The good news in this tale of shrinking horizons is that at least we still have access to a useful and sometimes quite flavorful product: plain cultured buttermilk. The less happy aspects are that neither consumers nor producers really think of cultured buttermilk as a delicacy and a privilege, and that no enterprising manufacturer has tried offering, say, half a dozen subtly varied versions of bacterially soured milk (as opposed to additive-laced travesties aimed at dieters) to knowledgeable buyers. All that is needed are excellent fresh milk (perhaps unhomogenized) and different combinations of bacteria to bring out different flavor nuances. I will wager that if even a few more differentiated kinds of honest sour milk were available, the public would respond. The story is much the same with sour cream, though I think sour milk or “buttermilk” either whole, low-fat, or nonfat has richer, more varied possibilities.
Even now, the best cultured buttermilk is a great culinary resource. Its uses are somewhat interchangeable with those of plain yogurt, but it harmonizes more discreetly with some flavors because of the different character imparted by the mesophilic bacteria. It’s still a useful leavener, in tandem with baking soda, for many kinds of biscuits, muffins, griddle cakes, and quick breads. As a marinade naturally helped out by lactic acid, it’s even better than sweet milk at taming fishy-flavored fish, and also is popular for tenderizing chicken. A very vocal Southern fried-chicken school insists on soaking the pieces in buttermilk for several hours or even overnight before cooking.
To me, cultured buttermilk is most irresistible as a cold drink—with or without other flavorings; see this page for suggestions—or soup. As “sour milk,” it was the foundation of various Kaltschalen, a tribe of slightly sweetened North German cold soups that were much loved a few generations ago. Farther to the east, sour milk was the chief underpinning of distinctively sour-flavored cold soups as richly varied as Spanish gazpachos. Today cultured buttermilk is our chief tool for reproducing, or at least approximating, these disappearing legacies.
Cultured sour cream is nearly as versatile an ingredient. Its American success, however, came a little later. Before pasteurization, cream left at room temperature gradually acquired a lactic-acid tang, though it stayed less sharp than sour milk because the colonizing bacteria didn’t have as much lactose to work on. Before homogenization, it also set up quite thick in a couple of days. Though cooks have always used sour cream, it wasn’t especially visible in American cookbooks until fairly recently. Ashkenazic Jews from the Pale of Settlement were the first group to use it extensively as a delicacy in its own right.
Bottled versions of cultured sour cream were available from some commercial dairies by about 1930. It started being called to wider attention as a “gourmet” ingredient during the 1940s. By 1951 The Joy of Cooking urged “the uninitiated” to suspend any prejudice roused by the name and give it a try, or even make it at home with cultured buttermilk if they couldn’t buy it.
Within a generation a broad spectrum of American cooks had learned that cultured sour cream was a marvelous enricher of pastry doughs and cakes, a good alternative to fresh cream in some kinds of mousses, and (with a little draining) a lovely dessert topping. Its primary use, however, was—and still is—in cold sauces, dips, and spreads (see this page for suggestions).
As time went on, the commercial product increasingly diverged from its homemade precursors. A “double homogenization” process introduced in the 1960s enabled manufacturers to get a firm body that really isn’t intrinsic to sour cream. Eventually they watered down the milkfat content to about 18 percent (the borderline between half-and-half and light cream) and started using rennet or vegetable enzymes to set up the cream in a state between a gel and a soft curd, usually adding gum thickeners for extra insurance.
Some of us now have a higher-priced but less technologically convoluted alternative in various boutique brands of crème fraîche—to my mind, clear proof that manufacturers of cultured dairy products have everything to gain from thinking outside the box. Most American crème fraîche versions suggest to me what sour cream could be like if someone had the initiative to use richer cream, discard some of the usual processing steps and additives, and experiment with slightly different combinations of lactic-acid bacteria in order to play on different flavor possibilities.
