butter-msg - 1/10/08 Period butter. Making butter. Butter churns. NOTE: See also these files: dairy-prod-msg, Honey-Butter-art, cheese-msg, cheesemaking-msg, Cheese-Making-art, cheesecake-msg, fresh-cheeses-msg, spreads-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: DDFr at Midway.UChicago.edu (David Friedman) Subject: Re: Mongolian Cuisine (HELP!) Organization: University of Chicago Law School Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 13:59:20 GMT > Just checking; Ghee is a type of clarified butter? > > Marian, Clann Kyle Ghee is clarified butter; I do not know if there are any other kinds of clarified butter that are not ghee. It is available from Indian grocery stores, and Indian cookbooks generally have instructions for making it. -- David/Cariadoc DDFr at Midway.UChicago.Edu From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 23:16:13 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - butter Mark Harris wrote: > I remember some arguments in previous years on whether "honey butter" was > period at all. If even "herb butter" and butter were not period, what was > eaten on bread? Anything? Honey butter is probably a German invention, popularized mostly by the "Pennsylvania Dutch", who are of German origin. I couldn't say when, but I remember reading some period (or just post-period) traveller's comment on the English diet: his comment was that less butter was eaten in England than on the Continent, and that it was not eaten on bread in the Flemish fashion. I do know that some period recipes call for white grease (rendered lard or suet) to be dissolved into pottages, and butter could have been a non-meat-day substitute in many cases. Toward the very end of our period, many English recipes called for a knob of butter to be beaten (emulsified) into sauces, in a technique very similar to modern recipes for French butter sauces like Beurre Blanc and Bearnaise sauce. Generally it would thicken the sauce just a bit, but more importantly would help suspend various things floating in watery liquids, so thinner sauces wouldn't settle out at service. > > Stefan li Rous > markh at risc.sps.mot.com Adamantius From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 02:41:00 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - butter Hi, Katerine here. Over the years, I've been working on a project on the use of various ingredients in 13th to 15th C English cuisine, as reflected by the surviving recipe corpus. My numbers are complete relative to the 13th and 14th centuries (not much of a trick for the 13th), though I'm nowhere near done with the 15th. For the curious, the total number of recipes involved in the current figures are 26 13th C recipes, 419 14th C ones, and 907 15th C ones. Of these recipes, butter occurs in 15% of the 13th C recipes, and in 3% of the 14th and again 3% of the 15th. 3% isn't a lot; but it's as many as, say, pears and shellfish show up in, and more than cheese, peas, venison, kid, or rice (comparisons from the 15th C). Other forms of fat are far more common; recipes include oil or grease six times as frequently. Still, it was hardly unknown. I do agree with the original claim, however, that it does not appear to have been much used as a preservative in meat pies. Meat pies do not frequently appear to have be used as preservation techniques; for fish, galentine (in gelled form) appears to have been used more often. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 22:50:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SC - butter At 4:47 PM -0500 5/17/97, Mark Harris wrote: >On Friday, May 16, Lord Ras said: >I agree that there are recipes that are LATE period that call for butter and >even very RARELY a mid-period recipe lists "boter" as an ingredient. However, >butter was not NORMALLY consumed. It was considered medicinal (to cover >wounds, salve base, etc.) until rather recent times. Whish IMHO puts it in >the same category as potatos, tomatos and other late period dietary >introductions. The 13th c. Andalusian recipes use both butter and clarified butter. Le Menagier fries in lard and butter (Cress in Lent with Milk of Almonds). Platina greases the pan for armored turnips with butter or liquamen (animal fat, not the Roman liquamen), Proper Newe Book uses butter, _Curye on Inglysch_ uses it in an emberday vergion of Sawgeat and in Malaches Whyte, _Ancient Cookery_ in tart in ember day, ... So much from a quick search of the _Miscellany_. I don't know what you count as a "mid-period" recipe--if that includes _Curye_ and _Le Menagier_, then what do you classify as early period? David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 15:58:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SC - butter Stefan li Rous writes: > It was my understanding that butter was eaten by the lower classes but not > by the upper but I don't have referances to back this up. Anyone else know? > Lord Ras, is it possible that the sources you have been looking at are > primarily just for the upper class and thus would miss the use of butter by > other classes in/on food? > > I remember some arguments in previous years on whether "honey butter" was > period at all. If even "herb butter" and butter were not period, what was > eaten on bread? Anything? From the 13th-century Arabo-Andalusian "Manuscrito Anonimo", a chapter entitled "The Customs that Many People Follow in Their Countries": ... Many people eat butter, and add it to bread, while others cannot bear to smell it, much less to eat it.... The same source includes numerous recipes calling for butter. In particular, a variety of pastries called by the general term "rafis" (e.g. musahada, markaba, muqawwara, et multae cetera) seem to be topped with a mixture of melted butter and honey, as often as not poured into a hole poked in the pastry (although I haven't seen any reference to mixing honey and butter at room temperature, or allowing the mixture to cool to room temperature before use, as seems common at SCA feasts). Butter also appears in Arabo-Andalusian sources in making pie crusts, again in making puff pastry, and often as a lubricant in meat dish. What the barbarians beyond the Pyrenees do with butter is their problem. :-) mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/ Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University From: Uduido at aol.com Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 22:28:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SC - Butter-oops In a message dated 97-05-19 03:07:37 EDT, you write: << The 13th c. Andalusian recipes use both butter and clarified butter. ...<snip many other wonderful words>>> I looked up recipes that called for butter and found a few. However, my original intent was to say that butter was not usually consumed by the nobility. "In Medieval Europe, butter was plentiful, so it was viewed as fit only for poor folk to eat.....