There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the American style
with salt, which, in its own kind and way, has a merit not inferior
to that of England and France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes
a rank equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, and
worked so perfectly free from every particle of buttermilk that it
might make the voyage of the world without spoiling. It is salted, but
salted with care and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether
even a fastidious Englishman might not prefer its golden solidity to
the white, creamy freshness of his own. But it is to be regretted that
this article is the exception, and not the rule, on our tables.
America must have the credit of manufacturing and putting into market
more bad butter than all that is made in all the rest of the world
together. The varieties of bad tastes and smells which prevail in it
are quite a study. This has a cheesy taste, that a mouldy, this is
flavored with cabbage, and that again with turnip, and another has the
strong, sharp savor of rancid animal fat. These varieties probably
come from the practice of churning only at long intervals, and keeping
the cream meanwhile in unventilated cellars or dairies, the air of
which is loaded with the effluvia of vegetable substances.
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