In fact, the time seems ripe for introducing an adventurous spectrum of cultured dairy foods to a wider public. The recent American debut of Icelandic skyr or a cousin (this page) is a promising omen. I have hopes that in the next few years small artisanal American dairies will start to explore the market for exotic kinds of cultured milk or cream—perhaps even real kefir and Scandinavian “ropy milk.” Meanwhile, the best way to stop taking cultured buttermilk and sour cream for granted, and gain some perspective on the limitations of the commercial versions, is to try making your own.
SOME CULTURED MILK AND CREAM PRODUCTS: A BRIEF SURVEY
Milk fermented by lactic-acid bacteria is thousands of years older than any system for classifying different kinds. Orderly-minded searchers for correct definitions are always surprised to see how haphazardly the names of different soured or sourish milk-based products are thrown around—and not just in English. (Trying to sort out anything like the meanings of “buttermilk” and “sour milk” in other languages is an exercise in frustration.) You’d think that modern science would have cleared up some of the confusion. In fact, it has muddied things more by bringing standardized strains of particular bacteria from industrial laboratories in, say, Denmark to far-flung parts of the globe, there to figure in packaged commercial versions of local fermented dairy specialties that may coexist with more “primitive,” non-uniform handmade originals. For shoppers, there is the additional hurdle that American manufacturers are free to tag all kinds of things with hit-or-miss names unless they happen to be covered by a federal “standard of identity.” Even if you read the fine print of labels, you may be completely mystified by the differences between two items bearing the same name.
ACIDOPHILUS MILK Milk soured with a culture of Lactobacillus acidophilus to produce something resembling a harsher version of cultured buttermilk. Widely promoted on the unproven though not disproven “probiotic” theory that L. acidophilus (which survives in the colon) boosts the immune system and discourages the action of undesirable bacteria. Some manufacturers add a second organism, Brevibacterium bifidum. A “sweet acidophilus milk” has been developed for those who dislike the flavor of lactic acid; the bacteria remain dormant in it until the milk reaches the digestive system.
“BULGARIAN BUTTERMILK” Really more of a yogurt; milk soured with a culture of Lactobacillus bulgaricus alone instead of the double action of L. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. Unless it’s been tinkered with to soften the effect, it is sourer than ordinary yogurt and much sourer than American cultured buttermilk.
CREMA Literally, just the Spanish word for cream. In much of Central America the word refers to local equivalents of sour cream with a different mix of cultures and a characteristic slightly salty tang. Like all kinds of sour cream, crema must have originated as what hungry neighborhood bacteria did with fresh cream, before it was turned into more standardized factory-made products based on commercial laboratory cultures. Today’s crema is a favorite condiment or table sauce for many Mexican antojitos and botanas (“little dishes” and bar snacks).
Various brands are sold here in Latin American groceries under the general name crema centroamericana or more particular names such as crema mexicana, crema hondureña, and so forth. There seem to be two main types: a very heavy one based on a cultured cream-milk mixture with cream cheese added, and another kind without the cheese. (I haven’t consistently been able to make out special national nuances.) The flavor of all kinds is delightful, though the texture usually relies heavily on carrageenan, modified food starch, and/or rennet for thickening and smoothness. If crema wins enough new fans on this side of the border, some entrepreneur surely will be inspired to make a more truly, if less ap
parently, rich artisanal version—the taste is too good not to become part of the mainstream American kitchen. Meanwhile, look for commercial brands with the fewest additives listed on the label. Note that it does not contain live organisms, so you can’t use it to culture your own.
