Cultured Dairy Traditions: The Specialties That Bond

By Terese Allen, Organic Valley food editor

Around the World in Weighty Ways

When it comes to the international traditions and meanings of fermented dairy products, yogurt is just the beginning. As McGruther says, “Cultured dairy foods are as diverse as the societies that cherished them.” Soured milk products are core to the diet of the Masai tribes of Africa, for example. Scandinavians culture milk in wooden barrels to make long-lasting longfil; in Norway kjaeldermelk is the caved-aged version of it. Commercial Yakult is a popular Japanese beverage made by fermenting skimmed milk with a special strain of bacteria.

Tangy, lightly effervescent kefir is another of the culturally significant specialties that originated in the Caucasian mountains. One of the most ancient of fermented milk beverages, kefir is similar to yogurt, but it is fermented differently--via tiny curds, or kefir grains. These are edible clumps of yeast and bacteria that form from kefir sediment, and they are as valuable as jewels to many aficionados.

“Kefir grains are said to have been a gift from Allah, delivered by his prophet Mohammed,” writes Sandor Ellix Katz in his influential Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. “The grains were treasured by the people who possessed them [and] passed down from generation to generation.” Katz relates how Russians of the early twentieth century, desiring knowledge of this intensely nourishing drink, sent a young woman named Irina Sakharova to charm a Causasus prince out of some kefir grains. After much intrigue and adventure, she eventually secured some and brought the curds to Russia. Soon kefir became a popular drink there. Says Katz: “In 1973, at age 85, Irina Sakharova was formally recognized by the Soviet Ministry of Health for her role in bringing kefir to the Russian people.”

Cultured dairy foods also enrich menus--and customs--across Europe. Where would Hungarian cuisine be without sour cream, or French cooking without its famously lush crème fraiche? Poles love to combine sour cream, horseradish and apples in a spunky chilled sauce that they daub on smoked meats or cooked beets. Brits lavish rich clotted cream on scones and German add dollops of sour cream to potato pancakes. Indeed, sour cream (and its many variations) helps accent—and define--everything from Swedish meatballs to Lithuanian borscht.

Fermented dairy foods are important in the culinary culture of the New World, too, of course: think of the American South’s iconic pimento cheese on crackers, or its much-touted buttermilk-soaked fried chicken. Farther south, Oaxacans drizzle tacos with tangy Mexican crema and Cubans ease the spicy punch of black bean soup with dabs of sour cream. In dairy regions like Wisconsin and upstate New York, farm cooks win prizes at county fairs for their cottage cheese pies and sour cream coffeecakes. Blueberry buttermilk pancakes star in Maine breakfasts, all-organic fruit-and-yogurt smoothies keep Californians healthy, and New York bagels simply wouldn’t be the same without their smear of cream cheese.