The information given in this letter relates to one point only, as that
was the only point I had inquired about.
What I wanted to know was whether this super-excellent butter was made
of sweet cream or of sour cream.
Edwin H. Webster, Chief of the Dairy Division, states in No. 241 of
the Farmers' Bulletins, issued by the United States Department of
Agriculture, that "practically speaking, all butter used in this
country is churned from sour cream. Sweet cream butter to most users
tastes flat and insipid." He adds that the American dairyman, when his
cream is not sour, deliberately makes it so by adding a "starter,"
which is nothing more nor less than "nicely soured milk."
In the Paris bookstalls we bought everything we could find as to the
French practices in this respect, and furthermore we spent hours in the
Bibliothèque Nationale studying the documents relating to it.
D. Allard, Professeur Départmental d'Agriculture, says in his book "Le
Beurre": "It is generally remarked that in the regions which produce
the finest and best-liked butter, la Normandie and la Bretagne, great
care is taken to let the cream turn sour before it is churned. There is
here certainly a result of fermentation, for one can, as we have said,
impart these qualities to sweet cream by adding select ferments.
"Besides this, fermentation gives another advantage: it makes the cream
easier to churn and increases the yield of butter.
"One must not go too far, however. The farmers know very well that the
cream of a whole week gives a butter of unpleasant flavor.
"It is therefore the uniformity of fermentation that ensures uniformity
in the production of butter; which explains the importance of this
question."
Another writer, V. Houdet, Ingénieur-Agronome, Directeur de l'Ecole
Nationale des Industries Laitières de Mamirolle, says in his book
"Laiterie, Beuerrerie, Fromagerie" (fourth edition, 1912):
"No matter whether the cream has been obtained by letting the milk
stand in a low temperature or by means of a separator, it does not, if
churned at once, yield anything but a sweet butter, of pure taste but
without bouquet and without _finesse_.
"In order that the butter may have the aroma, and particularly the
nutty flavor which the consumers desire and which considerably
increases its market value, it is necessary that the cream should
ferment, should become soured, before it is churned, for it is
particularly on this treatment, this _maturation_ (ripening), that all
the qualities of the product depend.
"While the cream is fermenting, the sugar of milk it contains is
changed into lactic acid which reacts in the measure of its production
on the glycerides, saponifies them while liberating the volatile acids
which impart to the butter its perfume and make it keep better.
"At the same time, as with all fermentation, it is necessary to stop
in time; an excessive development of acid would yield a strong butter,
rapidly undergoing a change and becoming rancid."
Director Houdet also points out, as did Professor Allard, that by
souring the cream the yield of butter is "very appreciably increased."
Judging by these remarks, the French way is like the American: the
cream is ripened (soured) before churning. Must we, therefore, conclude
that the enormous difference (apart from the salt question) between
the average American and the average French butter is due chiefly to
American carelessness in regard to a number of details, particularly
the degree of acidity and the regulation of the temperature which the
French authors just quoted declare to be of the utmost importance in
the manipulation of the cream while ripening?
Or is our butter usually so inferior because so much of it is marketed
after undergoing cold storage, whereas the French get theirs fresh, as
they do their poultry? Years ago the State Railway began to run special
butter trains from Normandy, Brittany, and the La Rochelle district,
which reach the Paris market early in the morning, refrigerating cars
being used in summer, so that the butter always arrives in perfect
condition.
Doubtless, such differences help to explain the inferiority of our
butter; but a question of even greater importance which we must now
consider, is this: _Is it true_ that the best butter owes its fine
flavor to the ripening of the cream--the churning of sour cream
instead of sweet?
The fact that dairymen in France as well as in America do use fermented
cream does not necessarily prove this to be the case; for, as we have
seen, _there are two other very important reasons for ripening the
cream: sour cream is more easily churned, and it yields more butter
than sweet cream does. This being the case, most dairymen, being human,
would naturally be tempted to use acid cream even if it were possible
to make a still finer butter with absolutely sweet cream._
That this is possible, is the belief of many experts and epicures.
A German lady in Berlin, who has had much experience, informed me
that sweet-cream butter was in that region preferred by those who
could indulge their appetites all they liked, whereas the sour-cream
butter was ordered by those who wished to curb the appetites of their
customers (in taverns, &c.). An English official, Francis Vacher,
remarks in "The Food Inspector's Handbook," in which he gives the
results of his experiences in sampling, that "it seems superfluous to
say that butter of fine flavor cannot be made from sour cream. Yet
much butter is made from sour cream, particularly in small farms and
dairies."
United States Government and State officials have given much attention
to this subtle question. While Edwin H. Webster, Chief of Dairy
Division, Bureau of Animal Industry, attests, as we have seen, that
"practically speaking, all butter used in this country is churned from
sour cream,"[11] the Assistant Chief, Harry Hayward,[12] admits that
"but a very small percentage of all dairy butter made is of really
high grade." Bulletins 18 and 21 of the Iowa Agricultural Experimental
Station contain the results of tests made by G. E. Patrick, F. A.
Leighton, D. B. Bisbee and W. H. Heilemann, showing that butter made
from sweet cream retains its flavor better than butter made from sour
cream.
In June, 1909, the U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry issued Bulletin
114, in which the bacteriologist, L. A. Rogers, and the chemist, C.
E. Gray, give the results of three years' study of this problem. They
found that butter made from ripened (sour) cream, both pasteurized and
unpasteurized, develops, in storage, fishy and other flavors typical of
storage butter; that butter made from unripened, unpasteurized cream
always developed a cheesy or rancid flavor; but that the _butter made
from pasteurized cream without starter usually retained its flavor
with little or no change_. Even at 32° F., where all the ripened
butter showed decided changes, the sweet-cream butter deteriorated
very little. Everything showed that "some factor having a deleterious
influence on the butter was developed with the ripening of the cream";
and this whether the acid developed normally in the cream or was added
to it, as a "starter." Further: "Butter can be made commercially from
sweet pasteurized cream without the addition of a starter. Fresh butter
made in this way has a flavor too mild to suit the average dealer, but
it changes less in storage than butter made by the ordinary method, and
can be sold after storage as high-grade butter."
Still another official of the Department of Agriculture, L. A. Rogers,
bacteriologist of the Dairy Division, contributed an important document
in favor of sweet cream butter.[13]
He pointed out that a large part of the butter made in the central
creameries in which the cream is received in a sour or otherwise
fermented condition develops the peculiar oily flavor of mackerel or
salmon. After a series of investigations lasting several years he
testified that "in all cases in which the records were complete it was
found that those experimental butters which became fishy were made
from high-acid cream"; and that "fishy flavor may be prevented with
certainty by making butter from pasteurized sweet cream."
The same authority informs us that in our central creameries "the
cream is _usually received in a very acid condition_"--surely a most
unfortunate circumstance, inasmuch as the experts, including the
French, are, as we have seen, agreed that _a high degree of acidity
spoils the butter_. And now we come face to face with the all-important
question: Does a _low_ degree of acidity _really_ improve the butter,
as Professor Allard and Director Houdet maintain it does?
In other words, is the delicious flavor of the best butter actually due
to the lactic acid developed by the ripening of the cream?
Dairy Chief Webster admits that "there are undoubtedly _desirable
flavors in cream that do not come from the development of acid_. Just
what these are is not known at the present time, but the rich creamery
flavor, or, as it is sometimes described, the nutty flavor, of a fine
quality of cream is a combination of acid and other flavors."
The "nutty" flavor is found particularly in May and June butter. The
German biologists, H. W. Conn and W. M. Esten, who made careful studies
of the ripening of cream which they published in Nos. 21 and 22 of the
"Centralblatt für Bakteriologie" (1901) found that "the peculiar flavor
of June butter, which is so much desired by the butter-maker, _is not
due to the development of the common lactic bacteria_."
This brings us back to Paris and the Bœuf à la Mode. It was in May
that we found the butter there so very delicious, and May is the month
when the grass in France is greenest, juiciest, richest in flavoring
possibilities. After collecting a large amount of material relating
to the influence of food in varying the quality and Flavors of meats
(which will be presented in Chapter XII), I have come to the conclusion
that it is to this rich spring food that the nutty flavor is chiefly
due.
As long ago as the middle of the last century epicures guessed what
made the Flavor of spring butter so good. In the first volume of his
_Gastrophie_, Eugen Baron Vaerst declares that "mountain butter is the
best. March butter is particularly good because of the grass fodder
the cows get. Summer butter is less good, were it only because of the
heat and the annoyance to which the animals are subjected by torturing
insects.... Winter butter tastes of straw and other winter feed."
The assertion that mountain butter is the best, reminds me of an
episode in Bayreuth where, one summer, the family that gave us lodging
and breakfast had the butter brought down every morning fresh from the
mountains by a peasant girl. You pay in Germany for as much bread and
butter as you eat. The first day we ate all that was given us and asked
for double the amount next morning, and once more double that for the
third day. It was as good and sweet and tempting as ice cream. The
incident is worth mentioning as a hint to dealers and butter-makers
how they might quadruple their business by supplying people with fresh
butter, unsalted and made of sweet cream, as was that Bayreuth mountain
butter.
In future discussions of this subject it will be necessary to make it
clear just what is meant by sweet cream and sour cream. If, as the two
German bacteriologists referred to say, there are some acid bacteria
present in milk as it is drawn from the cow, then there is no such
thing as absolutely sweet cream; and, chemically speaking, the cream
we put in our coffee twelve or twenty-four hours later is still less
so. But _physiologically_ speaking, that is to our tongue, such cream
still is sweet and remains sweet under ordinary atmospheric conditions
for several days; that is, it does not _taste_ sour and does not clot
in the coffee cup. From the physiological point of view, therefore,
the cream from which the best butter we found in Paris was made was
sweet--absolutely sweet to the tongue, whatever the acidimeter may have
indicated.
From the foregoing remarks any dairyman who wishes to get rich quick
can gather what he must do. Another point must be borne in mind in
making butter which is not to be eaten at once. Bulletin 71 of the Iowa
Experiment Station calls attention to the fact that to preserve the
quality (Flavor) of the butter, it is not enough to pasteurize the
cream; the water also must have its germs killed by being heated to a
certain degree and then cooled again. The experiments made showed that
butter made from pasteurized cream and washed in pasteurized water kept
normal just twice as long as butter made from unpasteurized cream and
washed with unpasteurized water, even though well-water was used.