Cultured Dairy Foods: A Primer

By Terese Allen, Organic Valley food editor

Butter, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, sour cream. Ever notice how just the mention of one of these foods can make you say, “mmm”? Ironically, they are all the result of something that, to many Americans, doesn’t sound appetizing at all: fermentation. But of course it is fermentation—a benign transformation caused by lactic acid bacteria—that preserves these dairy specialties, increases their health benefits and yes, makes them more delicious. What’s more, fermented dairy ingredients are a boon to cooks—they help make biscuits rise, pancakes tender and soup creamy.

Fermentation can occur spontaneously—milk left to stand in a warm temperature will thicken and turn tart, for example. Or it can be the result of human culturing, as in when a cheese maker drains and salts soured milk to make feta cheese. To be sure, human beings have been culturing organic milk for millennia, resulting in an amazing, almost infinite number of types and styles of fermented dairy foods from all around the world. Below is a primer of just a few—a list, we trust, that will make you go, “mmm.”

Butter

There are two major categories of butter: uncultured (also known as sweet cream) and cultured (sometimes called ripened). Uncultured butter is made from simple pasteurized cream and has a sweet, neutral flavor. Salt is typically added as a taste enhancer and/or preservative. When diners use butter on bread or vegetables, they tend to prefer it salted; cooks and bakers, though, go for unsalted for its classic neutrality and so that they can control the amount of salt in their recipes.

Cultured butter has beneficial micro-organisms—yes, bacteria—added to it; these ferment and ripen the cream, converting its sugars to lactic acid and giving the butter a lovely tang. Put a cultured butter head-to-head against an uncultured one and you might say it has more dimension and depth. Aficionados also laud the fact that it’s easier to digest. Like “regular” butter, cultured butter may be salted or unsalted.

Both cultured and uncultured butter types may also be premium (sometimes called European-style), meaning the butterfat content is higher than 80 percent. This is the darling of sauce- and pastry-makers, for the lower moisture of premium butters yields silkier sauce and flakier crusts.

The best butter, no matter what category or type, is organic, “pasture” butter, the kind which is made from the milk of cows that have fed on grass, not grain (the way bovines are physiologically meant to do). This butter is rich in antioxidants like beta-carotene, and has high levels of CLA and a beneficial balance of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids. Its more complex flavor expresses terrior: the breed of cow, the type of soil and forage, the weather that produced its feed, etc.

Buttermilk

When milk is left to stand, its cream rises to the top; natural bacteria then cultures the cream and sours it a bit. The milky white liquid that is left over after churning the cream is pale and contains tiny flecks of butter--this is traditional buttermilk. Today buttermilk is typically made by adding lactic-acid organisms to lowfat milk to culture it. Slightly thickened, creamy and enjoyably tart, it’s a splendid source of calcium and riboflavin, and also supplies potassium and vitamin B12.

Buttermilk is revered by cooks as a superior leavener for quick breads, cakes, cobblers and the like. But buttermilk doesn’t just make baked goods climb high, it gives them a delicate, crumbly texture and a deep, underlying savor (case in point: buttermilk biscuits or pancakes). As a marinade buttermilk is famous for the tenderizing magic it performs on poultry--think tandoori chicken or Southern-fried chicken. But many aficionados believe that buttermilk is at its creamiest and most captivating as a cold beverage--rich (but not cloying) and as refreshing as a good idea. (And when the buttermilk comes from organic cows, it’s as beneficial as a great idea.) Or try this: Add chopped cucumbers, green onions, curry powder and garbanzo beans to buttermilk. Chill it well and serve it as a summer soup.

Cheese

A universe of cultured dairy unto itself, cheese is, as food scientist Harold McGee put it, “one of the great achievements of humankind.” What began thousands of years ago as a simple means to preserve milk now encompasses a brain-boggling variety of styles, textures, types and flavors. There are fresh, soft cheeses like cottage cheese and cream cheese, and fresh, firmer ones like ricotta or queso fresco. There are pickled or salted cheeses like feta, stretched-curd cheeses like mozzarella and pressed cheeses like Colby or Jack. There are washed-rind cheese, blue-veined cheeses and hard grating cheeses.

The foundation of all cheese, of course, is milk, and that means that no matter what type it is, the healthiest and best-tasting cheese is made with organic milk. When cows are raised without synthetic growth hormones, they grow at a natural pace, and when they live on open-air pastures, feast on first-rate grass, and live peaceful lives (instead of the stressed-out existence of factory-raised animals), it all translates to better cheese.

Cheese itself begins to happen when lactic acid micro-organisms (translation: good bacteria) transform milk sugar into lactic acid. Next a cheesemaker adds rennet or another substance to curdle it, drains off the liquid whey, and then shapes and salts the curds. The last stage is ripening, or affinage, which is when microbes and enzymes within the cheese work together to mature it, along with a little help from their friend the cheesemaker (or sometimes a cheese shop owner), who controls temperature and humidity until the cheese reaches optimal flavor and texture.

Cheese stands alone (or more often with crackers) as an appetizer, and with fruit and bread as a simple meal. In cooking, cheese plays myriad roles—it adds melting richness to soup, for example, or crispy texture atop a gratin. However enjoyed, cheese is more than mere sustenance; it is, to quote McGee again, “an intense, concentrated expression of pastures and animals, of microbes and time.”