[from 'Rich Man, Poor Man, Butter Man...';The Great Food Almanac (A Feast of Facts From A to Z); Irene Chalmers; pg. 169; pub. Collins; c. 1994] Since SCA personas are not considered peasantry , it was my reasoning that personas of our type would have rarely consumed butter and it would have rarely reared it's head on the Feast table of any self-respecting nobleman. it is still my opinion that bread would have been "spread" with the much tastier olive oil. In fact, I'm on a quest to find the info on this particular subject. "Bread and butter" is a common item in the Current Middle Ages, agreed. So are chickens. But chickens were not a "common" food during the Middle Ages and I have run across no primary references citing the existence of "bread and butter". It is also my contention that bread was almost universally dipped in broths,etc. (e.g. "sops") thus negating the widespread use of any spread being necessary. I would welcome any further thoughts or info in this area. Yours in Service to the Dream, Lord Ras (uduido at aol.com) From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 23:55:48 -0400 Subject: Re: SC - Butter-oops Uduido at aol.com wrote: > personas of our type would have rarely consumed butter and it would have > rarely reared it's head on the Feast table of any self-respecting nobleman. > it is still my opinion that bread would have been "spread" with the much > tastier olive oil. In fact, I'm mon a quest to find the info on this > particular subject. This situation may have something in common with the recent fish-outside-of-Lent thread. I suspect one possibility might be that butter is something that the lower classes would have eaten whenever possible, while the rich, feeling that they had to resort to it on fish and/or fast days, might conceivably avoid it on those days when things like "greasy seme" of meat might be available. Certainly several recipes call for butter to be included, possibly as a substitute for other oils or fats. Sawgeat and Hanoney come to mind, both of which are egg dishes, which COULD indicate that these are non-meat-day dishes (at least sawgeat, when butter is used instead of sausage, falls into this category). "Bread and butter" is a common item in the Current Middle > Ages, agreed. So aren't chickens . But chickens were not a "common" food > during the Middle Ages and I have run across no primary references citing the > existence of "bread and butter". It is also my contention that bread was > almost universally dipped in broths,etc. (e.g. "sops") thus negating the > widespread use of any spread being necessary. One possibility (if remote) is that spreading bread with a topping might be something that was done, not while at a feast day table, but rather, say, on a hunting trip. (Or possibly, while gambling all night long ; ) ) I believe the original Welsh dish of toasted cheese (not the effete Digby version, but the real thing, being merely good fat cheese roasted before the fire in slices) was served on toasted bread. Whether this was then eaten out of hand I don't know. > I would welcome any further tho'ts or info in this area. Ol' sieve-head is at it again. I can't place the reference; I just read this a couple of weeks ago. I believe it was part of an Englishman's account of life in a Heugenot village in southern England, and it makes a reference to certain alien habits of the folk of the village: among them was the habit of giving the children bread smeared thickly with raw butter in the Flemish fashion. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Adamantius From: nancy <nweders at mail.utexas.edu> Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 07:59:29 +0000 Subject: SC - butter While a late source, The Good Huswifes Jewell, (2 parts, by Thomas Dawson, published by Walter J. Johnson, Inc. Theatrum Obis Terrarum,Ltd, Norwood, New Jersey, 1977) lists two "menus" for fish days that have Butter as the first item served. It also contains a recipe for almond butter, and a great many recipes list butter as an ingredient. Many of the meat pies have butter as a liner for the pastry sort of preventing the juices from leaking through. This is very late in the span that the SCA uses but it does show how much butter was used in the late period. It would be interesting in tracing the development of the use of butter as an ingredient or actually an ingredient. The Good Huswife's jewel also has a recipe that contains potatoes in it as well. The recipe includes dates, sugar and red wine..... Clare From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 11:44:53 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - Butter-oops Hi, Katerine here. Lord Ras writes: >I looked up recipes that called for butter and found a few. However, my >original intent was to say that butter was not usually consumed by the >nobility. > >"In Medieval Europe, butter was plentiful, so it was viewed as fit only for >poor folk to eat.....[from 'Rich Man, Poor Man, Butter Man...';The Great Food >Almanac (A Feast of Facts From A to Z); Irene Chalmers; pg. 169; pub. >Collins; c. 1994] It's wise to take any statement as sweeping as this with a grain (and sometimes a pillar) of salt. Attitudes toward butter seem to be strongly conditioned by time and place. As a very broad generalization, outside of the Islamic world, southern Europe seems to have preferred olive oil, while northern Europe preferred meat fats -- either butter or white grease. Olive oil is mentioned in 13th to 15th century English cuisine, but less often than butter, and many many times less often than grease. Meat fats were used for two general kinds of purposes: to raise the fat content of a dish, and to fry in. For frying, northern Europeans seem overwhelmingly to have preferred white grease to butter. This may be strongly influenced by the fact that butter (unless it has been clarified, a technique mentioned commonly in Spanish and Islamic sources but not elsewhere) burns at far lower temperatures than grease. Butter also was not used to lard meats for spit roasting, very likely for the same reason. For increasing fat content, butter does not seem to have been all that strongly dispreferred to grease in those areas that prefer meat fats. >it is still my opinion that bread would have been "spread" with the much >tastier olive oil. This is very plausible for Italy and southern France, but relatively unlikely for northern France, England, Germany, and northern Europe in general. >"Bread and butter" is a common item in the Current Middle >Ages, agreed. So aren't chickens . But chickens were not a "common" food >during the Middle Ages Do you mean that chickens were not eaten by peasants, or that they were not common in upper class cuisine? The first, I have little information on; but the second is patently false. Chicken is the single most common form of flesh in 13th to 15th century English recipes; the only thing that comes close to rivaling it is pork. It is almost two and a half times as common as beef (including veal), and on the order of ten times as common as deer. For details, see http://www.watervalley.net/users/jtn/Articles/game.html. >It is also my contention that bread was >almost universally dipped in broths,etc. (e.g. "sops") thus negating the >widespread use of any spread being necessary. I would welcome any further >tho'ts or info in this area. Period serving manuals indicate that tables were set with large amounts of bread completely apart from trenchers, and that bread was always on the table with cheese and fruit before the first course arrived. This would tend to go against your contention. There are recipes for sops, but they are not all that common; and while it is highly probable that bread was dipped in other broths and sauces, we have no evidence that it was *only* used so, and considerable reason to doubt it. On the other hand, the same serving manuals make no mention of putting butter on the table (or olive oil); which suggests that neither was it spread with substances of that kind, at least much of the time. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 11:53:53 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - Butter-oops Hi, Katerine here. Adamantius writes, >This situation may have something in common with the recent >fish-outside-of-Lent thread. I suspect one possibility might be that >butter is something that the lower classes would have eaten whenever >possible, while the rich, feeling that they had to resort to it on fish >and/or fast days, might conceivably avoid it on those days when things >like "greasy seme" of meat might be available. Certainly several recipes >call for butter to be included, possibly as a substitute for other oils >or fats. Sawgeat and Hanoney come to mind, both of which are egg dishes, >which COULD indicate that these are non-meat-day dishes (at least >sawgeat, when butter is used instead of sausage, falls into this >category). Butter is explicitly suggested as an Ember Day alternative to sausage. Ember Days are not fish days. They are specific dieting days that are less restricted, but that still do not permit flesh. (Ember days are also relatively rare; twelve in a year, as I recall.) I'm not certain that butter was permitted on fish days. I don't recall it offhand in any fish dishes through the 15th century. I do, however, know of recipes that include both butter and marrow. If you can use marrow, you can use white grease (that is, if the religious dietary restrictions permit the first, they also permit the second). Butter occurs in custardy dishes reasonably often. Grease does not. The strong implication is that it was preferred in those dishes. