solids. I’m a firm believer in the almost entirely discredited idea that the original Indo-European mother goddess, the White Goddess, was identified with a cow. In the West we’ve been worshiping cows for a log time: the Hall of bulls at Lascaux, the cow cult at Çatalhöyük, the cult of Hathor in Ancient Egypt, Boann in Celtic Mythology, the bull cults of the Minoan culture, and the importance of cows in Hinduism. They all point to the fact these are very special creatures. We drink their milk, and in doing so we make them our mothers. No matter how much the sky father wants us as his own, we often end up returning to cows. That’s why as soon as Moses turned his back, the Israelites at the bottom of the mountain ditched the big Yahwistic da da for a gentle creature with large, liquid eyes. They were scared and they wanted their mommy.

If we don’t want to go so far as devotion, how about a little respect? This is the time of year when you can get a look at some of the better-treated dairy cows in our country by going to your local county fair. There, you will find 4-H kids showing their animals. 4-H is an organization that is its own sub-culture. Because it is an anachronistic holdover from the previous generation, it still manages to have some institutional integrity, and so, I can say without much reservation, that if you meet a 4-H kid at the fair you can assume the following:

• They are excited to be at the fair.
• They know a lot about their animal
• Your middling intellectual curiosity cannot deplete their reservoir of blah-blah-blah when it comes to talking about their animal

So you should go, and look, and ask, not only because you should know where your milk comes from, but also because if you haven’t looked into the eyes of a cow, you don’t really know where we come from.

In case you need some remedial pastoral instruction before you head out to the fair, here is a breakdown of some of the major dairy cattle breeds of North America.

The Holstein

Holsteins originated in the Netherlands. They are the descendants of the breeds that the Batavians and Friesians kept in the Rhine river delta over 2000 years ago. In other words, they are Germanic cows. Luckily, like most Germans, once in the U.S. they are content to work hard, keep the lawn mowed, and leave the talk of lebensraum in the old country. Good thing because there are a lot of them, and each one weighs about 1500 pounds. The Holstein (a.k.a. the Holstein-Friesian) is a beautiful, graceful cow that is in serious danger of permanent kitchification thanks to Chick-fil-A and the State of Vermont. For some reason, the black and white spots provoke a “cute” response of Japanese proportions. They deserve better. If you’ve ever seen one of these girls take a piss you wouldn’t be so quick to make a refrigerator magnet out of them.

The Brown Swiss

The Brown Swiss is another cow of German origin. Of course, they come from Switzerland, but most of the stock for the American breed came from the German speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Germany, the brown cow is known as braunvieh. I don’t know much about German, but I know that braun means coffee maker, so my guess is that “braunvieh” means “coffee milk maker”. And you thought that coffee milk was some post-modern chemical concoction.

The Guernsey

The Guernsey gets its name from an island in the English Channel near the coast of France that was settled by militant monks from Normandy who created the breed. That would make the Guernsey a French cow, unless you’re a holdout like me who believes that Normandy is really English, no matter what the supposed outcome of the Hundred Years’ War was. The Guernsey is descended from Norman Brindle and Froment du Leon breeds, and its milk is high in butterfat, protein, and beta-carotene. So, if you’re on one of the new-fangled low-carb diets, this is the milk you want; whole — “undamaged” — fat, protein, and beta-carotene. The Guernsey breed of cows also has the highest rate of the A2 genotype. If you believe that the Devil is in the Milk, then you might want to source some Guernsey milk. Good luck with that. Guernseys are on the watch list of The Livestock Conservancy because there are probably less than 10,000 of them in the U.S.

The Jersey

Bruce Springsteen sang about the Jersey cow. The song went:

The pasture door slams,
Mary’s dewlap sways.
Like a vision she waddles across the manure as the radio plays.
Roy Orbison lowing for the lonely,
Hey it’s me and I’ll milk you only,
don’t turn me home again I just can’t face that barn alone.
Don’t run back inside, darling you know what the heard is for.
So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe there’s dung on the floor.
Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night,
you ain’t a Holstein but, hey, you’re all right…

The Ayrshire

In case you aren’t familiar with the cultural prejudices of the previous generation, Scots are supposed to be cheap. That’s why the Econo Lodge line of motels used to have as its mascot a little man with mutton chops wearing a kilt. It’s also why Scrooge McDuck is a Scot, rather than an Englishman like Ebeneezer Scrooge. It turns out that the Ayrshire, a Scottish breed, is, in fact, cheap to own. The cows are excellent foragers. They find food where little can be found and they fatten up on it nicely. I’m not saying there is any connection, but you can draw your own conclusions. Also, Ayrshire is pronounced “ass-hair”.

The Dutch Belted

This is too good to be true. The Dutch Belted was introduced to America by P.T. Barnum in 1840. The Dutch refused to export the breed, but Barnum convinced the Dutch that he would only exhibit the cows in his circus. He did show them for several years, but when the cattle were retired they were placed on a farm, which was the beginning of the Dutch Belted breed in America. So the guy who brought you General Tom Thumb, Jumbo the Elephant, and the Minnesota Fat Boy also gave you one of the great dairy breeds of America. How much do we owe this great man, whom Ralph Waldo Emerson treated with such scorn? Did Emerson introduce any important cattle, sheep, or swine breeds to America? I think not.

Well, I hope this lesson from the 4-H desk has increased your appreciation of America’s great dairy cows. I’ve stressed the European origin of the breeds, but, please remember, these are the North American varieties I’m talking about. They, like their human counterparts, grew stronger and more productive once they hit the fertile soil of our great nation. Without them the American experiment might well have faltered. We owe a great debt to these noble ladies, and yet, we focus on cowboys and cowgirls rather than milkmaids and dairymen. Cowboys rope cattle and ride bulls; they are devotees of our late religion. If you want to go back in time, walk past the rodeo to the milking stalls, and take a look at the familiars of the White Goddess.