Why is there Cultured Buttermilk?

[CalMeacham]

MilliCal asked a question from bed the other night, where she was reading a story set in Colonial America – What’s “buttermilk”?
i explained that it was the liquid left after you extracted the butter. I went to Wikipedia for a quick verification:

Buttermilk is a term used to describe two types of fermented milk products: traditional buttermilk and cultured buttermilk. Both types of buttermilk are made from cow’s milk. The final product has no alcoholic content.[citation needed]

Traditionally, buttermilk has been the liquid left over after producing butter from cream during the churning process.[1] It has a slightly sour taste since the liquid has been fermented by naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria found in raw milk.

In more modern times, commercially available buttermilk sold in supermarkets is instead cultured buttermilk, that is, milk to which lactic acid bacteria have been added to simulate the traditional product. During the 1910s, this product was called artificial buttermilk, to differentiate the product from natural/ordinary/traditional buttermilk.[2] The sour taste, or tartness of cultured buttermilk is a result of a fermentation process in which the bacteria turn lactose into lactic acid. As the pH drops in this reaction the milk becomes tart. At this point, casein, a milk protein, precipitates as it is no longer soluble under acidic conditions, causing what is called clabbering or curdling. The acidity of buttermilk inhibits bacterial growth, and this gives it a long refrigeration life. Sour cream is made using a similar process but uses cream instead of milk.

Traditional buttermilk is quite different from cultured buttermilk: it is thin and slightly acidic, while cultured buttermilk is thick and tart

My question is – why did they ever have to come up with the artificial product? Isn’t there plenty of liquid left over from butter production? (I;m sure our consumption of butter far outweighs buttermilk use) You can only eat so many buttermilk biscuits and buttermilk pancakes – was there some overwhelming need for LOTS of buttermilk? Or is the liquid left from commercial butter production for some reason unusable as buttermilk?

[bouv]

@CalMeacham

My question is – why did they ever have to come up with the artificial product? Isn’t there plenty of liquid left over from butter production? (I;m sure our consumption of butter far outweighs buttermilk use) You can only eat so many buttermilk biscuits and buttermilk pancakes – was there some overwhelming need for LOTS of buttermilk? Or is the liquid left from commercial butter production for some reason unusable as buttermilk?

I’m guessing it has something to do with spoilage. Traditional buttermilk might go bad a long time before the cultured stuff, so by the time you gather it, pasteurize it, package it, and ship it, it might only last a few days or something.

[muldoonthief]

From here

Before World War II much of the butter produced in the United States was made from gathered cream . Farmers separated milk on the farm and shipped cans of cream to a butter factory, sometimes once or twice a week. The cream was often sour and needed to be neutralized (with sodium hydroxide) before churning. When transportation and the value of the skim portion improved, whole milk was shipped to the creamery, providing a supply of “sweet cream” ( i.e., cream that had not soured) for butter making. With these improvements came the advent of higher-quality butter and the demise of naturally soured buttermilk.

So it sounds like they used to use somewhat soured cream to make butter, which led to sour buttermilk. Since they now use sweet cream for butter, the buttermilk produced is no longer sour, so it has a different flavor and presumably can’t be used as “real” buttermilk when baking.

[DSYoungEsq]

Cultured buttermilk exists because the cows have attended finishing school. Why else would you expect? :dubious:

[Exapno_Mapcase]

American tastes do not run to sour or tart products commercially. The yogurt that is sold commercially is a much different product than the sour and tart variety that is traditional yogurt. Adding sugars, extra milk solids, fruits, and other sweeteners and thickeners made an ethnic non-entity into a major selling mainstream dish. The Dannon corporation is responsible for much of this; they introduced fruit into the cup in 1947.

The dairy industry has done the same with buttermilk, although it is more limited into what can be added to it, so it has never become quite as ubiquitous as yogurt.

The answer to almost any question about American food involves adding sugar or fat. That’s changed recently only a tiny little bit.

[CalMeacham]

But cultured buttermilk has a long history, going back to the beginning of the 20th cemntury. I think American tastes back then were more “mainstream”. The desire to make cultured buttermilk seems to be based on a wish to have lots of buttermilk to sell, not tastier buttermilk.
Besides, isn’t most buttermilk used in cooking and baking? It wouldn’t matter if the product was sour in that case.

(Although in one Nero Wolfe mystery, Archie surprises Sergeant Kramer eating Pickles and Buttermilk. I can’t imagine that as a snack, or a lunch. Tastes have changed.)

[muldoonthief]

@CalMeacham

Besides, isn’t most buttermilk used in cooking and baking? It wouldn’t matter if the product was sour in that case.

Since the sourness of buttermilk is due to acidity, it’s actually critical for baking. Many/most buttermilk recipes also call for baking soda, and its the acid + base which creates carbon dioxide, leading to nice fluffy biscuits or pancakes. Maybe it was the standardizing of acid content which led to cultured buttermilk.

Exapno, that’s a little extreme. Cultured buttermilk is only milk & bacteria. No sugar added.

[AskNott]

It’s my impression (maybe wrong) that cultured buttermilk exists because US milk is Pasteurized. The natural bacteria have been killed. Raw milk can’t be legally sold here, though there’s a black market for it. It’s said to be the reason French butter is so much better than ours; theirs is lightly fermented.

One of the ways around the rule is this. A handful of folks share ownership of one cow, and each one drives out to the farm to pick up his share of the milk. It’s legal, you see, to drink raw milk from your own cow. I suppose a farmer is paid to feed and milk her. To raw milk fans, it is well worth the trouble.

[Lemur866]

Cultured buttermilk is actually pretty similar to that ethnic-style yogurt Exapno was talking about. It’s sour as hell. Even “plain” yogurt nowadays is made using cultures that produce as little acid as possible, resulting in a very bland product.

The highest possible use of cultured buttermilk is making mango lassi. I used to love getting it at Indian restaurants, but whenever I tried to make it at home it tasted “bleh”. I was using mango pulp and yogurt. The I had an idea…mango pulp and cultured buttermilk, and BING! That’s the mango lassi they serve in Indian restuarants. I have no idea if this is similar to lassi you’d get in India, but it’s very good. And the key is that cultured “buttermilk” is really just soured milk, what they used to call “clabber”. And ethnic style yogurt is much sourer and much more similar to cultured buttermilk than it is to supermarket style American yogurt.

[LouisB]

I dearly love real buttermilk but I will sometimes drink the cultured crap simply because I get a craving and can’t find the real stuff. I suspect the underlying reason for cultured buttermilk is that is is easier and therefore cheaper to produce. Even if that is true, the damn stuff sells at a premium price.

I’ve said this before: I love buttermilk and can’t stand yogurt. Gotta be something wrong there.