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 11:58:34 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - butter Hi, Katerine here. Clare writes: >It [Dawson] also contains a recipe for almond >butter There are at least six recipes for almond butter extant from the 14th and 15th centuries in England. However, there is no evidence that it was used as a spread. It seems to have been served sliced as a dish. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry From: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com> Date: 20 May 1997 13:38:52 -0500 Subject: Re(2): SC - butter Markham has a recipe for roasted butter. Basically you beat some eggs and sugar (I think) into some butter, dredge it, and roast it. While you roast it, you need to keep dredging it. Markham says it was very popular. Derdriu swensel at brandegee.lm.com From: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com> Date: 20 May 1997 15:42:53 -0500 Subject: Re(2): Re(2): SC - butter > > Markham has a recipe for roasted butter. Basically you beat some eggs and > > sugar (I think) into some butter, dredge it, and roast it. While you roast > > it, you need to keep dredging it. Markham says it was very popular. > > > > Derdriu > > swensel at brandegee.lm.com > Okay, I'll show my ignorance here. What does "dredge" mean in this context? > I know about "dredging in flour" and such, but this doesn't appear to be the > same thing. > > Gunthar From what I can make out of his recipe (I left my book at home, and I am at work), you roll the butter in the dredging (I think it was crumbs) and spoon more on as the butter comes out through the dredging until no more butter comes through. Derdriu swensel at brandegee.lm.com From: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com> Date: 21 May 1997 09:15:07 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - Roasted Butter I haven't done a redaction yet, because people start muttering phrases like needing artery drain-o, short lifespans, etc. Here it is: To roast a pound of butter well (The English Housewife; Gervase Markham, edited by Michael Best 1986) To roast a pound of butter curiously and well, you shall take a pound of seet butter and beat it stiff with sugar, and the yolks of eggs; then clap it roundwise about a pit, and lay it before a soft fire, and presently drdge it with the dredging before appointed for the pig; then as it warmeth or melteth, so apply it with dredgining till the butter be overcomed and no more will melt to fall from it, then roast it brown, and so draw it, and servie it out, the dish being as neatly trimmed with sugar as may be. The dredging mentioned in the previous recipe is fine bread crumbs, currants, sugar, and salt. I think I just might do this sometime and serve it to people and not let them know what they are having until after they have ingested the "cholesterol poison." Derdriu From: mjbr at tdk.dk (Michael Bradford) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: butter in period? Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 08:53:32 GMT Organization: Tele Denmark ms224245 at mindspring.COM (Patricia M. Hefner) wrote: >Is butter as we know it--made out of cow's milk--period? If so, how was it >made? I vaguely remember a butter-churn that had been used by one of my >great-grandmothers. It was a great big wooden barrel. I think they poured >the cream into it after they'd separated it from the milk, but I have no >idea how this was done. I don't know what they did in the churn, either!! I >was born a little too late to see butter being churned! My mother told me >that they also used the churn to make ice cream before it became >mass-produced. Does anybody know anything else about earlier dairy >production? Merci beaucoup! As I remember, cream can be separated from milk by letting the milk stand and after a while, skimming the cream off. When the cream is churned, it is beaten by the motion of the paddlle. Last year for a seminar on cooking in the viking period (which my group were teaching), we took cream and whipped it in a bowl with a bundle of twigs (which we had bought at an old building museum and were sold for this purpose) and after a while, you have butter. Just add a little salt for taste. Michael Bradford Viking Group Wunjo Denmark mjbr at tdk.dk From: troy at asan.com (Philip W. Troy) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: butter in period? Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 10:05:49 -0400 In article <5t15cg$22e$1 at gatekeeeper.teledanmark.dk>, mjbr at tdk.dk (Michael Bradford) wrote: > As I remember, cream can be separated from milk by letting the milk > stand and after a while, skimming the cream off. > > When the cream is churned, it is beaten by the motion of the paddlle. > Last year for a seminar on cooking in the viking period (which my > group were teaching), we took cream and whipped it in a bowl with a > bundle of twigs (which we had bought at an old building museum and > were sold for this purpose) and after a while, you have butter. Just > add a little salt for taste. I remember reading somewhere that the plunger-style butter churn is of comparatively recent development. Somewhere (I'll have to go through a stack of papers to find it) I have a photocopy of [a facsimile edition of] a 16th-century English dairy manual. IIRC, it describes a process where the dairymaid pours milk into shallow bowls, allows the cream to rise, and beats it with her hands, gathering up lumps of butter as they form, pushing it together into a ball. I'll see if I can find this reference. For what it's worth, there is little evidence to suggest that butter was widely eaten on bread in period Europe. More often it would have been stirred into pottages to enrich them (generally on meatless days), but also might have been eaten with a spoon like a soft cheese. It also apparently shows up frequently in Anglo-Saxon medical receipts, I believe being used as a way to gently dehydrate and concentrate herbs by boiling them in butter. There are English accounts of those wacky Heugenots eating their butter spread on bread in the odd Flemish fashion... Adamantius From: XSimmons <"jls9" at MSG.TI.COM> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: butter in period? Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 12:11:38 -0500 Michael Bradford wrote: > ms224245 at mindspring.COM (Patricia M. Hefner) wrote: > >Is butter as we know it--made out of cow's milk--period? > > <snip of good way to separate cream> > Last year for a seminar on cooking in the viking period (which my > group were teaching), we took cream and whipped it in a bowl with a > bundle of twigs (which we had bought at an old building museum and > were sold for this purpose) and after a while, you have butter. Just > add a little salt for taste. Know what you can make from all that skimmed milk, after you've separated off the cream? Cottage cheese! ("Yum, yum," cried all the dieters.) Just for grins, cottage cheese is also period. Curds [14c] and whey [before 12c] (solids and liquid) form in the cheese-making process, which generally involves enzymes from a calf's stomach. (Still like rennet custard, regardless of the origin of the rennet!) Curds are rich in casein, a protein that also helped make milk-paint work (and is now used in making plastics.) Whey is high in lactose, vitamins, and minerals, and contains some fat. Perhaps that is why curds and whey are mentioned as food for children. (Imagine having cottage cheese for breakfast, instead of "frosty choco-nut sugar crunch bomb" cereals!) Ly Meara al-Isfahani (who likes her curds and whey with cinnamon and honey) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 12:42:19 -0500 From: bgarwoo <lordberwyn at ibm.net> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: butter in period? > Ly Meara al-Isfahani (who likes her curds and whey with cinnamon and > honey) Strictly speaking, cottage cheese is not the same as curds and whey. The whey is washed off, and the curds are mixed with cream or milk. berwyn From: Chris Mayer <csminter at hickory.net> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: butter in period? Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 15:09:22 -0400 Organization: CSM International Daniel W. Butler-Ehle wrote: > Isabelle de Foix wrote: > : Is butter as we know it--made out of cow's milk--period? If so, how was it > As far as cow's milk goes, I don't know. It seems to me that goat > butter would have been more likely in Europe for most of the > period, but that's just a guess. > > Ulfin the Dashing Sorry, no, you can't make butter out of goat's milk, because you can't get it to separate into cream. The fat globules are different, much smaller, as I recall, which is why it is more easily digested. Poor people often don't have butter, because all they can afford is goats (they can, however, have cheese). Cows, and butter indicate more wealth. Julitta From: hrjones at uclink.berkeley.edu (Heather Rose Jones) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: butter in period? Date: 18 Aug 1997 18:38:13 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Daniel W. Butler-Ehle (dwbutler at mtu.edu) wrote: : Isabelle de Foix wrote: : : Is butter as we know it--made out of cow's milk--period? If so, how was it : : made? Some of the earliest surviving references to butter (and the earliest by a cognate of that word in particular) occur in classical Greek sources -- where the word is quite recognizable in the form "boutyron" -- although a variety of references from both Greek and Latin sources make it clear that butter was not a normal part of their diet. (Quite likely because of its limited shelf-life in warm climates.) The word "boutyron" literally means "cow-curds" or "cow-cheese", which suggests that the Greeks were coining a word for some unfamiliar substance based on more familiar ones. (There are two parts to the implication: butter was unfamiliar to them, and they didn't normally make cheese from cow's milk.) As Grant notes (in "Anthimus: De observatione ciborum") some researchers have suggested that the Greek term is a translation of a Scythian word. Pliny mentions butter as a medicine, rather than a food, and gives instructions for churning it in his "Natural History" (28.133-5), but Dioscorides (in "On Medical Substances" 2.72.2) mentions it as a substitute for oil in cooking. Anthimus himself, writing in the 6th century, but from the Mediterranean culinary tradition, echoes Pliny in suggesting butter as medicine rather than food (although one must remember that the line between the two is rarely clear in period writings), and specifically notes honey-butter as a remedy for consumption! ("Si puro et recenti et mel modicum admixtum fuerit..."; "the butter should be blended with a little honey".) Evidently there are references in Hittite inscriptions that have been interpreted as referring to butter, but I don't have any specific citations available. Since the question had to do with the antiquity of butter, I'll skip going into the multitude of later medieval references. : : mass-produced. Does anybody know anything else about earlier dairy : : production? Merci beaucoup! I know there are a number of 16th century (as early 17th c.) English publications on the proper ordering of a dairy that go into great detail. See, for example, Gervase Markham's "The English Housewife", which describes the production and processing of butter in almost excruciating detail. I'm sure that similar material from other cultures is available, although I don't know that this genre of writing is found before the 16th c. : As far as cow's milk goes, I don't know. It seems to me that goat : butter would have been more likely in Europe for most of the : period, but that's just a guess. I'm curious why you suppose this should be -- have you seen references to goat butter? Two points argue against it, one linguistic and one practical. As noted above, the word "butter" makes specific reference to cows -- which doesn't mean that the word couldn't be more broadly applied, but it does indicate that cow's butter is the basic application. Secondly, goat's milk is much less inclined to separate (i.e., have the cream rise) than cow's milk is -- and churning whole milk to produce butter would be rather impractical. Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn From: albinsal at pilot.msu.EDU (Sally V Albin) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Goat Butter Date: 18 Aug 1997 20:07:16 -0400 Sorry, but yes you can make butter from goat's milk. Yes, goat's milk is naturally homogenized so you do have to wait longer and you do get less cream per milk from just letting it set. In modern times, we have cream separators to pull it out, but if you let it set in a cool place for a day, you will get enough cream off to make a reasonable amount of butter. My family used to raise goats. We had milk, butter, yogurt, and if mother'd had as much time and money as enthusiasm, we'd have had cheese as well. Beth Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 09:31:24 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - drawn butter? Mark Harris wrote: > What is drawn butter? All right. In the "Everything Most People Never Wanted to Know Department", I have my Official Drawn Butter Dissertation, which actually may come in handy for some. (Hah!) ; ) Okay. Things that are, in archaic versions of English, drawn, are mostly either eviscerated, which isn't an issue here, or made thick in some way, which is. Examples are the instructions to draw up a thick almond milk, or to draw something through a streynour, which more often than not means to force the item through a strainer to puree it and thereby make it smooth mixture, rather than lumps and water. Butter is an emulsion, a perfect mixture of an oil and water, which under normal circumstances don't want to mix. In this case, they do anyway. When you melt butter, it becomes a relatively thin liquid, and the emulsion "breaks" apart into its two parts again, which is why you can skim the clear butterfat off the top, and leave the rest behind, and it is this clarified butterfat that is what most modern people think of as drawn butter (which, by the way, is NOT the same thing as the ghee used in Indian and Midle Eastern cookery, but don't get me started). In [late] period cookery parlance butter would have been "drawn" by melting it VERY slowly and on a very gentle heat, like in a double boiler or some such, with another liquid, beating it as it melts. So you find sauces made from things like the vinegar that a fish was marinated in, with butter melted into it and whipped to form a relatively thick, creamy sauce, along the lines of modern beurre blanc or hollandaise. Yummers. Sauces like that are still made today on the Continent, especially in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In England, however, somebody conceived the idea that drawn butter should be made by making a roux thickener of cooked flour and butter, turn that into a sauce by adding water or vinegar or a mixture, or ale, or SOMETHING, and simmering it for a bit, and then adding more butter, this time beating it in in the traditional way. I don't know