I have just come to the UK from the US and have noticed a distinct difference in the taste of the plain yogurt and sour cream compared to these products in the USA. It’s not a bad taste, just very different. I’m guessing it’s a difference in the bacterial cultures used to make them? If this is the case, why can I buy sour cream anywhere in the US and have it taste the same?
I would think that sour cream from a store in the midwest vs. a store on the east coast could taste just as different, especially if purchased from a different grocery store chain. But in the US at least, it is all the same (at least, I know about the midwest/east coast comparison for a fact).
As a random note, the sour cream in the UK tastes like it should be used for deserts, not for baked potatoes, which would be my first inclination for its use.
Do they pasteurize over there? I’m under the impression that pretty much everything in the US that is made from milk has to be heated until the USDA considers it safe.
Actually, I’m also now remembering that Alton says there are different ways to pasteurize (rather, different combinations of time and temperature which result in pasteurization). So, even if they do pasteurize, they may do it differently, which may affect flavor.
I don’t know about yogurt, but I assume the difference in sour cream is due to the lack of Mexican restaurants. I once had a waitress in the UK explain that their nachos came with a dzha-la-pee-no sauce. I’ve had their idea of sour cream, and they seem to have assumed the first word was meant metaphorically. I think the producers there either don’t know what it is supposed to taste like or assume that their customers don’t.
I never heard of sour cream before I moved to the U.S. If someone had mentioned it to me when I lived in Britain, I would have assumed they meant cream that had gone bad. Maybe things have changed now.
And yes, they do pasteurize dairy produce in Britain. It is not the third world you know.
Possibly they are well aware of what the vast majority of their customers are more familiar with the local product, even if that might offend the palate of the occasional North American tourist.
Of course, the US is famous for having invented sour cream, and quite rightly insist that there can be no other conceivable way to do it.
I’m sure KTK didn’t mean anything by it. There are a lot of foodstuffs that are sold abroad that wouldn’t be allowed to be sold here, and I’m sure there are foodstuffs here that would be unwelcome in other countries.
I don’t know why you would think non-pasteurized dairy products is solely a “third world” thing. Many of the world’s greatest cheeses are made from non-pasteurized milk and never undergo a pasteurization process. The traditional method for making sour cream involves letting the cream naturally sour with the bacterial cultures present in unpasteurized milk. It’s not an unreasonable question to wonder if certain British or continental European dairy products are pasteurized. They aren’t always and, as a consumer, if there was an unpasteurized sour cream for sale, you bet I’d be the first in line to give it a shot.
If anyone cares Crème Fraîche is super easy to make at home and well worth the minimal effort.
Combine 1 cup whipping cream and 2 tablespoons buttermilk in a glass container. Cover and let stand at room temperature (about 70°F) from 8 to 24 hours, or until very thick. Stir well before covering and refrigerate up to 10 days.
I add it to soups, mashed potatoes, goulash. Wonderful stuff.
Personally I like the fresh sour cream we have here and have forgotten what the Tex-Mex style tastes like. Can’t say I recall noticing a huge difference the last time I was in the US.
Old El Paso brand sells “Mexican sour cream” in jars though - wonder if that’s closer to the Tex-Mex flavor? I’ve never tried it, but I shall buy some now to taste it.
Sour cream is a cultured dairy product, just like cheese. And like cheese, it can vary a lot from place to place.
Regular American Sour Cream is much like regular America Cheese. Milk, skimmed milk powder and bacteria are poured into one end of a factory and soury goodness is extruded from the other end. It all tastes the same. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the artisanal, hand made, free range, organic sour cream. Ingredients are real cream, some funky bacteria and probably grandma’s sweaty socks as well. In the US at least, it’s pretty hard to find* and a lot more expensive than the regular stuff.
There is also a difference between US and EU creams. In the US, the FDA has a regulation that allows the addition of
The texture improvers include gelatin, rennin, guar and carrageen.
In the EU, however, most of the above are forbidden (I can’t find a link to the actual laws)
*the biggest Whole Foods in the country is just down the road. The have 20+ sour creams and only one is the real deal. It’s three times the price of the regular stuff and at least 20% better.
In North America a lot of sour cream often isn’t real sour cream, it’s cream that has been soured by the addition of stuff like citric acid. My mom and sister are lactose intolerant. If you are lactose intolerant, you can still eat fermented dairy products because the fermentation cultures produce enzymes that break down the lactose. So real sour cream is okay.
But when I go shopping for nacho night, I have to be careful with my sour cream purchase. Most brands in our major chain grocery store are actually cream with citric acid added to create the fake tartness, and sometimes powdered milk or “modified milk ingredients” are added to thicken it. ETA: or other texturizing goo like in the post above.
Cottage cheese is similar. True cottage cheese is made by heating fermented milk until it gets clumpy. The stuff in North American grocery stores is creamed. They add milk solids to cottage cheese to give it the texture of porridge or something. So my sister can eat the true stuff (which is a lot dryer and comes in a square plastic bag-thing in the organics section), but not the stuff in tubs, which has the lactose bogged milk solids.
Same deal with real cheese vs. processed cheese. Real cheeses are products of microbial fermentation. Processed cheeses are made by “chemical coagulation” - coagulating fresh milk with rennet or acid.
So if you are traveling the world, you may encounter cheeses and sour creams that are made traditionally, which may account for some of the taste/texture discrepancies.
Wait, real cheese are most certainly made with rennet. Not all of them, but probably most of them, minus a few fresh cheeses that are curdled using lemon or vinegar. The microbial fermentation is what develops flavor in the cheese. The rennet enzymes is what separates it into curds and whey.
Yes, the rennet is part of the process for most cheeses (lots are made without rennet too).
What I’m saying is that the processed cheeses are made by coagulation and often without any true fermentation process. So there are a ton of cheeses my sister can eat, but there are also “processed cheese” versions of the same cheese that she can’t, so she reads labels carefully.
