вЂњItвЂ™s a huge labor effort to separate the cream,вЂќ says Barber of his Single Udder Butters. вЂњTheyвЂ™re looking for certain minerals and nutrients.вЂќ That age and wisdom, he notes, makes their butter taste and appear different deliberate eaters seeking the best grass create a golden yellow butter and a richer, more well-rounded flavor. вЂњYoung cows eat indiscriminately,вЂќ Barber says, before explaining that older cows are more patient and selective. For the past 10 years, heвЂ™s served Single Udder Butter, a dish that features a few butters from separate cows served side by side in order to illuminate how distinct animals on the same farm, going through the same milking process, can express their age and dietary preferences via the cream. And restaurants like New YorkвЂ™s Frenchette and VermontвЂ™s Twin Farms feature Ploughgate Butter on their menus because of the exceptional taste and fine craftsmanship.ДЇor chef Dan Barber of beloved Blue Hill Farm near Tarrytown, New York, carefully made butter offers an entry point to agricultural awareness. Their cultured butter is part of a growing movement to transform the category from complimentary condiment to something worthy of stardom.

Still, artisan butter makers across the country, like Ploughgate Creamery in Vermont, are offering alternatives to Big Butter. In large-scale operations, it can be harder to control milk quality and farmers canвЂ™t feed locked-up herds their natural diet of grass, which generates tremendous flavor and nuance in butter. Also, unlike cheese, which can have more masking additives-like salt, herbs, liquid smoke, or spruce bark-delicious butter depends on excellent milk. Mode explains that it requires more than twice as much whole milk to make butter than cheese, leaving behind incredible amounts of skim milk. While the state has more than 1,200 cheesemakers, it has only about 50 licensed butter makers, explained Gina Mode, who coordinates the University of WisconsinвЂ“affiliated Center for Dairy ResearchвЂ™s butter program. Exceptional butter that can hold its own on an award-winning menu is just not something one finds in aisle 10.Д®ven in Wisconsin, one of the largest dairy states per capita, the least milk goes to making butter. ClaireвЂ™s product were relieved that the supply would continue, she says. ClaireвЂ™s Jersey herd, the name of the creamery, her bulk tanks, and the dairy equipment with plans to follow the Animal Farm commandments.ДЄnd all the chefs who purchased St. Vermont farmers Ben and Hilary Haigh purchased the majority of St. SheвЂ™d spent 22 years farming seven days a week. It was January 2022 when IвЂ™d first tasted Animal Farm Butter, my $12 gateway to a whole new world of churned cream. Claire agreed to triple the herd-from three cows to 10-to keep up with demand while ensuring she could maintain production standards. Finally, when Keller opened Per Se in New York in 2004, St. More chefs started calling, as did The French Laundry alumni whoвЂ™d moved on to other Michelin-starred restaurants. ClaireвЂ™s butter, and pretty soon word spread. вЂњThe nuances are pretty dramatic from spring to summer to fall to winter, because of what the cows eat.вЂќ KellerвЂ™s customers loved St. In terms of flavor, Animal Farm Butter вЂњchanges throughout the year,вЂќ Keller says. Claire also added lactobacillus to make a cultured butter that would have tang and flavor, like sourdough. While nearly every dairy in the country uses a mechanical separator because itвЂ™s faster and captures more cream, a hand ladle is gentler, keeping the fat globules intact for a thicker and richer end product with higher butter fat.

Claire worked methodically, using a hand ladle to separate cream from milk. This was not restaurant butter as I remembered it: a sad, foil wrapped rectangle melting into a pool next to a dinner roll. The kitchen had dressed it up with coarse sea salt and a dusting of ground black pepper. When the very fancy butter arrived, it was perched on a rustic wood board, deep yellow and sitting opposite a loaf of olive ciabatta. But thanks to a handful of restaurants and creameries around the country, thatвЂ™s all starting to change. Butter is certainly never the reason one would buy the ticket in the first place. People might notice it because itвЂ™s tossed onstage, they accept it because itвЂ™s typically free, and they semi-appreciate it because it temporarily stops the crowd from complaining that the main act is taking too long to show up. I grew up in an America where butter has only ever been the warm-up act at a comedy show. And in the end, curiosity won out I caved. Still, the waiter returned to push the bread and butter. Unconvinced that the age-old duo should carry such a cost, I went with the cow itself: beef tartare dotted with caviar and shavings of horseradish. Bread and butter were on the menu for $12, priced the same as a tempting chicken liver mousse. Inside Dedalus, a wine market and restaurant in Burlington, Vermont, I sat puzzled.

Illuminate the farm