if this was developed by someone who felt that the starch of the roux would keep the sauce more stable (so it wouldn't break or de-emulsify on high heat), or if the issue was expense, with flour and water taking the place of some of the butter, or if they thought that simple butter beaten into a flavorful liquid was just too rich, or what. In any case, flour-thickened drawn butter sauces appear to have originated in England in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries. In spite of the fact that the sauce in the packet of Lipton Rice or Noodles In Sauce is more or less made this way, with dried butter solids and Wondra or some other pre-cooked flour stuff, it's still a perfectly viable sauce. I like mine on peas, with a tiny pinch of sugar and some chopped mint. (And STILL Lady Aoife thinks I don't give English cooking a fair break! ; ) ) Some people like it on Lutefisk, which is how we got on this topic in the first place, IIRC. But, drawing butter up with a small amount of just water , or vinegar, or some other watery liquid is still alive and well (in dishes like REAL fettucine Alfredo, f'rinstance), just as it would have been done in period. At least in late period, anyway. Adamantius Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 12:51:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: Re: SC - drawn butter? What is drawn butter? It's butter, gently heated to melt, and with the solids removed. It's the lovely golden butter served alongside shellfish. My online dictionary says: drawn butter noun Melted butter, often seasoned and used as a sauce. [drawn, past participle of DRAW, to bring to a proper consistency (obsolete).] Tibor Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 09:47:40 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - drawn butter? Mark Schuldenfrei wrote: > Butter is not just oil and water (technically, fats and water), but it also > has lots of milk proteins in it. I spoke in generalization. Sorry. You're right, butter has water, fats, lots of sugar, and some proteins. Ghee is the coagulated protein, and it > part of what makes Indian food so darned yummy. That's something I wasn't aware of. I understood ghee to be the "mostly butterfat" phase of the melted liquid, but the proteins should be living in with the other milk solids, down at the bottom, with a lot of water in the case of ordinary clarified butter, and as a somewhat caramelized sediment in the case of ghee. But with ghee, you filter the sediment out. It may have other culinary uses (would be great kneaded into chapatti or poori dough). > This is also how you should make drawn butter today. Gently (oh, so gently) > heat it so that it slowly melts, and keep stirring it so the part most > exposed to heat does not brown. Not that brown butter isn't also a yummy > treat (because it is) but because it isn't drawn butter. The difference, though, is that period drawn butter is not separated, but rather encouraged to remain a thick emulsion after other stuff (even if only water) is added. The drawn butter you get with lobster is more like standard French clarified butter: melted, allowed to separate, and either chilled and removed as a solid mass for remelting, or skimmed free of foam, and then skimmed off the top of the milky stuff at the bottom. Personally I love a good drawn butter with scallions and whisky on crab, but lobster will do in (ahem) a pinch. > > In any case, flour-thickened drawn butter sauces > appear to have originated in England in the late eighteenth, early > nineteenth centuries. > > Interesting. I was under the impression it came from France. (And I've > always wondered if it came from Rouen... :-) What leads you to the opposite > conclusion (France and England being culinary opposites. :-) I admit, my > post period cookery knowledge is weak until we hit this century. Only the available recipes I've seen, which in England very frequently use a small amount of flour-and-butter thickener with stock or water, and then have some butter beaten into that. French recipes tend to thicken other stuff with various starches (although even that is going out of fashion to a large extent), but butter sauces, with only a very few exceptions, are primarily thickened only by the power of emulsifiers, either the relatively weak ones found in butter itself, or by adding egg yolks, which are full of lecithin. > Tibor (Back when I ate like a man, I truly ate!) Adamantius Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 11:54:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: Re: SC - drawn butter? Ghee is the coagulated protein, and it > part of what makes Indian food so darned yummy. That's something I wasn't aware of. I understood ghee to be the "mostly butterfat" phase of the melted liquid, but the proteins should be living in with the other milk solids, down at the bottom, with a lot of water in the case of ordinary clarified butter, and as a somewhat caramelized sediment in the case of ghee. But with ghee, you filter the sediment out. It may have other culinary uses (would be great kneaded into chapatti or poori dough). You understood differently, because I mis-remembered. Ghee is drawn butter, not the solids. Sigh. I hate brain failure. Tibor Date: Sun, 14 Dec 97 03:58:16 PST From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net> Subject: Re: SC - Greetings! <snip> In the meantime, all ghee is, is butter which has been melted and poured off gently so that the milk solids are left behind, kind of the reverse of what you do when you're defatting gravy when you don't have time to chill and reheat. With ghee, you want the pure fat- the milk solids will spoil if kept unrefrigerated, but ghee won't. If you're in a hurry for something which does need to be refrigerated anyway, or will be eaten quickly, regular butter will do. Phlip Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 18:01:52 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Ghee (Clarified butter) Charles McCathieNevile wrote: > Phlip described how to make it, but I have never been happy with my > results. On the other hand, I can buy it in the supermarket - it is very > common in Indian cooking. The problem you may be encountering is the fact that ghee _isn't_ just clarified butter in the ordinary European sense of the word. Clarified butter is butter that has been melted until the emulsion breaks, causing the fat to rise to the top, so it can be skimmed. Ghee is made by cooking the butter, slowly, until the water has evaporated almost completely, and the milk solids have settled to the bottom and begun to caramelize, giving a slightly caramelized flavor and color to the butterfat. But yes, you can buy ghee in various markets, except I had understood the commercial product was a vegetable product, kinda like clarified oleomargarine. The real thing may well be available, but I haven't seen it myself. At least I don't recall it if I did. Adamantius Date: Fri, 6 Feb 98 16:57:18 -0500 From: Dottie Elliott <macdj at onr.com> Subject: Re: SC - butter >For the event I am cooking, I want to make herbed butter and/or honey >butter. Where can I find a recipe? I have no documentation for herb or honey butter. However, I recently discovered that garlic, rosemary and a little oregano mixed in with softened butter are wonderful. Clarissa Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 19:44:06 -0800 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: Re: SC - butter > Has anyone come up with any evidence that honey butter was served in > period? The one reference I have come across was medical and very early > (6th c.). Does anyone have period references to herb butters? > > David/Cariadoc The only hint of honey butter I can find is the picture of the guy in Platina (Platina? One of those Italian sources) standing at a tall churn, making leche miel, whatever that is. At least that's what the caption underneath the guy says. Could be interpreted as "sweet butter", or "honey butter". - --Anne-Marie Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 10:39:43 -0400 From: Ceridwen <ceridwen at commnections.com> Subject: Re: SC - Seeking period recipes & sources... > I am playing with butters, and would like to know what the best > reference there may be for that. Don't know about best, nor of any specific instruction for making butter, but Hugh Plat has instructions for flavoring butters with the oils of sage, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace (and etc.) He says these are the distilled oils from the herbs abd spices. I think these are what we would call essential oils and would take a *very small* amount. Ceridwen Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 16:25:29 EDT From: Mordonna22 at aol.com Subject: SC - butter making clarificatoin hmmm To clarify my earlier post on butter making: Tools needed: 1 butter churn (an urn of wood or ceramics or fired pottery to hold 1 1/2 to 2 gallons) with a lid with a hole in the middle. 