[or-roots] The very best butter...milk

[CKlooster at aol.com]

Before the buttermilk thread dies, I have to add my own buttermilk  story.  
When my children were small in the early 1970's, we lived on the  family ranch 
in Southern Oregon.  My grandfather, who lived next door, kept  a milk cow and 
was generous with gallons of milk.  Being a good "granola  mama" of the time, 
my meals were organic and my cooking was healthy and from  scratch.  With 
lots of fresh  whole milk, butter making was part of my  routine.  I didn't spend 
hours with a butter churn though, I just poured  the cream in the electric 
blender and butter appeared in a very short  time.  When the butter forms, 
buttermilk is left.  My kids loved  it. 
 
Fast forward to the early 1980's;  we were living in Alaska and milk  was 
made from powder and water.  No more fresh cream and no more homemade  butter.  
On a trip down the Alcan we stopped for breakfast at a cafe  in Centralia.  My 
son, who was about eight at the time, looked at the menu  and when the 
waitress came to take the order, he asked for pancakes...and a  large glass of 
buttermilk.  We were puzzled and even the waitress tried to  talk him out of it, but 
he was firm in his request.  When breakfast arrived  he took a big drink from 
his glass of buttermilk and I will never forget the  look on his face!  We 
were all watching him and all began laughing at his  reaction.  "What were 
thinking?",  I asked.  "I thought it would  be buttermilk" he replied; "but this is 
just ROTTEN!".  It was only then  that I realized that he expected the home 
grown variety, not the sour cultured  kind.  The waitress saved the day by 
sprinkling a packet of sugar in the  glass and stirring it in.
 
So, there were two schools of old-fashioned butter making...one tradition  
was to allow the cream to sour before churning; the other tradition was to make  
the butter from sweet cream.  Buttermilk from the sour  cream is much like 
clabber.  Buttermilk from the sweet cream  is sweet and tastes much like milk 
with tiny fleck of escaped butter in  it.
 
The best use of today's cultured buttermilk, aside from baking, is to mix  is 
with mayonnaise and blue cheese for an excellent salad dressing!
 
Carla
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