SC - It's Butter.....Parkay

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hi all from Anne-Marie
Aislinn asks:
>I have heard that butter was used by the lower classes as a substitute for 
>refined lard which was used by the higher class. It was also mentioned this 
>was because "in order to get refined lard you had to slaughter the animal 
>whereas the poor could not afford to slaughter their livestock." 
>
>If this being the case at what time was butter first introduced, and in what 
>cultures. Was it as now as we often purchase it, plain .... or was it as
with 
>many different varieties (having several spices added it to it for different 
>taste). If that being the case where can one obtain copies of the different 
>recipes for butter? That is if there are any.

Interesting...I had never head that! All Iknow is what I've gleaned from
reading medieval cookbooks and shopping lists, etc. 

- --butter is sometimes given as a substitute for lard, especially when they
give alternatives for fast days. If you suppose that the cookbooks are for
"rich" people only, than that suggests that rich folks used butter as well
as poor folks.
- --butter was bought from dairymaids and is mentioned in other medieval
shopping lists (check out le Menagier and Chiquart, for example)
- --I have never seen an example of butter flavored with other things in
medieval cookbooks, though something tickles the back of brain...some
superlate recipe using sage??? Digby? 
- --to get butter, you need milk, and you need to take it away from a baby
animal (albeit there's sometimes a surplus). Also, it means you cant make a
super rich cheese that you could sell to some rich sap), so the idea that
butter is poor folks fat might not hold true...
- --the poor ate meat too, at least according to the agricultural treatises
of the time, they just ate it more seasonally than their bourgois
counterparts. Especially pigs, which were raised for the sole purpose of
slaughtering for meat (and the lard obtained therein), so it makes sense
that anyone who had a pig to slaughter would have lard (according to the
household records of the 15th century, most peasants had at least a pig or
two)
- --you get butter when you have milk, ie in the late spring/summer and maybe
fall when the cow is fresh. You get lard when you slaughter a pig (or
tallow from a sheep, etc), ie the fall. It makes sense  that the fat used
would be that which was seasonally available. Butter doesnt keep as well as
lard, in my experience, and both will go bad eventually.

I'd really be interested in seeing real medieval recipes for butter...all
I've found is pictures of people churning it...
- --Anne-Marie, who's 15th century re-enactment group often churns their own
butter (and then uses it cooking. oh darn! :))

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