1 butter dasher (a cross shaped paddle affixed to the end of a stick that will fit through the hole in the lid) You will also need un-homogenized, high butterfat milk, or heavy cream. You should allow it to sit out at room temperature overnight to separate and sour just a bit. Skim the cream from the milk and refrigerate the skimmed milk to use or drink. Pour the cream into the churn and churn with a slow steady beat until the butter begins to rise to the top and there are yellow flakes of butter on the handle of the dasher. Remove the butter from the buttermilk by either sieving through cheesecloth or by hand by squeezing the butter particles in the milk until it begins to form a cake. Pat into a cake or press into a mold. If you wish to salt it add the salt now and squeeze it through the cake before you mold it. Keep refrigerated and use within two weeks or until it grows hair, whichever comes first. It freezes quite nicely and will keep for an unlimited time. Reserve and refrigerate the buttermilk for making scones, biscuits, and cornbread. To make a small amount, you can put 1 pint un-homogenized heavy cream into a 1 quart canning jar, allow to sit several hours at room temperature, then gently ROLL the jar steadily until the butter forms. By the way, clarifying butter is something else again. To clarify real butter you place over very low heat until it is separates into a clear liquid and a cloudy liquid, skim off the clear liquid, this is clarified butter. Here in The Valley of the Sun, we just sit it outside for a half hour or so. Mordonna Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 20:59:58 -0700 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: Re: SC -Making Butter in Period Hiya from Anne-Marie we are asked: >How was butter made in period? I would like to have a childrens > activity of making butter at the upcoming A&S. I made butter at my > grandma's knee in a pickle jar. Shook that thing for a long time. we have pictures of women standing at large wooden churns, (15-16th century) and we have pictures of men in Scappis woodcuts, in a kitchen, making "miel dulce", again standing at a large wooden churn. May describes the role of the dairy, but doesnt mention butter making that I recall (mostly being concerned with cheese). Le Menagier cautions that if one buys milk from the milk maid, to be sure that she has not diluted it with water, for that makes it go bad faster. Chiquart mentions buying cheese and other dairy products, not producing them himself. From this, I assume that dairying was done, for the most part, in larger urban households by dairy oriented people. The pictures show butter being made the same way it was for generations, in large standing wooden churns (no doubt coopered). I have yet to find a real, functional wooden butter churn, but have seen ceramic ones that looked like wood, if you can justify going that way. Alternately, in my food and eating classes, I'll often do the jar method just so they can do it while I lecture and then eat it on fresh baked bread. yum! If anyone knows of a source for REAL functional butter churns (most homesteaders use the eggbeater ones nowadays, or at least that's what WE had when I was a kid), let me know! - --AM Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 21:07:14 -0700 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: Re: SC -Making Butter in Period hey all from Anne-Marie we are asked: > A consideration... could we still use this techique with cream that is > available today? Most commercial cream is ultra-homoginized and this could > make it difficult to use this process. I guess if unhomoginized cream or milk > is available, this process could be used. Butter making does not depend on the "separation" that homogenization prohibits. You won't get cream to the top, but if you start with regular old grocery store whipping cream, you can make some amazing butter. I do this for my food and eating class I teach. Pass around the fruit jar (with a tight lid) and by the end of the lecture, we have butter. I wash it and salt it in a large bowl of ice water, and then we eat it with bread I brough that contains funky old world flours (pea, chestnut, etc). Folks were most amazed that the "buttermilk" we got off the butter was nothing like the sour cultured stuff they buy in the store. - --AM Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 13:07:50 -0400 From: Phil & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC -Making Butter in Period Deborah J Hammons wrote: > For those of you who are stuck at home during Pennsic, I have a question. > How was butter made in period? I would like to have a childrens > activity of making butter at the upcoming A&S. I made butter at my > grandma's knee in a pickle jar. Shook that thing for a long time. I recall having read (probably in C. Anne Wilson's "Food and Drink in Britain") that butter was traditionally made in period Britain in wide bowls, with the dairy maids leaving the night-time milk to cool and sour slightly overnight. In the morning they would work the milk with their hands, using the heat from their fingers and the coolness of the settled milk to cause the butter to separate from the milk and rise to the top, where it could be pushed together into lumps and lifted out. I have since seen a 16th century English text on dairy husbandry (I have it lying around somewhere in photocopy form) which pretty well confirms this. I believe the text is written by the son of a Suffolk dairy maid, who basically says he used to watch his mum and the other dairy maids at their work all through his childhood. There's a fair amount about cheese in this, too. Adamantius Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 14:37:18 -0400 From: Nick Sasso <Njs at mccalla.com> Subject: Blender Butter (was Re: SC -Making Butter in Period) I have made butter in very slow speed food processor with children as scince experiment (with the plastic paddles). Also with a blender on lowest speed. You have to keep a close eye on it though. When it starts to go, it fgoes fast, and can eat up your motor if done too long. I'm thinking about trying it with my Heavy Duty Kitchenaide with wire whisk. niccolo Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 14:06:46 +0000 From: Erin Kenny <Erin.Kenny at sofkin.ca> Subject: SC - Butter churns For those who are looking for REAL USABLE butter churns take a look at: https://www.lehmans.com/ where I found this lovely churn. Redwood Cylinder Churn $125.00 Cylinder design dates from the turn of the century and was considered a modern innovation at the time. Hardwood double dasher removable for cleaning, heavy steel handle, lifetime stainless steel hoops and wood drainplug. Holds 3 gal, churns up to 2 gal. 13 OD x14 1/4 H, 13 lbs. Amish-made in the USA. Claricia Nyetgale who thinks this is making butter churning sound distinctly more interesting. Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 17:14:30 -0400 From: "Alma Johnson" <chickengoddess at mindspring.com> Subject: Re: SC - Butter churns >For those who are looking for REAL USABLE butter churns take a look >at: > https://www.lehmans.com/ >where I found this lovely churn. >Redwood Cylinder Churn $125.00 Wow, thatsa lotta money for butter!!!!! May I suggest a old fashioned southern pottery churn? I just found one locally to Atlanta, 5 gal capacity, $39.95 plus tax, 1 gal goes for $19.95 plus. Other sized in between priced in between as well. There are a few smaller ones left, and I'd be happy to take orders and ship'em out to folks. Make your own dasher and lid out of wood and save considerable cash. Availability is iffy if you want a 5 gal,(it may take some time) , but e-mail me and we'll look into it. Rhiannon Cathaoir-mor Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 20:10:01 -0400 From: "Alma Johnson" <chickengoddess at mindspring.com> Subject: Re: SC - Butter churns >dear lady can you describe these crocks, please...shape, etc > >Dragonfyr Ooh, description. Depends on the capaciity, to some degree. I will describe a large one, and make it more squat looking for the churns of smaller capacity. Tall pottery jar with two handles, smaller at base, flaring wider toward the top, and then back smaller at the top, with an internal lip to hold a lid. The lid (Some come with a ceramic lid) has a hole in it for the dasher handle. If you have the first foxfire book, mine looks just like the one in the photo of the old lady churning in her kitchen. That's probably a 5 gallon one like mine in the picture, and mine is the only one I saw today made of the local red clay with a brown glaze. Mine stands about 17" high and has a circumference about the widest part of 36". Churns, as you can imagine, don't move off the shelves like they used to, but the gentleman at the pottery assured me that they carry a few at all times. I'm not certain how long it will take for them to get in another 5 gal, but they are all nice. Some don't come with a lid, which is only there to protect you from splashing the clabbered milk all over, but a round of wood with a hole in the middle will work, and dashers are just a dowel handle with 2 crossed pieces of wood on the end for agitation. Rhiannon Cathaoir-mor Who wil probably sit her churn next to the computer - type with the right hand, churn with the left! Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 12:49:19 -0400 From: "Gaylin Walli" <g.walli at infoengine.com> Subject: SC - So I made butter After all the butter discussions that went on during our stay at War, I was dying to try this butter making thing. I read through all the posts and figured it couldn't be that complicated. It wasn't. I hope more people try this because I got at least two good nights of footrubs out of this (yeah, footrubs, that's it, yeah) from my husband who was so impressed that it could be done. I tried it two ways and in both cases used a standard local heavy cream that was ultra pasteurized and sold in the dairy section of our mid-sized grocery store. Version #1: Into a full quart narrow-mouthed mason jar I placed 2 pints of ultra-pasteurized heavy cream. I set this on the countertop uncovered. Version #2: Into the bowl of my Kitchen Aid mixer with the paddle (not the whisk) installed, I placed the same amount and let it sit uncovered. Then I went about my morning business and washed dishes and generally cleaned the house. An hour or two later I remember both of the cream concoctions and started the mixer up on the lowest speed. I covered the mason jar with a standard lid and ring. I promptly ignored the mixer and went into the living room and started reading a magazine. During my reading I gently rocked the jar back and forth from hand to hand without shaking it. Company arrived and I forgot about the mixer again. About 30-45 minutes after that, one of my guests noticed a "lapping water" sound much like you would here at the seashore. Wahlah! Butter happened when I wasn't looking! Lovely stuff. Pale, pale yellow and tasty. As for the jar, well, after another 45 minutes of gentle rocking, I determined it needed something more vigorous and ended up rolling it with my feet on the floor because my arms got tired. The foot method worked, but to be honest, it took a hell of a long time. I lost track after 3 hours of non-consistent rolling. Again, it was tasty stuff, though it seemed a bit more watery than the butter from the mixing bowl. Either way, it was very nice. I might just volunteer this stuff for a small feast (like the test feast for an upcoming event or something). Thanks for all the talk. It was a lovely little experiment! Jasmine Jasmine de Cordoba, Midrealm (Metro-Detroit area of Michigan) jasmine at infoengine.com or g.walli at infoengine.com Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 07:05:46 EDT From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com Subject: Re: SC -Making Butter in Period Once upon a time in the East, I was cooking feast (as usual, back then) which called for whipped cream on whatever dessert I was making. Of course, it was July. In Virginia. And I was young and really believed I could accomplish hand-whipped cream. In July. In Virginia. Silly me. I took all the precautions I'd learned at my mother's knee. Cold cream. Metal bowl nested in another bowl filled with ice. I whipped and I whipped and I whipped in vain. When it started to look a lot like whipped butter, I changed the menu. No whipped cream for dessert, but they got handmade whipped garlic butter for the bread. Wolfmother Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 07:15:09 EDT From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com Subject: Re: SC -Making Butter in Period For real wooden butter churns, try the Cumberland General Store in Tennessee. Lots of old-time stuff, including cast iron cookware and horse harnesses. Here's the catalog order info. Cumberland General Store #1 Highway 68 Crossville, TN 38555 1-800-334-4640 I checked the alphabetical list of products. Wood Churns are listed, as well as hand-crank churns. Happy shopping. Wolfmother Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1998 09:13:21 -0400 From: Nick Sasso <Njs at mccalla.com> Subject: SC - Churn from Cumberland not the ticket, maybe As you see below, this is a decorative piece, but may have value if brewers' pitch is added. I cannot judge the sturdiness, but it may be worth calling and asking about. http://www.cumberlandgeneral.com/ niccolo Pine Churn This Pine Churn has three oak bands and stands 17" tall. Shipped Weight of 11 lbs. Decorative Use Only. #1568...................$59.95 Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 20:07:08 -0500 (CDT) From: jeffrey stewart heilveil <heilveil at students.uiuc.edu> Subject: Re: SC - So I made butter When I was making butter with campers, we usually put an agitator in the jar to speed up the process. A marble or the like. Bogdan Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 13:55:30 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - butter - salted/unsalted > <snip> Did they salt butter in period? <snip> Caitlen Ruadh My apologies; I seem to have missed this the first time around. Yes, they did salt butter in period, both as a way to preserve it for later use, and also because it allowed for different medical properties from unsalted butter. I believe there are instructions in Le Menagier de Paris, as well as other sources that I'd have to search through, for removing the salt from butter. Adamantius Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 22:35:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Carol Thomas <scbooks at neca.com> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Illustration on Medieval Butter Churn _Renaissance Recipes_ has a painting detail with a butter churn right in the middle. It is 15th c., I believe Lady