Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - All About Butter

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Ever since humans domesticated animals and realized they could extract milk from them, they have been making and consuming butter.  While we might not think much of butter today, at one point, it was so prized that it was given as an offering to the gods.  While some cultures prized it, others looked down upon it and some elevated the production and use of it as an art form.  Learn more about butter, what it is, how it is made and how it has been used throughout history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Sign up at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to get chicken breast, salmon or ground beef FREE in every order for a year plus $20 off your first order! Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Ben Long & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever since humans first domesticated animals and realized that they could extract milk from them, they have been making and consuming butter. While we may not think much of butter today, at one point it was so prized that it was given as an offering to the gods. And while some cultures prized it, others looked down upon it, and some elevated its production and use to an art form. Learn more about butter, what it is, how it's made, and how it's been used throughout history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. While most of you are familiar with butter in one way or another, I should probably start off this episode with a formal definition of what butter is. is. Butter is a dairy product made by churning cream to separate the milk fat from the liquid buttermilk. This process creates a solid emulsion with about 80% fat, along with small amounts of water and milk solids. Butter is typically pale yellow in color, although it can vary from white to deep yellow depending on the animal's diet. To put it in simple terms, butter is the solid fat that comes from milk. Making butter is actually incredibly simple.

and you can actually make it at home if you want. It all starts with cream. Cream is something that we aren't as familiar with today as people would have been in the past. It used to be that when you purchased milk, there would be a layer of cream on the top. Cream is about 18 to 40% butterfat. Cream is a stable emulsion where fat globules, aka tiny spheres of fat, are suspended in the water along with proteins, lactose, and other molecules. The term the cream always rises to the top comes from the fact that cream does in fact rise to the top of milk.

The reason why you don't see cream in milk anymore is because it's been homogenized. Homogenization is a mechanical process used to break down and evenly distribute fat globules in milk, preventing them from separating and rising to the top as cream. The goal of homogenization is to create a smooth, uniform mixture that maintains consistency throughout the milk. Butter is in many respects the exact opposite of homogenization. When cream is churned, the mechanical action disrupts the stable emulsion in the cream. Churning breaks the protective layers of proteins and phospholipids around the fat globules. As the protective membrane around the fat globules breaks, fat particles begin to clump together.

This disruption is a mechanical effort rather than a chemical reaction, however, it has significant consequences for the structure of the mixture. As churning continues, the fat globules are free to collide and coalesce. This leads to a process called phase inversion, where the fat in water emulsion, or cream, changes to a water in fat emulsion of butter. Essentially, the water is now dispersed as small droplets within a continuous fat matrix. As the fat globules continue to coales, they form a solid mass. This mass of butter is denser than the fat.

the liquid buttermilk, allowing the buttermilk to be easily poured off. During this phase, additional water and some milk proteins are squeezed out. Washing the butter further removes any remaining buttermilk and lactose, which would otherwise encourage bacterial growth and spoilage. This is why making butter is so easy. You just take cream and agitate it, and the end product will be butter. We don't know exactly where butter was first created, but it must have been soon after the domestication of milk-producing animals. The first animals, which milk was taken from,

were most probably sheep or goats, not cattle. Author Elaine Koshova contends that butter was first made in Africa about 10,000 years ago. Others place it around the same time period in Mesopotamia or possibly in India. The truth is, we don't know, and given how easy it is to make butter, it was probably independently discovered in different places at different times. Anthropologists speculate that butter was probably discovered accidentally. When milk was transported in animal skin bags on long journeys, the natural motion would have agitated the milk, forming butter. About 5,000 years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia,

butter was often used more as medicine or in religious ceremonies than as food. Clay tablets from Sumer mentioned butter as an offering to the gods, symbolizing wealth and purity. The Samarians revered dairy products and butter as a concentrated source of fat nutrients was a prized commodity. In Egypt, butter was not widely consumed as food, likely due to the hot climate, which made it hard to store. Instead, it was primarily used in medicinal applications and as a base for cosmetics. Like other ancient civilizations, Egyptians used butter in religious ceremonies, and some tomb paintings even depict butter making. India's warm climate encouraged the use of ghee, a type of clarified butter that resists spoilage.

Ghi, made by simmering butter to remove water and milk solids, became a staple ingredient of the region. In Vedic culture, Ghi was considered sacred and used in religious rituals and ceremonies. Even today, Ghi holds immense cultural and religious importance in Hinduism and is a symbol of purity and sustenance. Unlike other regions, the ancient Greeks regarded butter as somewhat barbaric, considering olive oil as their primary fat source. They associated butter with the barbarian tribes of Northern Europe who relied on dairy products. Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician, mentioned butter in his writings and recommended it for medicinal purposes, including treating skin ailments and digestive issues. Like the Greeks, the Romans preferred olive oil, but used butter in limited quantities, mainly for medicinal purposes.