CRÈME FRAÎCHE In French, just “fresh cream,” though it usually refers to cream lightly cultured with particular mixtures of mesophilic lactic-acid bacteria (i.e., ones that thrive at moderate rather than very warm temperatures). The quality of the cream from which it is made is all-important. Even today, Normandy is considered the premier French source of cream and butter, and Norman crème fraîche has long been the gold standard. It is still occasionally made from unpasteurized Normandy cream (said to have the truest flavor), but pasteurized versions are more common. In the United States, a few small dairies make quite good (pasteurized) crème fraîche. The best is made only from cream and cultures, and has a more blossomy flavor and luxuriant texture than commercial American sour cream. Because of its high milkfat and low casein content, it can be heated to somewhat higher temperatures than sour cream without curdling. Unless the label states that it contains live cultures, it probably doesn’t and can’t be used for culturing your own.
CULTURED BUTTERMILK Milk soured with a mixture of mesophilic lactic-acid bacteria; for most of us, it is the nearest thing to the naturally soured milk that used to be more familiar throughout Europe and North America than unsoured milk. (If you come across “sour milk” as an ingredient in an old recipe, this is your best bet.) Cultured buttermilk began replacing true churned buttermilk (see the butter and buttermilk recipes in “Butter and True Buttermilk”) at least eighty years ago. Most brands are now made from low-fat milk (either 1 or 1.5 percent milkfat; in my mid-Atlantic neck of the woods, Friendship manufactures the best commercial version). It can be a delicious cold drink when made without gums and stabilizers, and is also the ideal culturing agent for cooks interested in experimenting with homemade versions of fresh cheese and several kinds of cultured milk or cream. Cultured buttermilk curdles in cooking unless mixed with a little flour or starch.
Note that today cultured buttermilk often is heated after fermentation, which kills the cultures. Always look for the words “active cultures” or “live cultures” on the label.
CULTURED SOUR CREAM Cream—today, more often a mixture of milk and cream with added dry milk solids, standardized at 18 percent milkfat—soured with a mixture of mesophilic lactic-acid bacteria.
Please do not be bamboozled by the misleadingly labeled “nonfat sour cream,” with its dismal complement of gums and extenders. Low-fat versions differ; ones made with only cultured cream and milk are sometimes fairly pleasant. But the only skinny version of sour cream I really like is made by draining plain, additive-free cultured buttermilk and stirring it smooth. (Follow directions for Hangop, but leave the buttermilk cream unsweetened.)
Unless the label states that sour cream contains live cultures, it probably doesn’t and can’t be used for culturing your own. Note: There are not very good versions made by direct acidification rather than culturing.
KEFIR Strictly speaking, milk cultured by the combined action of several specific bacteria, molds, and yeasts, resulting in both lactic-acid and alcoholic fermentation. Kefir, or something like it, may be as ancient as yogurt, but never spread as universally throughout the Diverse Sources Belt. By the twentieth century it had come to Russian cities from the Caucasus (where it probably had been made with cows’, goats’, or sheep’s milk, depending on what was most convenient), having acquired a reputation for healthfulness not unlike that of Bulgarian yogurt in 1920s Europe. It has been a popular Russian drink ever since. Part of the fascination is that, unlike yogurt bacteria, the starter itself is visible to the naked eye. It consists of small whitish blobs clustered into an irregular mass often described as cauliflowerlike. The kefir “grains” contain all the operative microorganisms, ready to flourish together symbiotically in the milk and turn it into a pleasantly sour beverage of gentle fizziness and a slight alcoholic kick. It is not difficult to make; devotees save the grains from one batch—they shrink a little but remain intact—and use them to inoculate the next.
Commercial drinks labeled “kefir” have started showing up in places like the Whole Foods supermarket chain. These products are not at all identical to the original kefir. In the first place, they have been retooled to stop any alcoholic fermentation. They are usually sold in gussied-up, highly sweetened strawberry or vanilla versions surrounded by nutritional hype and augmented with faddish “nutraceuticals” such as the complex sugar called inulin. Even the plain unsweetened version tastes more like mediocre yogurt than anything worth consuming on its own. If you want to taste real kefir, you’re best advised to seek a source of kefir grains, though you may feel as if you’d embarked on a “Joe sent me” search for a speakeasy. The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (this page) can put you in touch with a source.
