BUTTERINE.
Professor Sheldon, at the great show of the British Dairy Farmers’ Association, tried to comfort some of those present by telling them that there was a great future for dairy-farming in this country. Whilst corn-growing was doomed in England, the consumption of fresh milk was increasing—it had trebled in London within the last twenty years. Both cheese and butter ought to be consumed in much greater quantities, for there was no article of food so cheap as cheese. He had no objection to butterine; only, let it be sold as such.
At the annual meeting of the same society, presided over by Lord Vernon, Canon Bagot introduced the subject of butterine, the extended use and manufacture of which is already pressing heavily on the dairy-farmer. He said he did not want to stop the sale of butterine; but he wanted the law so altered, that persons should be imprisoned, instead of being fined, for selling butterine as butter. He gave a bit of personal experience. He said he had disguised some of the Dublin dairymaids and sent them to purchase butter in eight shops. In every case, a receipt was given to the effect that the butter was pure; but on being analysed, it was found that there was not a particle of butter in any of the samples. One of these tradesmen had been fined five times for selling butterine as butter! A motion which he moved was carried—‘That the Council be requested to take into consideration the best means of prohibiting the sale of butterine as butter, and that they immediately take such steps as were desirable.’
Lord Vernon added his testimony as to the unfairness of retailing butterine for butter and selling it at one-and-sixpence a pound. He had seen enormous quantities of butterine in Paris, but there it was sold as such. About a month previously, he had been asked by a man to turn his dairy-farm into a butterine factory, by which he hoped to make ten thousand pounds a year.
Under the title of ‘Sham Butter,’ in Chambers’s Journal for May 15, 1880, the discovery and manufacture of butterine were briefly related. An ingenious Frenchman, M. Mège, patented a process by which beef-suet can be converted into butterine, and since then the manufacture has spread till we have factories at work in France, England, Holland, Germany, and America. In a Report laid before the House of Commons, it was declared that the substances so produced were harmless, and that good butterine was more wholesome than bad butter. In considering the subject, it must be remembered that there is good and bad butterine, as well as good and bad butter.
Oleo-margarine is the raw material from which butterine is made. It is procured in this way: From the freshly slaughtered carcasses of cattle in the abattoirs of large towns, the superfluous portions of suet are taken to the butterine factories. The finest, cleanest, and sweetest portions only are selected for making oleo-margarine. This prepared oil is largely exported from America to Holland, whence it comes over to us as butterine.
A scientific periodical describes the process of manufacture as follows. At the factory, the beef-suet is thrown into tanks containing tepid water; and after standing a short time it is washed repeatedly in cold water, and disintegrated and separated from fibre by passing it through a ‘meat-hasher,’ worked by steam, after which it is forced through a fine sieve. It is then melted by surrounding the tanks with water at a temperature of about one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Great care is taken not to exceed this point; otherwise, the fat would begin to decompose and acquire a flavour of tallow. After being well stirred, the adipose membrane subsides to the bottom of the tank, and is separated under the name of ‘scrap,’ whilst a clear yellow oil is left above, together with a film of white oily substance. This film is removed by skimming, and the yellow oil is drawn off and allowed to solidify. The ‘refined fat,’ as the substance is now termed, is then taken to the pressroom—which is kept at a temperature of about ninety degrees Fahrenheit—packed in cotton cloths, and placed in galvanised iron plates in a press. On being subjected to pressure, oil flows away. The cakes of stearine which remain are sent to the candle-makers. The oil—which is now known as oleo-margarine—is filled into barrels for sale or export, or directly made into butterine by adding to it ten per cent. of milk and churning the mixture. It is now coloured with annatto and rolled with ice, to set it; salt is added; the process is finished, and it is ready for packing.
Holland has taken the lead in the manufacture of butterine; there are now forty-five factories in the country, most of which are in North Brabant, where the farms are small, and maintain but one or two cows. As the farmers there can only make a small quantity of butter, which is apt to spoil before it can be collected for market, they readily make contracts with the butterine-makers. The factories at Oss, in Holland, alone, send an average of one hundred and fifty tons per week of oleo-margarine butter to England. There are also several firms in this country engaged in its manufacture; one firm in London can turn out from ten to twenty tons per week.
