Guess what. You won't like it, but the animals in Redwall ate a whole lot of milk, cream, and butter.... They were milking each other

What species is this on the table for dinner?

Brian Jacques claimed in an interview https://archive.is/HnklK#selection-1115.1-1125.130 that the milk is plant milk:
"129. If Redwallers are mainly vegetarian, eating no animal products other than fish, then how is it possible for them to create cheese or custards without the aid of dairy [...] (1/*)

[...] products which would come from animals other than the latter? (Gabrielle Joseph, Westerville, Ohio)"

The answer from Brian: "Green sap milk is my solution. The sap of many plants can be used to make vegetarian versions of milk, cream, butter and cheese."

He also explained what greensap milk is: "If you sqeeze a green plant you can extract sap. Thus, greensap milk."

This is obviously just bullshit that he came up with in order to avoid the question of how these animals could eat so many milk products without doing any milking!

Nut milk? Sure. Oat milk or soy milk would also be viable alternatives. There are a ton of specific vegan options that Jacques could have named but did not.... Instead he pulled the name "greensap milk" out of his ass.

Maybe there really are plant milks made out of sap, like he claims. But the fact that he did not name an actual, existing plant (e.g. dandelion milk?) and came up with his own name from scratch implies to me that he did not think it through that far.

Jacques wrote a story about animals who ate non-vegan dishes, recognized that this raised uncomfortable questions ("What animal made the milk if they don't have cows?"), and simply substituted "greensap milk" for cow milk wherever it appeared as an ingredient.

Here is the smoking gun: In The Redwall Cookbook, no nut- or plant-based milks are ever specified or even mentioned. The ingredients always just say "butter", "milk", "cream", "eggs", and/or "egg yolks". This is not a vegan cookbook, and these are not vegan recipes.

Anyone who cooks vegan and has tried converting non-vegan recipes can tell you that you really have to think about what milk and other ingredients you use to subsitute for a given animal milk! Oat milk finds its use in a lot of recipes for its creamy texture and mild flavor...

But "GREEN SAP MILK" from whatever plants grow in "Redwall" (likely set in Britain?) would probably have a strong flavor of its own and definitely wouldn't suffice as a 1:1 substitute for cow milk to achieve the same flavors as the recipes in Jacques' cookbook!

The fact is that Jacques had no satisfying explanation for how the animals in his world could eat so much milk-based food without keeping other animals for dairy. He didn't like that, so he invented "greensap milk" as an obvious excuse to placate fans.

I am not placated... and I am NOT a fan of Redwall. The animals are getting their milk from somewhere, and it's not where Jacques claims they do... It's disgusting.... I hope this is a wake-up call to any adult Redwall fans reading. End of thread. @RedwallFeasts @redwallclan