MARGARINE, the name first given by Chevreul to an artificial substitute for butter, made from beef and other animal fats, and sometimes mixed with real butter. The name of "but terine" has also been used. The word margarine was adopted because of the pearly lustre of the fat, from L. margarita—Gr. margaritas, a pearl.
Artificial butter, or "margarine-mouries," was for some years manufactured in Paris according to a method made public by the eminent chemist 1VIege-Mouries. Having surmised that the f or mation of the butter fat contained in milk was due to the absorp tion of fat contained in the animal tissues, he was led to experi ment on the splitting up of animal fat. The process he ultimately adopted consisted in heating finely minced beef suet with water, carbonate of potash, and fresh sheep's stomach cut up into small fragments. The mixture he raised to a temperature of (I13°F). The influence of the pepsine of the sheep's stomach with the heat separated the fat from the cellular tissue ; he re moved the fatty matter, and submitted it when cool to powerful hydraulic pressure, separating it into stearine and oleomargarine, which last alone he used for butter-making. Of this fat about the proportions of io lb. with 4 pints of milk, and 3 pints of water were placed in a churn, to which a small quantity of anatto was added for colouring, and the whole churned together. The com pound so obtained when well washed was in general appearance, taste and consistency like ordinary butter, and when well freed from water it was found to keep a longer time.
The process of manufacture was improved from time to time, and before the end of the World War the product, particularly vegetable margarine, was so like butter in flavour and appearance that it was occasionally difficult to distinguish from the product it was made to imitate. Generally speaking, three types of mar garine exist: (a) animal margarine, (b) vegetable margarine and (c) mixed margarine.
is the first running of fat obtained by heating the fatty tissues of the caul and the kidneys of cattle at a temperature not exceed ing Ioo° to 12o° Fahrenheit. This fat is washed with brine and allowed to crystallize or "grain," and is pressed to obtain the oleo oil.
The fatty basis of vegetable margarine usually consists of a hard fat mixed with a liquid vegetable oil. The hard fat in this case is usually either about 25% of hardened (hydrogenated) oil, or 65 to 70% of coconut or palm-kernel oil. As liquid oils, cotton seed, arachis, soya bean and many others are used in accordance with the price and quality of the product desired. All these materials are subjected to a very drastic process of refinement and deodorization. In the case of mixed animal and vegetable margarine the solid fat is either premier jus itself or oleo stearine, i.e., the residue left after pressing premier jus.
Whichever type of fatty basis is used it is subjected to a process of incorporation with milk. Skimmed milk is generally used for the purpose, not so much for the sake of saving the cost as because it is more readily obtained of a greater bacterial purity than whole milk. The skimmed milk, previously pasteur ized, is placed in vats (ripening tanks), and is there inoculated with a pure culture of lactic acid-producing organisms—mainly bacillus acidi lactis Leichmann—which coagulate souring milk.
The temperature is carefully controlled and, in a scientifically organized factory, the souring to the required extent is arranged to take place by a definite time. Great care is taken to keep the culture free from adventitious organisms which would pro duce undesirable flavours and impair the keeping properties of the finished product. Mould fungi are specially undesirable as they produce an unpleasant rancid flavour in the margarine, par ticularly when made with vegetable fats.