"As an experienced second grader & I concluded that making butter, like addition and subtraction, was just another example of mindless busy work for which I would have little use later in life"

It's that time of the year when milk from the grass fed cows who deliver their bounty to your family table, is especially good. Well, the cows don't actually deliver the milk, at least, not in my neck of the woods, but they are principally responsible for making it. As any connoisseur of real dairy knows, it is the seemingly infinite versatility of milk that makes it the Swiss Army Knife of beverages. Cheese, cream, sour cream, ice cream, kefir, yogurt and, of course, butter are just some of the many beneficial uses for which milk can be applied. What can you do with soda besides drink it? Sure, soda is effective at destroying your teeth and contributing to insulin resistance, earning you bonus points toward Type 2 diabetes, but these "uses" don't count as I'm talking about beneficial uses here.

Before I proceed, I feel I must acknowledge the concerns of the anti-milk establishment. One of their chief arguments against the consumption of milk is that we humans are the only species that continues to drink milk beyond babyhood and are thus engaging in something "unnatural." This is true. Of course, I must point out that humans are also the only species to drive cars, pay taxes, and grow grey hairs puzzling the unfathomable mysteries of how to connect a DVD recorder with a VHS player and a plasma flat screen TV.

You see, just because bears don't suffer heart attacks of frustration while trying to configure a cave theatre system, it doesn't mean that owning one yourself is inherently wrong, does it? More seriously, I pledge a gift of a crisp ten dollar bill to the first respondent who can identify for me, any other species besides humans, who know how to manufacture synthetic "milk," "meat" and "cheese" from soybeans--talk about unnatural.

Butter: The Food of Kings
The first time I made butter was way back in second grade in Mrs. Fields class. Mrs. Fields was a young sort of woman with a sunny face well accustomed to the labor of smiling. In my estimation as an experienced seven year old, she was a competent teacher, who to my young eyes, bore a striking resemblance to Mary Tyler Moore. To my everlasting gratitude, on that day so many years ago, she was our Prometheus, sparking the fire of real food in our lives, by sharing with us the wonder of butter making. Earlier in the day, our class had taken a trip to the ice cream "factory," as the children in my neighborhood were fond of calling it. Actually, it was a dairy products plant of some sort, where milk and other milk products, besides ice cream, were produced.

We toured the factory in a line of paired second graders, as was the custom in those days. I had to hold hands with a girl which, owing to the proximity of more ice cream than I had ever seen or imagined, was more tolerable than it might have been. After our tour of the factory, we were each given an ice cream stick of vanilla cream wrapped in a chocolate shell studded with nuts. Under the Arizona sun, ice cream didn't last long, so I was relieved to be free of my female companion so that I could apply both hands to the happy task of eating. Back at school, Mrs. Fields produced, what I recall was a bottle of milk and an empty mayonnaise sized jar. She must have skimmed the cream, from the milk at some point, and deposited it into the jar. There were about 15 - 20 of us in the class and each took a turn shaking the jar of cream.

By the time the jar had made one full circuit of the class, Mrs. Fields extracted an amount of pale yellow butter from the jar, then, like a magician, she produced a package of saltine crackers, some plastic knives and paper plates. I waited for her to pull a rabbit out of her big, Mary Tyler Moorish hair, but when I determined no rabbit was forthcoming, I returned my attention to butter making. I had never eaten butter like this before and was skeptical of the wisdom in doing so, but since I had contributed to the creation of this miracle, like Dr. Frankenstein, I was compelled to taste of the fruit of my labor.

In my family, we used butter often, but not as a spread, so I had nothing to compare the experience with. All I can recall is that there was a touch of the exotic to the whole experience. I wasn't especially impressed with butter making, wishing that the nice man at the ice cream factory had supplied us with additional boxes of ice cream instead. I concluded that making butter, like addition and subtraction, was just another example of mindless busy work for which I would have little use later in life.

Making Butter the Grown-Up Way
Approximately thirty-eight years later, I found that my butter making skills would be of some use after all. Not surprisingly, I discovered some value in addition and subtraction as well, although that realization came, thankfully, much earlier. My wife and I -- yes I got over my aversion to girls - were among a small group which had assembled for the purpose of sharing ideas, stories and information about real food and, to my delight, to make butter.