Professor Mayer in 1883 made some experiments as to the digestibility and wholesomeness of butterine as compared with dairy butter. The experiments were made on two healthy male subjects; and the conclusion arrived at was, that there is not much difference between the digestibility of butterine and that of dairy butter. As to eggs or germs existing in butterine, whereby disease may be spread, there is as yet, happily, no instance on record. As far as nutritive qualities go, it stands on very nearly the same level as butter.
We learn that an Act was passed, April 24, 1884, by the Senate of New York prohibiting the fabrication of any article out of margarine substances, intended to replace butter and cheese. A fine of one hundred dollars is attached to the breaking of the Act. In the preliminary inquiry made by a Committee, it is stated that twenty out of the thirty samples bought as dairy butter were proved to be butterine. The quantity of butterine manufactured and sent into the State of New York was estimated at forty million pounds annually. The ordinary butter, except the very best grades, was spoken of as rapidly disappearing from the market. One witness testified that something between one hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand packages of butterine, of fifty-five pounds each, were shipped at New York in 1882; and between two hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand packages in 1883. Another witness said that the gross receipts of the genuine butter-trade in New York are fifty per cent. less than what they would be but for the sale of butterine as butter.
The passing of this Act is virtually a granting of protection for the American dairy industry, and gives effect to the voice of so far interested parties. Butterine has fared much better at the hands of scientific men. Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir Frederick J. Bramwell, Sir F. Abel, Dr James Bell, and others, none of whom are in any way interested in its manufacture, have given a favourable verdict regarding butterine, looking upon it as a boon to the working population. Dr James Bell, in a paper read at the International Health Exhibition, said that butterine and oleo-margarine are, in the opinion of high authorities, legitimate articles of commerce, when honestly sold, and if made in a cleanly manner from sound fats, as they afford the poor a cheap and useful substitute for butter, especially during the winter months, when good butter is both scarce and dear.
Professor Odling, who presided at a meeting of the London Society of Arts, when a paper was read by Mr Anton Jurgens, in December 1884, on this subject, is of the same opinion. Mr Jurgens said that the total exports from Holland alone, in 1883, amounted to about forty thousand tons, valued at about three million pounds sterling. The greatest care was taken in its manufacture to promote cleanliness and excellence. No tainted fat could possibly be used: the smallest portion of bad fat would contaminate the whole mass. The Lancet has said that butterine is better and cheaper than much of the common butter sold. Mr Jurgens is of the same opinion; and he also said that, owing to its composition, butterine does not become rancid, but retains its sweetness longer than butter. This was owing to the absence of butyrin, which gives the aroma to fresh butter, but causes it soon to become rank.
Dr Mouton says that the Dutch manufacturers strongly desire to have this product imported under its own name, and he questions whether a single package is introduced under a false one. Dutch butterine, when made from the best materials, cannot easily be distinguished from dairy butter; but when made from bad materials, it is easily discerned, and no consumer could be imposed upon by it. He says further, that the English market is the most particular one with which they have to deal. Denmark is the only European state where particular regulations are in force with regard to the manufacture, sale, and import of butterine. In France, a bill for this purpose has been drafted; in the other European states, the import of margarine and butterine seems to be considered as a public boon.
Time, which tests all things, will also test butterine. Professor Odling, speaking as a physician, says that a cheap and inexpensive fat is a great want with many young children, and that butterine supplies this want. We find that butterine can be sold at a profit, for the different qualities, at from eightpence to one-and-fourpence per pound. When, as we have already seen, it is made from good materials, it is wholesome and nourishing; and considering the demands of our vast population in this respect—our imports of butter and butterine last year amounting in value to twelve and a half millions sterling—who shall say that butterine may not have a useful future before it? Let it, however, be called butterine, and honestly sold as such.