and as a skin treatment. The Romans, just like the Greeks, noted that Northern European tribes, such as the Celts and Germans, consume butter as a staple food. And they saw it as a symbol of these cultures' reliance on dairy, contrasting with their own reliance on olives and grains, which is why they thought that the other tribes were barbaric. Here I should note that the division in Europe between countries that primarily use olive oil versus butter as the primary cooking fat still exists today. There is a line that goes across Europe where people north of the line primarily use butter and those south of the line use olive oil. The line isn't as firm as it used to be because both products are easily found in stores, but the division still exists. During the Middle

Ages, butter played a significant role in Lenton dietary restrictions enforced by the Catholic Church. Lent, the 40-day period of fasting and penance leading up to Easter, required the faithful to abstain from animal products, including meat, eggs, and dairy, which encompassed butter. The prohibition was based on the church's teachings that these foods were indulgent and associated with feasting rather than fasting. In colder northern European regions where butter was a dietary staple, abstaining from it posed a unique hardship, particularly for those who relied heavily on dairy for sustenance due to limited access to other cooking fats, such as olive oil, which was more common in

Mediterranean countries. As a result, many people in these areas saw permission, known as a butter license, to consume butter during Lent. Wealthy individuals and monasteries could sometimes pay a fee for these dispensations, which contributed financially to the church. Over time, the demand for butter exemptions led to relaxed restrictions in certain regions, though butter consumption remained officially restricted for most of the medieval period. During the Renaissance and early modern period, as trade increased, butter became a more widespread luxury in southern Europe, where it was previously scarce. With the rise of dedicated dairy farms, butter gradually became more available and popular, even among wealthy regions in places like France and Italy.

In countries like France, dairy production flourished leading to the creation of regions famed for high-quality butter, such as Normandy. Butter gained popularity in French cuisine, where it began to replace lard in sauces and pastries, especially amongst the upper classes. In early U.S. history, butter played a central role in rural life, symbolizing both sustenance and economic independence. During the colonial period, butter making was a primary domestic task carried out by women on family farms. Butter was not only a source for nutrition, but also a valued commodity. Families would churn their own butter for household use and trade or sell any surplus in local markets.

The barter economy helped early American families, especially in agrarian communities, maintained some level of self-sufficiency. Butter actually played a central role in the very first student protest at a university in the United States. The butter riot at Harvard in 1766 was a student protest against the poor quality of food, particularly butter that was served in the college dining hall.

Students complained that the butter was rancid and of substandard quality. Frustrated by repeated issues with their meals and the college administration's lack of response, they gathered in protest demanding improvements to butter. Prior to the 19th century, almost all butter production was small-scale and conducted on local farms. In the 19th century, butter production underwent significant industrialization, transforming it from a small-scale home-based task into a large-scale, large-scale efficient industry. This change was driven by several key technological innovations.

The first big innovation was Carl Gustav Patrick de la Val's invention of the centrifugal cream separator in the 1870s. This machine allowed cream to be quickly and efficiently separated from milk, vastly increasing the volume of cream available for butter production. This machine replaced the traditional gravity separation method, which was time-consuming and less effective. Around the same time, the development of mechanical butter churns streamlined the churning process, reducing the manual labor traditionally required.

Additionally, the introduction of refrigeration technology enabled better storage and transportation of dairy products, allowing butter to be shipped over long distances without spoiling. These advancements help consolidate butter production into larger creameries and dairy factories, centralizing production, and ensuring more consistent quality. This industrialization made butter more. affordable and widely accessible, establishing it as a staple in American and European diets, and laying the groundwork for the modern dairy industry. One of the biggest competitors to butter over the last century or so has been margarine.

In the late 18th century, margarine was invented as a cheaper alternative to butter. Originally made from beef tallow, margarine gained popularity in Europe and North America, especially during times of economic hardship and war. It was later made out of seed oil, which reduced the cause, even further, resulting in a decrease in butter consumption throughout most of the 20th century. And I'll be covering the topic of margarine much more fully in a future episode. If you go into a store today and buy butter, you will notice that you have two primary choices in butter, salted and unsalted. The difference between the two is literally just the inclusion

of salt. Salted butter contains added salt, usually around 1 to 2% by weight. The biggest reason And 4 salted butter is that salt acts as a preservative, slowing the growth of bacteria and extending the butter shelf life. This made salted butter particularly useful in times before refrigeration. Many people prefer the taste of salted butter on bread, as this type of butter is more popular as a spread. Unsalted butter allows bakers and chefs to control the amount of salt in a recipe precisely. This is crucial in baking, where salt levels can affect the chemistry and the flavor of the final product. Unsalted butter has a fresher, pure taste, which is important for dishes where butter's flavor is a key ingredient. In the 21st century, butter has experienced a resurgence in popularity after its 20th century decline,

with the rise of artisanal foods and traditional cooking methods. High-quality butter from specific regions, such as French Normandy butter and Irish carry gold, is prized for its flavor. Today, butter is a huge business. The global butter market is believed to be 27,000. $1.94 billion and is expected to reach $34 billion by the year 2029. Butter's journey reflects all the changes in human society, from early agriculture to modern industrial production.

Butter remains a cherished food source in many cuisines, as well as a symbol of cultural identity. And it's all due to some ancient people who discovered it accidentally because milk was sloshed around in a bag. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day.

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