The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-12-25
ALL ABOUT BUTTER.
Was 1t and Cream Made Use of by the
Greeks and Romans
The Boast OF Cyclops I'm That Land OF
Cheeses.

Did the Greeks and Romans make any use
OF butter and cream? The singular circum-
stance that there is no word to express these
products in either of the two ancient classi.
cal languages, and the absence of all allu.
sion TO their use till more than half a cen
tury after the Christian era, give a strong
presumption that they were not in use.
Cheese, on the other hand (turos and
caseus), was an important article of diet from
the very earliest times In the .Iliad''
Xxi 63S) Hecamede prepares posset in the
tent of NestOr for the wounded Machaon.
and scrapes or shreds into it goats cheese
with bronze knife. Frequent mention is
made OF cheese in many Greek writers; it
was made, for the most part, of goats milk
and it was curdled either with fig juice or
with rennet Now, butter is equally easy to
make, not only from cows milk, but from
that OF goats. The only material difference
is that the making of curd is momentary
process, while the churning of butter some
times requires a considerable time if the
temperature is too low or the cream is too
fresh. 1t would be quite inconceivable that
the accidental shaking OF sour cream on a
journey had not brought to the notice of
nomad or pastoral tribes the yellow globules
of butter; but it is strange that, having
noticed them, they neglected to make any
use OF the discovery.
Butter" is from butyrum, meaning "cow
cheese" curious term, and one found, be
it observed, only in quite late writer's, such
as Pliny-apparently to distinguish it from
the more familiar substance of goats cheese
The Saxons called it butere, butyre
and butera. The Germans call cream
rahm, and the Saxon word was ream.
which contains the same root. Possibly its
origin is Scandinavian, but this is a point
which we must leave to the philologers to
decide. The Icelandic word is riomi, and it
is possibly connected with the Lithuanian
raumu, "a dug" whence our word Ito ru
inmate" comes, !. e., to convert fodder into
milk py hewing the cud, term which Vir-
gil applies even to bullock,
nice sub nigra pallentes ruminat herbas.
The Spaniards use the italian word crema ;
butter, of which they still make very little
use, is manteca and mantecilla; cheese is
queso; buttsrmilk is suero de mantecs; milk
Is leche. The Welsh call butter, ymenin
cream, huven; buttermilk, llacthenwyn.
Cream is the French creme, Italian crema
Du Cange, in his lexicon of medieval LATIN
ity, gives cremum, but quotes only one in
stance of the word, from Fortunatus Glib. xi.
poem 13):
Aspexi digitos per lactea munera presses,
Et stat picta manus hic ubi crema rapts.
81 have seen peoples fingers dsubed with
the cream when dipped in the milk" where
presses seems to mean depressos, sunk
through the surface of the milk" Probably
crema is here a peuter singular, and not the
plural of cremum. The derivation of the
word Is certainly obscure. The Welsh word
for butter probably means q flny coat
Ing or membrsneous envelope (hymen(,
and the Spanish word is from the late Latin
manta, a covering. The term 6os lactis may
probably refer To cream, but its rare and
only pOetical use indicates that cream was
n.,,l. .oI rol 4, a. D.
Strange, that among the many ingenious
artistic contrivances of Roman cook, he
had not found out how TO use this, which
we Justly regard as an exquisite delicscy.
The Indian ehee is, we believe, the butter
made from buffslos milk, semi-hquid from
the heat of the climate. 1t is said 10 be
very rank and nasty to the taste. One rea-
son, perhaps, why butter was SO little
known in Greece and Rome, is this very
tendency 20 liquefy and to become rancid.
We all know the devices adopted in this
country to keep the butter stiff and cold,
which is the only form in which it Is agree
able as an article of food. The Romans,
however, who used snow In cooling their
Wines would have had no difficulty in keep
ing butter If they had only tried the expert
meDt But to churn butter In very high
temperature would produce only oily mat
ter. and the result would seldom repay for
the trouble.
From very ancient times some ways of
making curd were known, and SO Of turning
milk into the consistency Of light and nour.
isbing food. Homer mentions northern
race of "milk eaters" whom he also describes
as "milkers of mares" Virgil improves up.
on this and speaks of Soy ythian people who
drink mares blood mixed with curd.-Et
lac concretum cum saugdlne potat
equine Some kinds OF common cheese
ora ri wi
the whey pressed out by the hand las is
sometimes done in Russian villages) or
wrung out in twisted cloth. The modern
cheese press is loaded With enormous weights
in order to extract the whey thoroughly.
Probably y good deal of what the ancents
USE was little better than curd cheese.
The nomsd Arabs have wsy of preparing
"kymac," which in some degIes resembles
our "clotted cream" Sir Charles Fellows
describes 1t in bis Travels in Lycia:"
Among the hoepitable presents that I have
frs QuenLy received on my journey was a SIM
pie pr paration OF cream used in this country,
d Wnion Gp have @ not s very very much ikea but here
IT is made Of cows milk, and
is so excellent tnat / give the recipe,
lake a pan OF new milk, let 1t stand
on q stove or near a fire, to sim mer, but not 10
boil hick scum will iorm over 1t. which,
10 med set the whole by till the next day to
stand for cream, and IL will be found that
the cream has saturated and aahen ~ the
spongy underpart OF the scum. This
coating, neariy half an inch thick, may
be taken OF and doublea or rolled up;
it will keep for some days, and Is excellent
with fruit or coffee, and good with anything.
The ID. op.e here seem TO use it as a. substitute
for butter, which latter Ii sapplied entirely
from Russia, but neither here nor at Smyrna
n ave / ever tasted IL fresh or good. The but
ter il low priced, however. and used
profusely in cakes or pastry, OF whic2 great
quantities are consumed. There is a kind
OF curd or cheese, which is pressed ana sold IA
skis IL is spread upon or eaten witA bread,
but has a sourish, IN pleasant taste. L have
also occasionally seen as luxury a descrip-
ton of whipped cream, whtcn Is eaten as but
ter: it is white and opa4ae, and not greasy
Butter, believe, was never made by t0e an
Client Greeks"
The use OF milk-lscht and BLIGHT, Saxon
| meolc OF meoloc, Celtic-is OF coarse very
ancient, and as old as any form OF nomad O.
pastoral life. The words for it may be iden
| tilted by a clear family resemblance il
many modern tongues and trw,ed back I,
| the earliest sources. SeveuL terms 70
milk pals are found In Gresk writers; an,
with the Romans we hsv e mulctra an,
muictraiia. But, as may be expected