Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Foods Sour Milk Cow Blues: NY Times Magazine on Buttermilk from Knoxville's Cruze Farm
Posted by Jim Ridley on Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 7:14 AM
Buttermilk: It Can Help from Joe York on Vimeo.
My late grandfather, the third James Allison Ridley, used to say that he'd rather have cornbread chased down with cold buttermilk than a piece of cake. The cornbread I could understand--especially in my mother's sour-cream recipe, baked in an ancient iron skillet with butter melted in the bottom to assure that crunchy crust. But buttermilk? Bleah. If it spoiled, how could you tell?
Over the years, I've tried to make peace with buttermilk's sour twang. I've come closest pairing it with finger-thick sourdough pretzels, whose salt and bready taste bring out the buttery Dr. Jekyll side of the buttermilk, rather than yogurty Mr. Hyde. I'm still not entirely convinced...but after reading Sunday's NY Times Magazine report on Knoxville's Cruze Farm (h/t Caleb Hannan), I'm ready to give it another try:
Once a popular Southern drink, buttermilk had gradually been relegated to the ingredients column, starting in the 1940s. But with its tangy flavor, creamy consistency and golden flecks of butter, Cruze Farm's buttermilk has the necessary charm for the artisanal generation."If you dare to do a side-by-side taste test, you'll be blown away," said the chef John Fleer, who found it at a local farmers' market 10 years ago and incorporated it into the Foothills cuisine he was pioneering at Blackberry Farm, a luxurious restaurant and inn in Walland, Tenn. Fleer has showcased buttermilk in everything from panna cotta to cornbread soup, even whipping it with cream to give desserts "an acidic edge." Fleer is figuring out how to get it to Cashiers, N.C., where he'll open Canyon Kitchen at Lonesome Valley this summer. (The Cruzes deliver only within 90 miles.)
Ninety miles! D'oh! I'm not sure I'm ready to drive to Maryville for buttermilk. Then again...
That week, Earl received "the rock star treatment" for his cultured buttermilk, which remains a key ingredient in such totemic Southern dishes as biscuits and fried chicken. (Said treatment also stemmed from the video in which the smooth-skinned, twinkly-eyed 66-year-old Earl, who drinks up to a quart of buttermilk a day, deemed it "better than Viagra.")
Comments (5)
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Growing up in Georgia, I could never understand my mother's and grandmother's assertion that buttermilk was something you drink as well as cook with. As an adult, though, I finally gave in and tried some. And I was hooked. All buttermilks are not alike, though ... defintely worth trying different brands to find one that's truly tasty. For the record, I think the Kroger brand isn't bad. I've had some higher-priced, fancy brands that were nearly tasteless.
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I was just having this precise conversation with someone not two weeks ago! My grandfather used to have a big lunch, then supper of leftover corn bread crumbled into a glass of buttermilk. My conversation partner was saying "There's not any real, flavorful drinking buttermilk anymore." I said I could understand how its popularity had diminished, and she said "That's because you can only buy mass-produced buttermilk."
So Purity doesn't count? I'm so not cool enough for this conversation.
Uses for Purity in my house lately:
Dipping Pringles (holdover from my grandma, who hails from Germany)
Buttermilk pancakes
Buttermilk biscuits
(in a stroke of genius, I might add) Drizzled over a bowl of chocolate pudding and blueberries
I read this in the NY Times on my iPhone, and was wondering if yall would pick it up too. I thought it was a cool article.
I usually only make pancakes with buttermilk, but I recently made Buttermilk Pink Velvet Cupcakes, which I'll add to my blog sometime this week. And, with the rest of the buttermilk, I plan on making buttermilk ice cream to inaugurate my ice cream maker KA attachment's first use!
Hi All!
THANKS, I love all of your comments about buttermilk and hope you will be able to try making some of your favorite recipes with our Cruze Farm "churned" buttermilk. Yes, our buttermilk really has little pieces of butter floating in the milk.
The NYT didn't mention another difference in our buttermilk, we add no salt. That means the taste in our buttermilk is not salt, but simply good Jersey milk that has been pasteurized, cultured, and churned.
This month the buttermilk is even better than usual because it's spring and the cows are devouring the thick green grass in our pastures and producing almost "yellow" milk which is so delicuous and good for you too.
Thanks again for your interest in buttrmilk and let us know your results when you get a chance to experiment with our buttermilk--contact us at www.CruzeFarmGirl.blogspot.com
Cheri Cruze
