Butter, to be a wholesome aliment, must be free from rancidity, and not fried or burned. But even in its purest state, there are few who can indulge very freely in the use of this article with impunity ; and health, perhaps, would not suffer, though its employment as food were altogether laid aside. Like the other bland oils, it is gently laxative.
Most housewifes know several receipts for restoring rancid butter to freshness. But of these the greater num ber are of little use. Washing it well with pure water, or with ardent spirit, still better perhaps with sweet milk, will deprive it in some measure of its disagreeable smell and taste. It is of much more consequence to preserve butter from becoming rancid, by salting, and the other means already explained.
As turnip is now become so common a food for cows, and often imparts to their milk, and the butter thence made, a very disagreeable flavour, it is of some conse quence to know how this may be best obviated. A small quantity of saltpetre has been recommended ; and in the Georgical Essays, vol. v. we have the following method : " Let the bowls or pans be kept constantly clean, and well scalded with boiling water before using.* When the milk is brought into the dairy, to every eight quarts mix one quart of bci,iling water ; then put up the milk into the bowls to stand for cream." Dr Anderson says, " that if the milk isko be used sweet, its taste may be considerably diminished by boiling ; and that other means of sweetening milk have been attempted, more trouble some and expensivi, and not more efficacious." As butter mulch) winter is generally pale or white, and its richness atthe same time inferior to that which is made during the summer months, the idea of excel lence has been ass'ciated with the yellow colour. Means are therefore emiloyed by those who prepare and sell butter, to impart o it the yellow colour where that is naturally wanting Various substances have been used for this purpose,but they must all be of the resinous class, or such as tre soluble in oils. Extractive matters, and such as are soluble only in water, alcohol, Ste. as beet-root and cchineal, give no tinge to butter. The
substances most:ommonly employed are the root of the carrot, and the lowers of the marigold. The juice of either of these expressed and passed through a linen cloth. A smallquantity of it, (and the proportion ne cessary is soon lamed from experience,) is diluted with a little cream, nd this mixture is added to the rest or the cream when it raters the churn. So little of this colour ing matter uni!s with the butter, that it never commu nicates to it ar peculiar taste.
.Many othercolouring matters have been employed, as saffron, thoerries of the physalis alkekengi, the seed of the aspara;is ; but the marigold and carrot are cer tainly the bes and it is the latter that is chiefly used by the best farness.
Alkanct ret will give every shade of colour to butter, from the ligiest rose to the deepest red, by augmenting or tliminisiiir the proportions of it.
Though t... mill: of the cow, when fed on rich pasture during the tnuner months, is almost always found to butter of a rich yellow colour, this As by no means the case with every animal. The goat, the sheep, the mare and the ass, fed on the same pastn•e in the same season, produce milk which yields butter always more or less white.
Butter, as an article of commerce, is of considerable importance. Some compute that there are 112,000,000 pounds of it annually consumed in London, chiefly made within 40 miles round the city. From the three counties of York, Cambridge, and Suffolk, there arc annually sent to the capital 210,000 firkins, amounting to 11,760,000 pounds.
Some counties or districts arc particularly famous for the excellency of their butter. That which is made in Essex, and well known under the name of Epping but ter, is the most highly esteemed of any in London and its vicinity. In the more restricted use of this appella tion, it is applied only to the butter made from the milk of cows which are fed in Epping forest during the sum mer months, where the leaves and some particular plants are thought to contribute to its superior flavour. In Somerset butter of nearly the same excellence is made ; hut brought to market in half pounds instead of pounds.