Cream... in a napkin... in the dirt... to make butter without churning

TWO recipes - from 1844 London and 1859 Boston - wrap cream in a clean fine napkin then wrap in a coarse towel for twelve to twenty hours underground. Salt is then added as with churned butter. It was white rather than yellow and "superior" taste.

"An exceedingly delicate and fine-flavored butter may be made by wrapping the cream in a napkin or clean cloth, and burying it, a foot deep or more, in the earth, from twelve to twenty hours. This experiment I have repeatedly tried with complete success, and have never tasted butter superior to that produced by this method. It requires to be salted to the taste as much as butter made by any other process. A tenacious subsoil loam would seem to be best. After putting the cream into a clean cloth, the whole should be surrounded by a coarse towel. The butter thus produced is white instead of yellow or straw-color."
Flint, Charles Louis. Milch Cows and Dairy Farming. Boston: 1859


"Butter, to make without churning.
Tie up cream in a fine napkin, and then in a coarse cloth, as you would a pudding: bury it two feet under ground; leave it there for twelve hours, and when you take it up it will be converted into butter."
Bury, Charlotte Campbell.  The Lady's Own Cookery Book. London: 1844 3rd ed.


Painting: A Maid Milking a Cow in a Barn. about 1652–1654. Gerard ter Borch (Dutch, 1617-1681) in the Getty museum.


UPCOMING TALKS

Sep 2 Wed 1 Breadfruit’s Three Global Journeys. Russell Fielding. Linnean Society of London HERE

Se 2 Wed 7 Cookin’ with Congress: Famous Punches & Mocktails of the White House. Bennett Rea. National First Ladies' Library & Museum. $9.53 HERE

Se 13 Sun 2 Corpse Reviver! The History of Cocktails and Medicine. Camper English author of Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits and Cocktails. CHoW Culinary Historians of Washington DC . $10 for non-members HERE. Talk info HERE

Se 15 Tue 5:30-7 French Flavors of the Gilded Age: How Haute Cuisine Shaped Dining. Becky Libourel Diamond. New York Adventure Club. Replay for one week. $18.88 HERE

Se 15 Tue 8-9:30 Ice Cream! The History of America's Favorite Dessert. Erik Hodgetts. New York Adventure Club. Replay for one week. $18.88 HERE

Se 20 Sun 4 Bacon: The History of America’s Most (Un)Desirable Food. author Mark A. Johnson. Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor. Hybrid HERE TAPE may be HERE

Se 22 Tue 3pm London's Historic Markets – Virtual tour. Rob Smith, Footprints of London £10 - £16 HERE

Se 29 Tue 5-8:15 The 1917 New England Sugar Shortage: An Imperial View. Seokju Oh. Massachusetts Historical Society HERE

? Chicago Wed 9 Culinary Historians of Chicago. HERE TAPE may be HERE

CALENDAR OF VIRTUAL FOOD HISTORY TALKS HERE

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Researching Food History HOME






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