Curious Bits

The History of Buttermilk

Who knew the history of buttermilk could be so complicated. “Buttermilk” was a staple in my household since I was a little kid, both growing up and now. But what I didn’t know is that the buttermilk of today is not at all the buttermilk of a century ago.

So how did that buttermilk, the original buttermilk, turn into the thick, sour, yogurty beverage I sampled at Threadgill’s? The confusion surrounding this drink dates back to the 18th century or before. Until the age of refrigeration, milk soured quickly in the kitchen, and most butter ended up being made from the slightly spoiled stuff. As a result, some historical sources use the word buttermilk in the Laura Ingalls Wilder sense, to describe the byproduct of butter-making; others use it to describe butter-making’s standard ingredient at the time—milk that had gone sour from sitting around too long. To make matters more confusing, the butter-byproduct kind of buttermilk could be either “sour,” if you started out with the off milk that was itself sometimes called buttermilk, or “sweet,” if you started out with fresh cream (like Laura’s mom did). So, prior to the 20th century, buttermilk could refer to at least three different categories of beverage: regular old milk that had gone sour; the sour byproduct of churning sour milk or cream into butter; and the “sweet” byproduct of churning fresh milk or cream into butter.

What you buy today is a modern conversion of what had been prepared for centuries prior to that.

History of buttermilk: What’s the difference between cultured buttermilk and traditional buttermilk? – Slate Magazine.