[Sca-cooks] Buttermilk?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Adamantius wrote:
>If you've been on this list a while, you may remember Ras and his
>various elegies to real Amish-style butter, and how the milk and/or
>cream are cultured and left to sour just a bit before churning out
>the butter.

While i very much remember Ras (and miss his wild and sometimes 
curmudgeonly posts), i don't recall this topic, but maybe i just 
ignored it. There are several local brands of butter available here 
that are made this way, one touting itself as "European style". I buy 
unsalted and the slight sourness is noticeable. No elegy necessary 
here in California, which is now the major dairy state in the US, i 
think.

Let me note here that i am a fan of curmudgeons, in general, and like 
to imagine i'm one, too, in real life, although not on this list.

>Even in cases where milk is left in a trough or vat over
>night to allow the cream time to rise to the top (which is a standard
>17th-century instruction for making things like clotted or "cabbage"
>cream -- see Digby, Markham, those guys), what you're doing is put
>blood-warm milk in a wooden container full of microorganisms. You may
>not be adding a specific culture, but you really don't need to. By
>morning it is well on its way to something akin to yogurt.  Maybe not
>that thick, but it is somewhat soured, and the change in pH helps
>separate out the cream phase. After a while, it will also tend to
>thicken the milk, with or without the cream.

Ah hah! Thanks.

>  >When i was in Morocco, i had a dairy beverage which name has been
>  >translated into English as buttermilk, but i know nothing of its
>  >production method. It was indeed thinner than the usual USAmerican
>  >cultured buttermilk. But what i found most interested was the mouth
>  >sensation it induced. While not in the slightest carbonated, there
>  >was a "fizzy" or "tingly" mouth feel. Was this due to lactic acid
>  >fermentation? I've had plenty of dairy products produced by
>  >lactobacilli and never noticed this sensation. What is this? I'd
>  >love to reproduce it or find a source to purchase it.
>
>I think it's partly lactobacilli and partly yeasts.

OK, that's what i suspected. And no doubt the critters responsible 
are "in the house", just like those for sourdough bread starters. I 
wonder if anyone has made a study of those in Morocco and isolated 
the bacilli and yeasts involved. There are similar studies for the 
critters responsible for tempeh, a soy product, in Indonesia, created 
by a certain breed of mold spore. Note also that Indonesian tempeh is 
much tastier than any US tempeh i've eaten (and i've had it in 
several different states). I suspect the kind of soybeans used are 
largely responsible - Indonesian soy beans are smaller, somewhat 
orange in color, and have a nuttier flavor than those big, pale ones 
grown in the US.

>You're making me
>think of the fizz of a half-sour pickle or new kim chee (not the
>flavor, though -- I hope).

Definitely that sort of fizz, and definitely not the flavor of kim chee :-0

>While buying such a product commercially
>will probably eliminate some of that mouth feel (actively fermented
>foods tend to have unpredictable shelf lives), it's probably
>something like kefir.

Alas, the two brands of kefir sold here now (one is Helios, the other 
Lifeway) are not like the kefir i used to get. Both have the texture 
of extra thick buttermilk with a color and flavor closer to sour 
cream. They lack the subtle je-ne-sais-quoi and tingly mouth feel of 
the other kefirs. I think Altadena had it, but it was somewhat 
disguised by fruit and sweetening. There was one i used to buy - no 
longer recall the brand - in which i could feel the little "kefir 
grains" referred to on some website i read years ago. I miss that 
stuff. Guess i need to buy more dairy products from my local Middle 
Eastern markets.

Thanks for the info.

So, what do i need to do to get tingly kefir?

(why, yes, that is a possible set-up)

Anahita