My Grandmother Makes Butter
When
I was a young boy yoghurt was made each day at home and my grandmother
would skim the cream off the top and collect it in A small container .
Once some critical mass of cream was collected she would get busy and
take over. Ice would be brought in. Among her belongings she had a large
wooden whisk and three pieces of rope that she kept as carefully as any
woodsman would have kept his axe. These would be brought out and the
cream would go into a tall metal vessel which would sit in a bath of
iced water and the whisk would be harnessed to the table leg and she
would sit on the floor with one leg crossed and the other stretched out
and endlessly churn the cream back and forth. The children in the house
would all hover about and wait for that magic moment when : voila !
There would be lumps of butter floating in the buttermilk. It did seem
magical to me as I could never see anything happening except froth on
the white liquid until suddenly there would be butter. She would call
all of us and give us each a small lump of butter to eat.
With
lunch that day there would be butter milk : neer moru. And later that
day the butter would be melted and made into ghee. We Would all be
given a bit of rice mixed with the burnt milk solids that would collect
at the bottom of the pan. Leaves from the drumstick tree would be used
to flavor the ghee and we would get a bit of fried leaves with the rice.
Yum. Very special.
As we later got a fridge it would be full
of small containers of yoghurt , buttermilk and cream of various
vintages. Woe to anyone who used the wrong one!
