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[Mark A. Sharpe]

>I thought I was the only one questioning the hair in the butter.  I have
had dairy
>goat herds in the past and have never had a problem with hair in the milk.
Just
>wash the udders properly and strain the milk before you make butter or
cheese.
>Your milk is free of any imperfections.  I can't imagine anyone not being
clever
>enough to figure this out for themselves.


I´ve no idea how clever the old Icelanders were. What I know is they had to
keep - and milk - their cows in cramped, windowless, dark, stuffy hovels
made of stone and sod, lit only by by meagre and flickering tallow or fish
liver oil lanterns. And the shaggy, long-haired ewes were milked out in the
fields in all kinds of weather, often far from any source of water (I can
personally attest to the fact that you can´t handle Icelandic sheep, in
early summer at least, when they are shedding their old coat of wool,
without wool hairs clinging to everything, in particular to your hands). I
believe most people strained their milk through horsehair sieves, but they
seem not to have caught everything. And some were too poor to afford even
such a basic utensil. But given the general low standards of cleanliness and
hygiene of my countrymen at the time (commented upon by European visitors
from the 16th century onwards), I´d say a few hairs in the butter would have
been the least of their worries.

Nanna


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