Though I had not made butter myself, since second grade, I developed an appreciation for it in the intervening years, but as young men are wont to do, I strayed from the path of righteousness for a time, where I dallied in the forbidden pleasure of margarine and other synthetic butter substitutes. Just as I found the transient courtships I enjoyed in college to be generally unfulfilling, I discovered that butter, like my wife of 19 years, was the real thing.

Two of the ladies present, our hosts, served as demonstrators in the modern art of butter making. Actually, there was very little that was modern about the process. One of our hosts employed the familiar method that I remembered from second grade, along with the incorrect notion, thanks to my aging memory, that Mary Tyler Moore had once been my second grade teacher.

We were using raw milk that our hosts graciously provided from a cow-share in which they participated. A cow-share is a wonderful opportunity for people, like myself, who lack garage space to park a cow. You can buy a share in a dairyman's cow - the cow stays with the farmer -- just as you would buy a share interest in a security (stock). Owning a share in the cow means you also own a share of the milk the cow produces. Some misguided states prohibit access to raw dairy products by anyone other than the owner of the cow or goat. Cow-sharing provides a method for the urban/suburban citizen to own a piece of the "other American dream," while meeting his dietary nutritional needs without being hauled off by the local constabulary for the 'crime' of drinking raw milk.

We took turns shaking the jar of rich raw cream which had been skimmed from a gallon of milk, but since there were only four of us assigned the duty of designated shaker, our arms began to tire. Our other host, no doubt a proponent of modernization, employed an electrically motivated device that looked as if it had been crafted by hand from spare parts. She acquired it on Ebay, she noted, and it looked something like a large pickle jar with a motorized agitator that descended from the screw-top lid of the jar down into the cream. A small motor affixed to the top of the lid powered the device via a standard household electrical current. I wondered how much longer it would be before the term, "the greatest thing since sliced bread," would be replaced by, "the greatest thing since Ebay?"

It didn't take long for the butter to "clot" and separate from the liquid in both jars. Both hosts then demonstrated their preferred method for 'washing' the butter. In short order, we had roughly two pounds of fresh butter glistening on the table before us. It had the rich golden hue of a sunrise. The anemic looking stick butter which we sometimes bought from the grocery store would never look the same to me now. The raw milk from which this butter was born came from well cared for grass fed cows who have been eating spring grass. For the uninitiated, this is equivalent to finding out that your room reservation has being upgraded from standard to the penthouse suite on the top floor, complete with butler and masseuse.

I eagerly took a sample, whereupon returning from my out of body experience, I remarked to my wife that we would have to buy a cow share for ourselves. It really is a wonderful way to discover what real food tastes like and it's inexpensive, so you won't have to refinance your house to do it.

But isn't butter fattening?
Well yes, I guess in a way it is. Certainly the clothing stores I patronized after I lost over 150 pounds saw their profits "fatten' after I found I needed a new wardrobe. The farmers from which I purchase most of my food saw their revenues "fatten" too I imagine, and there's no doubt the quality of my life is richer and I guess "richness," which implies more of something is loosely synonymous with "fatness." But I've noticed that butter also exerts a "thinning" effect too. My doctor has seen revenue from my co-pays thin out considerably and the junk food and pharmaceutical industries have seen my contribution to their bottom lines go positively anorexic after I started eating butter and other real foods.

Besides the obvious benefit of helping me lose weight, butter is also an excellent source of fat soluble vitamins: A, D, E, and K. Oh yes, and it tastes great too.

About soda
Before I forget, I did manage to think of one beneficial use for soda. Alledgedly, the product of one well known soda manufacturer is being used as a very effective pest control spray for crops. I guess that's a good thing, and yet I can't help but wonder about the ethical considerations involved. It seems like a painful and inhumane way to go--nuking the poor little critters with cola until their teeth fall out and they die from obesity and diabetes. It's a good thing we humans are too smart to let something like that happen to us.

Read, think and learn so that you may eat well and live more fruitful lives.

Raw dairy resource: The Real Milk web site.