164 



BUTTER. 



Eutter. preserved sweet, without salt, by addirtg to it a cer- 

 v tain proportion of fine honey, and mixing them 

 thoroughly, so that they may be perfectly incorpo- 

 rated. A mixture of this sort has a sweet pleasant 

 taste, and will keep for years without becoming ran- 

 cid. It might of course be very useful in long 

 voyages. Dr Anderson thinks an ounce of honey 

 sufficient to preserve a pound of butter. 



To preserve butter for a long time fresh without 

 any foreign mixture, the best method perhaps is, first 

 of all to wash the butter-milk completely out, and 

 then to keep the butter under pure cool water, fre- 

 quently renewed. Some wrap it up in a wet linen 

 cloth, to defend it from the influence of the air. But 

 though fresh butter be kept cool and from the air, 

 it will in no very long time become rancid. We can- 

 not by any means keep it fresh from one year to 

 another, or transport it to a distance in good condi- 

 tion. Rancid butter, to most people, is extremely 

 disagreeable. A very small quantity of it will be 

 observed by many in a large mass of meat, that it may 

 have been employed to season. Few stomachs can 

 digest rancid butter. Some are so delicate, that the 

 use even of fresh butter, of milk, of cream, and in 

 general of all oleaginous substances, affect them with 

 difficult and painful digestion. 



Butter, to be a wholesome aliment, must be free 

 from rancidity, and not fried or burned. But even 

 in its purest state, there are few who can indulge 

 very freely in the use of this article with impunity ; 

 and health, perhaps, would not suffer, though its em- 

 ployment as food were altogether laid aside. Like 

 the other bland oils, it is gently laxative. 



Most housewifes know several receipts for resto- 

 ring rancid butter to freshness. But of these the 

 greater number are of little use. Washing it well 

 with pure water, or with ardent spirit, still better 

 perhaps with sweet milk, will deprive it in some 

 measure of its disagreeable smell and taste. It is of 

 much more consequence to preserve butter from be- 

 coming rancid, by salting, and the other means already 

 explained. 



As turnip is now become so common a food for 

 cows, and often imparts to their milk, and the butter 

 thence made, a very disagreeable flavour, it is of some 

 consequence to know how this may be best obviated. 

 A small quantity of saltpetre has been recommended ; 

 and in the Georgical Essays, vol. v. we have the fol- 

 lowing method : " Let the bowls or pans be kept 

 constantly clean, and well scalded with boiling water 

 before using.*' When the milk is brought into the 

 dairy, to every eight quarts mix one quart of boiling 

 water ; then put up the milk into the bowls to stand 

 for cream." Dr Anderson says, " that if the milk is to 

 be used sweet, its taste may be considerably diminish- 

 ed by boiling ; and that other mean* of sweetening 

 milk have been attempted, more troublesome and ex- 

 pensive, and not more efficacious." 



As butter made in winter is generally pale or white, 

 and its richness at the same time inferior to that 

 which is made during the summer months, the idea 



of excellence has been associated with the yellow Butter!, 

 colour. Means are therefore employed by those who 

 prepare and sell butter, to impart to it the yellow 

 colour where that is naturally wanting. Various sub- 

 stances have been used for this purpose, but they 

 must all be of the resinous class, or such as are soluble 

 in oils. Extractive matters, and such as are soluble 

 only in water, alcohol, &c. as beet-root and cochineal, 

 give no tinge to butter. The substances most com- 

 monly employed are the root of the carrot, and the 

 flowers of the marigold. The juice of either of these 

 is expressed and passed through a linen cloth. A 

 small quantity of it, (and the proportion necessary ia 

 soon learned from experience,) is diluted with a little 

 cream, and this mixture is added to the rest of the 

 cream when it enters the churn. So little of this 

 colouring matter unites with the butter, that it never 

 communicates to it any peculiar taste. 



Many other colouring matters have been employed, 

 as saffron, the berries of the physalis alkekengi, the 

 seed of the asparagus ; but the marigold and carrot 

 are certainly the best, and it is the latter that is 

 chiefly used by the best farmers. 



Alkanet root will give every shade of colour to 

 butter, from the lightest rose to the deepest red, by 

 augmenting or diminishing the proportions of it. 



Though the milk of the cow, when fed on rich 

 pasture during the summer months, is almost always 

 found to produce butter of a rich yellow colour, 

 this is by no means the case with every animal. The 

 goat, the sheep, the mare, and the ass, fed on the 

 same pasture in the same season, produce milk which 

 yields butter always more or less white. 



Butter, as an article of commerce, is of considerable 

 importance. Somecompute that there are 1 12,000,000 

 pounds of it annually consumed in London, chiefly 

 made within 40 miles round the city. From the 

 three counties of York, Cambridge, and Suffolk, 

 there are annually sent to the capital 210,000 firkins, 

 amounting to 11,760,000 pounds. 



Some counties or districts are particularly famous 

 for the excellency of their butter. That which is 

 made in Essex, and well known under the name of 

 Epping butter, is the most highly esteemed of any 

 in London and its vicinity. In the more restricted 

 use of this appellation, it is applied only to the butter 

 made from the milk of cows which are fed in Epping 

 forest during the summer months, where the leaves 

 and some particular plants are thought to contribute 

 to its superior flavour. In Somerset butter of nearly 

 the same excellence is made ; but brought to market 

 in half pounds instead of pounds. 



The Cambridgeshire salt-butter is held in the 

 highest esteem. And the London cheesemongers, 

 by washing and detaching the salt from it, often sell 

 it at a high price for fresh butter. It is made nearly 

 in the same way as the Epping butter, and when 

 salted, put up in firkins of 56 pounds. Yorkshire 

 and Suffolk butter is very little inferior to that of 

 Cambridgeshire, and is often sold in London for such. 

 Utoxeter, in Staffordshire, has long been famous for 



* It can hardly be necessary to observe, that the utmost attention to cleanliness, with respect to every vessel and instrument 

 used, and every operation performed in the making of butter, is indispensably requisite. Any neglect of this kind is fatal to 

 its goodness. It is quite necessary that the bowls or pau, after scalding, be allowed to cool before the milk is put into them. 



