FLAVOR IN BUTTER. 183 



ditions. The conditions that cause the variations in flavor 

 and aroma are largely, though not wholly, the conditions of 

 the ripening of the cream. For these reasons butter-makers 

 have been, in recent years, more and more recognizing the 

 significance of the cream ripening, especially in the larger 

 creameries. 



It must be further noticed that the question of the proper 

 flavor of butter is in a measure dependent upon the caprice 

 of the public. The public taste has become educated to a cer- 

 tain kind of butter flavor and now demands this particular 

 kind. This public taste, moreover, is very capricious and, 

 indeed, it is constantly undergoing modification. A few 

 years ago, when, creameries began first to be built, the public 

 taste in America did not like the creamery butter, claiming 

 that the flavor was not quite so strong as that of the ordinary 

 farmer's butter. For a time the creamery butter was not so 

 popular as the old-fashioned stronger butter made on indi- 

 vidual farms. This taste, however, has changed, and at the 

 present time the stronger flavored farmer's butter is generally 

 regarded as inferior to the more delicate but less highly 

 flavored creamery product. On the continent of Europe the 

 change has gone still farther, and the public taste in Europe 

 demands a flavor in its butter considerably less prominent 

 than that which is demanded by the American market. The 

 European butter would not at present meet the approval of 

 the American public, and the American more highly flavored 

 butter does not meet the approval of the European public. 

 European visitors frequently complain that they cannot find 

 any butter that is fit to eat in America, insisting that it is all 

 too strong, and on the other hand, many an American has ex- 

 perienced the fact that the butter upon the European table 

 seems to him to have no taste at all. These facts indicate that 

 the public taste is capable of change, and the butter-maker 

 should bear this in mind and recognize that the demand for 

 highly flavored butters may disappear in the next few years. 