Note: “Kefir” is one of several words that can land you in misunderstandings in Hispanic groceries. It is sometimes an all-purpose name for any vaguely yogurtlike fermented dairy product.
KUMYS, KUMIS, KOUMISS By whatever Anglicized spelling, this was another Russian link with the ancient dairying past. Like kefir, it was milk fermented by a mixture of different organisms, including bacteria and yeasts, and produced alcohol as well as lactic acid in the fermenting process. But apparently kumys had a stronger connection with nomadic civilizations of the former Silk Road that eventually fell under Russian domination. It was classically made from mares’ milk, which has plenty of lactose for producing alcohol. There was also camels’ milk kumys (probably less alcoholic). In modern times there has been some Russian production of kumys from cows’ milk, though it is weak if not fortified with sugar to boost alcohol content. Memories of real kumys were growing rare by the late 1960s, when Helen and George Papashvily went to Kazakhstan while researching the Russian volume in the Time-Life Foods of the World series and were told by a nonagenarian recalling her youth, “One mouthful of kumys and I could name the mare from which it came.” Today mares’-milk kumys is reported to barely survive in a few parts of the Central Asian republics and Mongolia. People who have tasted it describe it as distinctly acid, pungent, and fizzy.
As with “kefir,” Latin Americans loosely apply the name “kumys” to some yogurt cousins with no connection to the Silk Road original.
SKYR An almost-cheese or not-quite yogurt from Iceland that involves skim milk cultured by a combination of several lactic-acid bacteria including the most important yogurt-making organisms, along with several commonly used for cultured buttermilk, before being lightly renneted and drained of whey. Recently several American manufacturers have introduced agreeable plain versions, as well as others given the sweetened-yogurt treatment. Take a leaf from the Icelanders and eat plain skyr with fresh berries, lightly sprinkled with sugar and doused with cream.
SMETANA The Russian word for sour cream, adopted into French culinary parlance as smitane. Emigration from the ex–Soviet Union has brought Russian-style smetana to these shores, and it’s a huge improvement over most commercial American sour cream. The flavor is rounder and less sour. The cream doesn’t set up as firm, but keeps a buttery softness that I find more pleasing. So far it seems to be sold only in bulk, not prepackaged.
HOMEMADE CULTURED BUTTERMILK
Though by now it should be clear that cultured buttermilk is “buttermilk” only by courtesy, it can be both flavorful and useful in its own right. If only manufacturers and consumers had more respect for it as an excellent food instead of some kind of dieter’s ration to be tortured into a travesty of honest sour milk! Make up a batch at home with some good unhomogenized whole milk, and you will get an inkling of what it can taste like. Even homogenized whole milk will give you buttermilk with more body and flavor than the usual supermarket brands.
As long as supermarket buttermilk contains live cultures (and says so on the label), it is
your ticket to better things—meaning home culturing of milk and cream for fresh cheeses as well as good versions of cultured sour cream and buttermilk. As with cheeses, I see no reason for sending away to a specialty supply company for cultures when you have this perfectly respectable source of mesophilic bacteria. Try to check expiration dates and delivery schedules in order to buy the buttermilk as fresh as possible.
YIELD: 1 quart
1 quart whole milk, preferably unhomogenized and very fresh
¼ cup commercial cultured buttermilk with active cultures, well shaken before measuring
Culturing will take place a little faster if you begin by warming the milk to between 85° and 90°F. But it will happen sooner or later as long as the ambient temperature stays above about 70°F (preferably a little warmer). In any case, mix the milk and buttermilk and let stand undisturbed at room temperature, loosely covered, until the milk thickens slightly and the taste is lightly but distinctly sour (usually between 12 and 18 hours). Store in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to about a week. As with yogurt, you can use the last of one batch as starter for another, though—also like yogurt—it loses some bacterial activity with long keeping.
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