I haven't officially joined the Slow Food movement, but I've been trying to make my own movement into the slow food idea.
Today we made homemade butter. Last week we tried to make butter while I made homemade noodles and homemade cheese. None of our experiments came out that great last week, but it was the first try. We didn't know before then that milk from the store, even whole milk, won't make butter. You have to either get raw milk or whipping cream. While many say raw milk is fine, I chose the whipping cream. I'm not even sure where I'd find raw milk anyway, although I'm sure it's available somewhere in Boston.
Our butter came out great. It's just about as good as the organic local butter we've been buying, and for about half the cost. AND, an unexpected bonus, at the end we got a full glass of milk. Gerd was expecting buttermilk, but it really did taste like regular milk. It actually makes me wonder what butter manufacturers do with their excess. We plan to drink ours.
I figure that if I really wanted to go self sufficient I could ALMOST do it. I'd need to buy milk (preferably straight from the cow) sugar, flour (although I'd like to do more experimenting with chickpea flour), lemons (it seems like everything I cook needs lemon juice), eggs (but really if I were on my own I'd buy chickens) oil, salt, and pepper (I think I could grow most other herbs). Meat of course would have to be purchased, but if I were going "self sufficient" I think I'd end up going vegetarian.
I'm probably missing something, and it's likely completely unreasonable, but somehow knowing that I wouldn't be completely helpless if I couldn't buy stuff at the grocery store is comforting.
4 comments:
You can find farms that sell real raw milk here:
http://m.www.realmilk.com/where3.html#ma
Real butter is heavenly.
Thank you so much, I don't know if I can keep up with cost of a monthly membership, but I'd like to try it sometime.
Not sure what you mean by monthly fee. Www.realmilk.com, is open to the public.
Some dairies do have membership or cow-share arrangements but most do not anymore in MA.
I just drive to my nearest farm and buy what I want. Not all sell cream or butter though. I'm lucky. I know one that does. If you ever get the chance to try it I highly recommend it.
Most folks find they get fantastic energy from it. Raw butterfat contains an abundance of lipase. That's the enzyme that helps you utilize the fat (and burn it. ) I swear one week on butter or cream and I'm a new person.
I'll have to look again. It looked like the only farm near Boston had a monthly membership fee of $60. yeow. That's a lot of money for milk, and it didn't even include the cost of the milk itself (that was extra). I'd love to find a place nearby to try some though, so I'll go back and look again. Thanks again for the link.
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