[Sca-cooks] Cream

[Holly Stockley]

The CLOSEST would be heavy cream.  But even that isn't quite the same 
animal.  Two problems with modern dairy products....  One, they're 
standardized for butterfat content.  Whole milk at 4 percent, heavy cream at 
35-40, etc.  Largely because it's not the same coming out of the cow.  The 
super-volume modern holsteins are lucky to top 3.8%.  Guernseys and Jerseys 
have been know to make it to 8%.  The dairy industry has created categories 
to ensure a consistent product.  The second issue is that they've all been 
homogenized.  Which means that the butterfat globules have ben broken down 
into tiny particles that no longer seek to coalesce.  This means that the 
cream doesn't separate and rise to the top.  It also changes the texture and 
consistency somewhat.

Depending on what you're making, you MIGHT get away with standard heavy 
cream.  But I'd probably go down to the nearest healthfood store and check 
their cooler.  Where I am, you can commonly buy unhomogenized organic milk.  
Then dig the plug of cream off the top of the container and voila!  The 
percent butterfat in the original milk batch won't affect that percent 
butterfat in the cream, but it will affect the AMOUNT of cream on the top of 
the container.

That's the closest you can get to real medieval sweet cream short of buying 
raw milk.  Which, in my state, is essentially not legal.

BTW - butterfat also varies based on the diet of the cow.  Ingestion of 
certain types of "roughage" or grasses makes it go up.  New spring grass is 
the best.  Hence, the month of may is often the "cream of the crop," if you 
will, for cream production in pasture-fed cattle.  I suspect this may be why 
markham sings the praises of May as the best month for making butter.

Probably much MUCH more than you wanted to know...


~F
>
>In 15th c. English recipes calling for "swete creme of cow mylk", what 
>would be the closest store-bought product?  Light cream, heavy cream, etc.? 
>  Thanks.
>
>Brighid ni Chiarain
>Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom