[Sca-cooks] Buttermilk?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
>>  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.

Aelianora de Wintringham wrote:
>  Was it Ayran?  This is yogurt blended with water and a pinch of salt.
>  This is drunk in Turkey under the name Ayran.

Absolutely not. I've had ayran. The Persians drink something similar, 
spelled on menus as "dough". And the Indians drink something similar 
called lassi.

But this was not a form of diluted yogurt.

Heck, when i lived in Indonesia in the late 1970s and most of the 
year 1980, which is NOT a place for dairy farming being in the hot 
humid tropics where cows get unhealthy, i purchased yogurt in tiny 
bottles imported from Bulgaria. Very different from commercial yogurt 
(and i lived in Western Europe in the early 1970s, so i've had 
Western European commercial yogurt). But bore a relationship to the 
homemade yogurt i used to get at Yonah Shimmel's (most likely of 
blessed memory) in Manhattan on -uh, maybe Houston Street - those 
brain cells are long gone.

Anyway, this was definitely a somewhat fermented liquid milk.

BTW, inspired by this thread, i went out and bought a quart of 
Lifeway Organic Kefir and a quart of Helios Nutrition Organic Kefir.

Despite what someone else said in a recent thread involving kefir, i 
will reiterate that Kefir is indeed made with *very* different 
cultures than yogurt. While Helios merely says "live active kefir 
cultures", Lifeway is more forthcoming, and lists all those highly 
cultured beasties:
"Contains Active Probiotic Cultures:
Streptococcus lactis
Streptococcus cremoris
Streptococcus diacetylactis
Lactobacillis plantanum
Lactobacillus casei
Saccharomyces fragilis
Leuconostoc cremoris"

So i'm thinking of saving some kefir and stirring it into some milk 
and seeing what happens. However, those various fanatic kefir sites 
talk about "kefir grains" - which i gather are a sort of dairy 
equivalent to vinegar mother - and so far those kefirs don't seem too 
granular, although i confess i haven't poured any into a sieve for a 
closer inspection.

Should i attempt to introduce some kind of yeast in order to get "The 
Tingler"? And if yes, what kind?

Anahita