Earliest evidence of butter dates back to c. 8000 BCE. The first butter comes from the milk of cattle, sheep, goats and yaks. The ancient Romans (c. 800 BCE) consume olive oils and consider butter a food of northern barbarians.
Read: Cult of the Fire God - Bronze Age Adventure New 2024
See also:
Nevertheless they find use for butter in cosmetics and as a topical ointment. Today's commercial butter is about 85% butterfat and 15% water.
Read: Cult of the Fire God - Bronze Age Quest Adventure
In ancient times butterfat content is 65 - 70%. As a trade item butter is difficult. Delicious when fresh, butter goes rancid quickly and melts in the heat. Most butter at the time is made for direct consumption.
See also:
The churning process is said to be accidentally discovered in prehistory. A traveler with warm milk in a back-bag unknowingly churns the fat-rich milk into butter with the motion of walking.
In unhomogenized milk and cream, butterfat occurs in microscopic globules enclosed by membranes. The membranes are composed of fatty acid emulsifiers and proteins. They prevent fat in milk from coalescing into a single mass.
See also:
Agitation of cream, or churning, breaks the membranes, allowing the milk fat globules to merge. Butter fat separates from the rest of the cream.
Read: Cult of the Fire God - Bronze Age Quest Adventure
Butter fat takes three distinct forms: free butterfat, butterfat crystals, and undamaged fat globules. In the finished product, varying proportions of these create different consistencies.
See also:
The activity of churning results in small granules of butter floating in the water-based part of the cream. The watery liquid is buttermilk. Today's buttermilk, made of fermented skimmed milk, is not the same product.
After draining off the buttermilk, the butter maker kneads the butter grains together. In manual preparation wooden boards are used for this part of the process. This concentrates the butter in a solid mass, breaking up any hidden pockets of buttermilk or water.
The first butter churns go back to the Chalcolithic period c. 6500 BCE in the northern Negev of Israel. Early nomadic cultures use skin bags to make butter. The bag is filled with unhomogenized milk and churned by vigorously shaking the bag.
The action can be done manually or with the natural process of foot travel. Bags can also be attached to pack animals such as donkeys or oxen, so the movement of the animals churns the milk into butter.
See also:
Some cultures still use a process similar to this, whereby a bag is filled with milk, tied to a stick and shaken. In a situation of habitation permanent or temporary, the bag might be hung from a tree branch and agitated by shaking.
In ancient Mesopotamia, Sumerians use butter, as well as cheese, as a temple offering. Sumerian tablets describe the use of butter in ritual offerings. Transmutation of one product into another is common knowledge in the Bronze Age but also seen as a type of magic.
See also:
A Sumerian tablet c. 2500 BCE describes the butter making process using cow's milk. The earliest written language is Sumerian cuneiform c. 3400 BCE. Vast collections of clay tablets are excavated from ancient cities.
Subjects include lists of deities to trade records, exorcism, natural herbs, healing and magical recipes for potions and incense as well as instructions for daily activities like weaving or animal care. Magic is a large part of Sumerian spirituality.
See also:
Similarly, metal workers in ancient times, are connected with elemental fire, earth and molten metals. Early alchemists, master metallurgists are are also considered to have magical knowledge.
By c. 600 CE the magic is gone. In Europe and elsewhere butter churns are part of daily life. Churning butter, once undertaken by all, comes to be regarded as "women's work" relating to domestic activity.
See also:
Types of churning run from turning barrels with a hand crank to the vehement beating of unhomogenized milk in familiar wood or ceramic modern era churns. The earliest evidence of butter export trade is in Scandinavia after c. 1200 CE.
During the Middle Ages, butter is a common food across Europe. Considered an inferior product to plant oils like olive and grapeseed, butter is made and eaten largely by the lower classes.
See also:
Butter making can involve cream collected from several days of milking. At the time of churning it's already starting to ferment.
During fermentation, bacteria convert milk sugars into lactic acid, so the cream naturally sours. Fermentation creates further aroma compounds such as diacetyl, resulting in a flavorful creamy tasting product.
See also:
Butter made this way is called cultured butter. Made from fresh cream it's sweet cream butter. Sweet cream butter takes six hours to make compared to 72 hours for cultured butter.
Sweet cream butter becomes popular in the 19th century when the industrial revolutions introduce early refrigeration techniques, ice storage and transport. In the Victorian era, mechanical equipment such as cream separators allow production on a larger scale.
See also:
Today, cultured butter remains the choice of modern Europe. In the Americas, sweet cream butter is more popular.
See also: