But it is not probable that the Jews possessed a knowledge of it; and it is pretty well settled, at the present time, that the passages in our English version of the Old Testament in which it is used are erroneously translated, and that wherever the word butter occurs the word milk, or sour, thick milk, or cream, should be substituted. And so in Isaiah, “Milk and honey shall he eat,” instead of “butter;” and in Job (29: 6), “When I washed my feet in milk,” instead of “butter.” And the expression in Prov. (30: 33), “Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,” would be better translated, according to the best critics, “the pressing of the milker bringeth forth milk,” or the “pressing of milk bringeth forth cheese.”
In the oldest Greek writers milk and cheese are spoken of, but there is no evidence that butter was known to them. The Greeks obtained their knowledge of it from the Scythians or the Thracians, and the Romans obtained theirs from the Germans.
In the time of Christ it was used chiefly as an ointment in the baths, and as a medicine. In warm latitudes, as in the southern part of Europe, even at the present day, its use is comparatively limited, the delicious oil of the olive supplying its place.
I have already stated that all good milk of the cow contained butter enclosed in little round globules held in suspension, or floating in the other substances. As soon as the milk comes to rest after leaving the udder, these round particles, being lighter than the mass of cheesy and watery materials by which they are surrounded, begin to rise and work their way to the surface. The largest globules, being comparatively the lightest, rise first, and form the first layer of cream, which is the best, since it is less filled with caseine. The next smaller, rising a little slower, are more entangled with other substances, and bring more of them to the surface; and the smallest rise the slowest and the last, and come up loaded with foreign substances, and produce an inferior quality of cream and butter. The most delicate cream, as well as the sweetest and most fragrant butter, is that obtained by a first skimming, only a few hours after the milk is set. Of three skimmings, at six, twelve, and eighteen hours after the milk is strained into the pan, that first obtained will make more and richer butter than the second, and that next obtained richer than the third, and so on.
The last quart of milk drawn at a milking, for reasons already stated, will make a more delicious and savory butter than the first; and if the last quart or two of a milking is set by itself, and the first cream that rises taken from it after standing only five or six hours, it will produce the richest and highest-flavored butter the cow is capable of giving, under like circumstances as to season and feed.
The separation of the butter particles from the others is slower and more difficult in proportion to the thickness and richness of the milk. Hence in winter, on dry feeding, the milk being richer and more buttery, the cream or particles of butter are slower and longer in rising. But, as heat liquefies milk, the difficulty is overcome in part by elevating the temperature. The same effect is produced by mixing a little water into the milk when it is set. It aids the separation, and consequently more cream will rise in the same space of time, from the same amount of rich milk, with a little water in it, than without. Water slightly warm, if in cold weather, will produce the most perceptible effect. The quantity of butter will be greater from milk treated in this way; the quality, slightly deteriorated.
It must be apparent, from what has been said, that butter may be produced by agitating the whole body of the milk, and thus breaking up the filmy coatings of the globules, as well as by letting it stand for the cream to rise. This course is preferred by many practical dairymen, and is the general practice in some of the countries most celebrated for superior butter.
The general treatment of milk and the management of cream have been already alluded to in a former chapter. It has been seen that the first requisites to successful dairy husbandry are good cows, and abundant and good feeding, adapted to the special object of the dairy, whether it be milk, butter, or cheese; and that, with both these conditions, an absolute cleanliness in every process, from the milking of the cow to bringing the butter upon the table, is indispensably necessary.
Cleanliness may, indeed, with propriety be regarded as the chief requisite in the manufacture of good butter; for the least suspicion of a want of it turns the appetite at once, while both milk and cream are so exceedingly sensitive to the slightest taint in the air, in everything with which they come in contact, as to impart the unmistakable evidence of any negligence, in the taste and flavor of the butter.
It is safe to say, therefore, that good butter depends more upon the manufacture than upon any other one thing, and perhaps than all others put together. So important is this point, that a judicious writer remarks that “in every district where good butter is made it is universally attributed to the richness of the pastures, though it is a well-known fact that, take a skilful dairymaid from that district into another, where good butter is not usually made, and where, of course, the pastures are deemed very unfavorable, she will make butter as good as she used to do. And bring one from this last district into the other, and she will find that she cannot make better butter there than she did before, unless she takes lessons from the servants, or others whom she finds there;” and a French writer very justly observes that “the particular nature of Bretagne butter, whose color, flavor, and consistence, are so much prized, depends neither on the pasture nor on the particular species of cow, but on the mode of making;” and this will hold, to a considerable extent, in every country where butter is made.