Absolutely. Although I don’t usually have it around, and when I do it’s for cooking or baking, the leftover buttermilk is always drunk. It’s delicious (that is, if you like tangy and thick beverages.)
Anyhow, other than yogurt, I also find that kefir (if you happen to have that available) substitutes well, too.
Apparently **Tesco **also stocks it Pushkin.
I’ve always thought the fruit varieties of lassi as more of a Western / recent addition to the traditional lassi. All the lassi (es?) I’ve had were just yoghurt and salt or sugar. No spices or fruit additions of any kind. Maybe there are certain places in the sub-continent where adding fruits or spices is common. Would any desi doper please corroborate this?
Lassi is commonly consumed with salt and spices- or fruit- but the word just means buttermilk (in Urdu, but also several other languages, including Hindi). It’s still lassi if you don’t put anything in it.
Indian restaurants in the US tend to serve it with fruit/spices/sugar by default because their customers like it, so if you want it straight, you have to ask for it that way. Bit like chai- it’s just tea, but if you ask for chai in Starbucks, you’ll get chai masala.
ETA: I’m a half-assed Desi Doper. I don’t speak Hindi or Urdu, and my only concession to my roots is a little Ganesh rupa (statue) on my nightstand.
I love buttermilk, just to drink. And I like the little designs the butter flakes make on the glass.
And oh yeah, buttermilk pancakes!
This is correct.
But I really just came in to say I drink buttermilk. I water it down with some seltzer. I love the taste. Now I want some.
I take it with salt and ice, the way god intended. 
Amen. Good stuff.
That’s lassi. Buttermilk from the store, no salt. Lassi, definitely salt. And my white friends all make faces when they try it. They definitely like meethi lassi.
Anaamika, the salt / sugar thing could just be a regional thing. The first time I had lassi from a small restaurant (when I was 19), I was shocked because it was sweet. All the lassi I had before in my life was at home and was always slightly salted. Also, in Punjab, the usual flavour seems to be sweet.
Ever once in a while I go out and buy myself a big carton of buttermilk. And I drink it by the big cold glass-full! Absolutely refreshing and mmmmm…good! But none of my other family members will even take a sip, which is fine with me.
However, today’s buttermilk is a far cry from the real thing that I used to get as a kid, when the liquid left over from making butter was “buttermilk”.
Buttermilk is getting hard to find in markets, and is now apparently no longer available in resturants. Rats!
(And I might use some of it in pancakes or biscuits, both of which my family love)
You’re the ones who put mayonnaise on French fries, too, aren’t you (at least according to Pulp Fiction)? Truly we have found culinary Hell.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
I just came in to add that if you have a stand mixer, it’s really easy to make fresh butter and get buttermilk along with it. All you really need to do is whip some cream for 15-20 minutes until the butter separates from the buttermilk (the butter will stick to your whisk), and then stick the butter in a cheesecloth and drain the rest of the liquid out…you’ll have to squeeze out the last of it. I just did this this weekend and not only was the butter fantastic, but the pancakes we made the next morning from the buttermilk were wonderful as well.
It’s probably easier to find a store that carries it, but it’s not that much easier if you’re feeling adventurous.
It’s widely available in supermarkets in the UK. I buy it frequently to make breakfast pancakes. I get mine from Sainsburys usually but it’s in all the others too. I’d agree that it has a similar taste to thickish yoghurt.
To add to what others have already said: Morrisons also sell buttermilk.
Having said that, it seems that store managers have some discretion in what they stock – not every supermarket, even within a chain, carries an identical range. If buttermilk isn’t in demand in her area, the shops there may have chosen not to sell it.
If it’s something she uses regularly, it would be worth her while to ask her local supermarket to get some in – I’ve found they can be surprisingly responsive to customer requests. When we couldn’t find vegetable ghee anywhere in town, my wife asked an assistant manager at the nearby Safeways if they could get it for her: it was on the shelves within the week, and was there every time we wanted it afterwards.
The other method, of course, is to persuade Delia to include it in a few recipes – that ought to ensure every shop in the country has it.
Hold on just a minute. 1. It’s fantastic, but in particular 2. Continental (i.e. original and genuine) mayonnaise is a different beast to Hellman’s or that white pap that passes for something that should be made with fresh ingredients. It’s a truly tasty, tangy concoction. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
::Going to be eating moules frites with mayo in in Bruges in three days!::
Nom nom nom.
::Gloats::
She was using it to bake wheaten bread for her b/f. Wheaten without seems to be another thing to be banned.
While you’re here, is there any point in popping across the border to pick up some Cadbury’s? Little sister claims there’s a difference between the British and Irish bars, is there?
Definitely seems to be a difference, although some stores here stock the northern type. To my tastebuds southern is creamier, milkier, Brit Cadbury’s is slightly more bitter. Not a huge difference but definitely noticeable. Read somewhere, I think on here actually, that all Flakes are manufactured in the ROI for the world market because of the difference in flavour.
That was me probably - my ex did a tour of the Coolock factory and was told that there - but it’s down to texture not taste. The ROI Cadburys is slightly more rough, or crystalline; the Brit stuff is too smooth to make Flakes. I agree, however, that ROI Cadburys is much creamier tasting, but also perhaps a bit more cloying.
I have recently discovered a powdered buttermilk at Safeway and Walmart. If the OP’s sister still can’t find buttermilk nearby in the UK and needs it for baking (instead of drinking) purposes, maybe someone could send her some of the powdered product.