Butter. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “a solid emulsion of fat globules, air, and water made by churning milk or cream and used as food.” Well, that doesn’t sound too appetizing. Moving past its unappetizing definition, I do know that butter tastes delicious on popcorn, in cookies, and many other things. Now I am not here to preach whether or not butter is healthy, rather I am going to talk about how butter is made. People have been making and using butter since at least 2,000 BC. Some say the process of butter making was discovered accidentally. Accident or not butter making has changed throughout the years. Okay, so I have no idea how butter is made on such a large scale in dairies today but I do know how people made butter in the late 19th century.
Imagine living on the prairie. There are no superstores or convenience stores where you can easily buy necessary items like milk and eggs. Instead, you probably would have gotten your milk from your own cow(s) and eggs from your chickens. Once you had fresh milk you could make your own fresh butter, but how? There are/were many different types of butter churns and depending on where you were in the country, what materials you had, and what time period it was you may have had any number of churns to choose from. Two examples that we have from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection are a standard plunge churn, also known as a dash churn, and a Bent Wood Churn. The plunge churn commonly used a wooden or ceramic container with a lid through which a staff, also known as a plunger or dash, would be located. Cream would then be placed in the container and the up and down action of the plunger would agitate the cream adding air that would, with constant churning, turn the cream into butter leaving behind the buttermilk. The price in 1900 for a simple plunge churn was about $.53 depending on materials and the size. Another type of churn used paddles to agitate the cream rather than a plunger and the Bent Wood Churn was one of them. The Bent Wood Churn was made by the M. Brown & Company of Wapakoneta, Ohio and was first patented in 1877. This churn was formed from only three pieces of wood, one of which was the center and bent into the shape of a U. The paddles inside, after the second patent in 1882, were half circle shaped and were turned with a crank and gears. The Bent Wood Churn in our collection is a No. 1, 6 gallon churn and would have cost $4.50 in 1893, which was a lot considering what their salaries were at the time. A 6 gallon churn was probably not necessary for an individual household so they would most likely have gone for the cheaper, smaller plunge churn or smaller paddle churns leaving the bigger churns for larger operations.
Freshly-made butter is delicious. It is amazing, however, because during churning demonstrations people are so interested in trying the fresh butter that they will eat it right out of the churn without putting it on anything. As stated earlier there are many ways to churn butter including very simple ways that you could use in your own home to make fresh butter. Nothing beats freshly churned butter but after churning the butter you will better appreciated our modern-day conveniences. Take a step back in time and come see these two types of butter churns and more in the South Gallery of the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame.
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