Carllein Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 10:37:49 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Definitely OT: Ghee and Bamboo steamers LadyVXN at aol.com wrote: > Ghee is clarified butter. It's a Middle Eastern condiment - you'll usually > find it used in Asian Indian cooking. Get some good Indian cookbooks - my 2 > favorites are Curried Flavors (can't remember the author right now - I'm in > the midst of moving and my cookbooks are packed), and a vegetarian cookbook by > Madhur Jaffrey. The Jaffrey book covers the whole East - Japan, Korea, > Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Persia, etc., and the Arab Middle East. As far as uses go, I'm inclined to agree, but ghee is not simply clarified butter, although clarified butter makes a decent substitute. European clarified butter is made by melting the butter until it breaks and settles, the foamy top is skimmed away, and the pure butterfat is ladelled off the top of the water and milk solids at the bottom. Ghee is cooked slowly, and for a rather long time, until the water has simmered away, and the butterfat has begun to brown a bit, and the milk solids have just begun to caramelize. This is why ghee is now mostly prepared as a commercial product. Making your own is still better, especially now that many commercial ghees are now made like margarine, from vegetable oil. Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 22:02:46 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Butter? MGroulx at NRCan.gc.ca writes: << I don't get it? Is there something wrong with amercian butter? Btw, butter is freezable. Micaylah >> In a nut shell, yes. Most butter available in the USA is the disgusting stuff labeled 'sweet creamery butter'. This is made from fresh cream as opposed to slightly fermented cream. Leaving the butter cream set out over night to sour is how butter was originally made until the dairy industry decided it 'saves' time to do it the other way. The resulting 'sweet butter' product is for the most part tasteless when compared to butter made in the traditional way. Thankfully, there are some states where butter can be gotten that is still made the 'right' way. West Virginia is one of them and I always stock up on butter when I go to WV. Another good source for good butter is the Amish. Ras Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 21:38:45 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Price of butter Marilyn Traber wrote, re margarine: > a purified and chemically altered form of vegetable oil modified to be lightly > yellow with a flavor reminiscent of butter. > > http://www.margarine.org/homepage.html > > margali Originally an emulsion made from refined beef tallow, a bit of water, and dried milk solids, invented during the Napoleonic wars as a food with a somewhat longer shelf-life than real butter. Oleo, because it was made from fat, and margarine, because its surface was vaguely "pearlescent". G. Tacitus "Everything You Never Wanted To Know" Adamantius stgardr, East Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 16:28:21 EST From: <Bjmikita at aol.com> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Churning butter Here's how my grandmother made butter. Get whole milk, the more butterfat the better. You'll have to find raw milk, that's milk not pasturized. If it's pasturized it usually has all the butterfat removed, or at least enough so making butter either won't work or will take forever. Let it sit in the refrigerator or on cabinet in a cool kitchen overnight. The butterfat will rise to the surface. Scoop it off, put in refrigerator. wait another couple of hours and sometimes you can get more butterfat come to the top. The butterfat is what you put in your churn. Clean the churn really well before you add the butterfat. Then it just takes time and muscle. Churn evenly and continuely until it turns to butter. After it makes butter the liquid left in the churn is buttermilk. Real buttermilk. After you take the butter out, rinse it off, shape it the way you want it. while you are shaping add salt if you want it. I may have left out a step or two, but that is the basics. Jeanne de La Mer Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 14:45:01 -0700 From: Curtis & Mary <ladymari at cybertrails.com> To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Churning butter > I have a butter churn that I purchased at Estrella War last year. > However, I do not know the recipe/steps for churning butter and would > like to use my churn at the War this year. Can someone give me some > tips/instruction? Thanks. You can use pure, real cream from the grocery or skim the cream yourself from fresh raw milk. Store bought cream will have been pasturized, and since unripened or not soured cream butter is pretty blah, you might want to let it sour a bit. Raw cream will usually sour with the correct bacteria if allowed to stand overnight, but pasturized cream should have a spoonful of cultured buttermilk added, then allowed to stand overnight. Cream to be churned should have a temperature of about 60 degrees F. If it's too warm it'll be soft greasy butter and not keep well. If too cold it will take forever to get the butter to come {that is for the butterfat globules to seperate from the liguid} Churn vigerously, after a bit you will hear and feel the difference in the liguid. Churn a bit longer and check to see what you've got. When you have lots of tiny granules of butter [and it'll be anywhere from bright yellow/orange to almost white} floating in the buttermilk, which will now look thin and watery instead of thick and creamy, strain off the butter. Save the buttermilk for cooking, baking and drinking, and rinse the bits of butter well in cold water. Then press the granules of butter in to a cake for storage {they used to make fancy butter molds for this step} i don't remember now, off hand how much cream it takes for a pound of butter, but I'm thinking it may run along the same lines as pounds of cheese from milk, which is 1 gallon whole milk = 1 pound cheese, so a gallon of cream may give you a pound of butter, but like I said it's been a long time and I've forgotten. Mairi Broder Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 19:07:58 -0500 From: snowfire at mail.snet.net Subject: Re: SC - "bog butter" - -Poster: Jean Holtom <Snowfire at mail.snet.net> From the Book "Food and Cooking in Prehistoric Britain: History and Recipes" The following is a passage about the way butter was probably made in prehistoric times. It is noted that this method was used until recently in the Orkney Islands. "The milk was left to stand in the churn for 2 - 3 days until it thickened naturally. When the butter was slow in coming some red hot "Kirnin' stones were thrown in to help the separation process. When the butter had gathered at the top it was lifted out into an earthenware dish and washed several times in cold water to remove any remaining milk, which could turn it sour quickly. It then had to be de-haired by passing a knife through it several times to remove any animal hairs on the knife edge. In many part of Britain it was the custom to bury the butter in wooden vessels or baskets, or occasionally in cloth, bark, or leather containers, in peat bogs. Many discoveries of this "bog butter" have been made...." Has anyone heard of this before? Elysant Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 19:41:02 EST From: Mordonna22 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - "bog butter" snowfire at mail.snet.net writes: > It then had to be de-haired by passing a knife through it several times to > remove any animal hairs on the knife edge. I've milked many a dairy beast by hand. If the udder is washed competently first, and the milking done properly, there shouldn't be any hair in the milk. Now don't tell me our Medieval cousins, or even our Prehistoric cousins, or our relatives in the Orkneys who do this all the time don't