| - AREA OF PRODUCTION: | All over the World in dairy areas. |
| - ORIGIN AND HISTORY: | The exact origin of butter is unknown. However, it seems that it drives from acidified milk production which is probably the most ancient type of processing. Pastoralists were actually nomads who during their travels used to carry sour milk and who discourved that after it had been shaken for a few hours on horse/donkey or camel back, it would separate into two phases. One of them after separation was actually the forerunner of butter. It should be noted that the techonology for butter making is almost universal. |
| - DESCRIPTION AND CHARACTERISTICS: |
| Raw material: | Raw whole milk from cow, buffalo, sheep, goat, yak, chauri, camel, cream from these different species, or even cheese whey coming from cheese making. |
| Type: | Butter is the fatty product exclusively derived either from cream, milk or milk by-products. Apart from milk fat, it contains some non-fat milk solids, water and, occasionally, additives. In contrast with milk and cream, where the fat globules are dispersed in the water phase, properly worked butter consists of water dispersed in fat. The continuous phase consists of milk fat in which acqueous droplets, some fat globules and tiny air bubbles are evenly distributed. In more practical terms, butter is a yellowship fatty paste. It is soft and spreadable at room temperature and harder if it is cold. It has a mild to slightly acid taste. |
| Consistency: | Soft at room teperature Harder if it is cooled. |
| Composition: | Moisture: 15 to 30% Non fat dry matter: 2 to 5 Fat content: 65 to 83% |
| - TECHNOLOGY: | Usually, butter is obtained from sour milk rather than sour cream. As a matter of fact, in small workshops, either the quantity of milk is too low, or the milk is of very poor quality and has curdled before any appreciable separation of cream by gravity could take place. Raw milk is usually allowed to ferment spontaneously overnight. Then, sour milk is poured in a churn which is properly plugged. If the sour milk is coagulated and too firm, it is broken into a semi-liquid mass before filling up the churn. Sour milk is shaken usually for several hours until butter grains appear. Buttermilk is drained off and butter grains are washed, with fresh water, to remove most of the buttermilk. This addition of water improves also the butter firmness. Subsequently, butter is worked by hand to give it an homogeneous and even texture without big air or water inclusions. Butter can be packed into bottles, into open vessels in baskets, or wrapped in special paper depending on its consistency. |
| - REMARKS: | Churning of sour milk is the most widespred tradi- tional method used for making butter all over the developing world. However, in Latin America and in some areas of the Near East, butter is always made from cream which can be acidified or not. Cream is usually obtained by natural separation from whole milk left to settle in a quiet place. After a few hours cream concentrates at the top of the milk by gravity. When the amount of cream produced daily is too small, the cream of a number of days may be stored in a vessel until enough is accumulated for churning. In this case, butter will certainly have an acid taste because it is difficult to avoid sontaneous acidification of raw cream. Churning cream obtained from cheese whey is also reported as a way to obtain butter in Peru and in Ecuador. In this case, cream is extracted from cheese whey by centrifugation and then processed by traditional churning. In fact, it seems that making butter is a practice known all over the World and while the principles are similar, the manufacturing methods differ from one region to the other mostly according to the type of churning which is applied. |
| | In Africa, the most common method used by the agropastoralists consists in shaking sour milk in a closed calabash whereas pastoralists use a goat or sheep skin. They fill it with sour milk to about two thirds of its capacity and then blow it up before closing it tightly. The sheep skin is hung between several poles and rythmically shaken until butter grains appear. This method is also widely used in Near Eastern countries. In Somalia, the Afar technique is based on putting the sour milk into a skin bag and slinging it on worker's shoulders. The skin bag is slung in such a way that the bag rests more on one side of the back so as to be reached with the elbow of one arm. Then, the bag is pushed with the elbow to swing it to and fro while the worker is walking. |
| | In Asia, sour milk is churned in a cylindrical wooden churn which is fitted with a piston type paddle. It is pulled by the butter maker up and down until the butter is formed. |
| | In Latin America, butter is usually made from sour or mild cream, which is churned in mechanical churns. |
| AFRICA | |
| - NAME | Country: |
| | BEURRE TRADITIUONNEL | MAURITANIA |
| | DINE BAGAR | CHAD |
| | GHEE | NIGERIA |
| | MAI | GHANA |
| | NAMBOUMGON/NAN-AN-GOUM | CAMEROON |
| | NEBAMNAI | CAMEROON |
| | SAINILLI | KENYA |
| | SAMLI | TANZANIA |
| | SEMIN/SAMIN | SUDAN |
| | SMEN | MOROCCO |
| | | TUNISIA |
| ASIA | |
| - NAME | Country: |
| | DESI GHEE | PAKISTAN |
| | GHEE | INDIA |
| | | NEPAL |
| | | BANGLADESH |
| | HTAW BUT SI | UNION OF MYANMAR |
| | MINYAK SAMIN | INDONESIA |
| LATIN AMERICA | |
| - NAME | Country: |
| | GHEE | BRAZIL |
| | | TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO |
| | | GUYANA |
| | MANTEIGA DE GARRAFA | BRAZIL |
| NEAR EAST | |
| - NAME | Country: |
| | MASLEE | IRAQ |
| | ROGHAN | IRAN |
| | SAMN | EGYPT |
| | SAMNAH | |
| | SAMNEH | QATAR |
| | | JORDAN |
| | | SYRIA |
| | | LEBANON |
| - ORIGIN AND HISTORY: | Clarified butter is widely produced and used within an area including the Indian-sub-continent, the Near East and the Northern and Eastern part of Africa. It seems that clarified butter originated from the Northeastern area of the Indian sub- continent. As a matter of fact, the word ghee stems for the old Sanskrit ghr which means bright or to make bright and it is quoted several times in the Vedas. These latter gather the most underlying and holy scriptures of the Hinduism religion. They were defined between 1800 and 1200 BC. The main advantage of clarified butter over butter is its superior keeping quality due to the almost complete removal of water during the making process. This explains partly why it is produced spreads in the hot areas in many countries. Heating destroys most of the microorganisms and enzymes. The low moisture content hampers the development of organisms that could survive heat treatment or that could recontaminate the product. |
| - DESCRIPTION AND | |
| CHARACTERISTICS: | |
| Raw material: | Butter made from soured milk from various animal species (cow, buffalo, sheep, goat…) |
| Type: | Clarified butter is the oily fat product obtained by heating cream or butter. It is a liquid product usually yellowish which, depending on the technology which has been applied and keeping temperature, has an heterogenous coarse appearance, i.e.: large clusters of solidified milk fat floating in the liquid phase. |
| - CONSISTENCY: | Liquid to semi-liquid |
| - COMPOSITION: | Humidity + non fat solids 1–1.5% Fat content: 98.5–99% |
| - TECHNOLOGY: | Traditional clarified butter is usually prepared from acidified milk. The whole raw milk is allowed to acidify spontaneously overnight. Then, traditionally sour milk is churned to obtain butter. Once the quantity of butter produced is sufficient, butter is poured into a large open pan and heated to boiling point (110–120°C) to evaporate the water. At first, the melted butter froths up and scum and sediments appear. The scum consists mainly of proteins and impurities and the sediment of not-fat milk solids. When practically all the water has been evaporated. |
| | frothing stops. Then, heating is stopped and the vessel removed from the fire. Once the residue has settled down during cooling, the clear fat is filtered through muslin and put into an earthenware pot, metal or glass container. Its shelf life depends on the moisture content which remains in the product. It can keep for up to one year when the humidity content is less than 1%. |
| REMARKS: | The main features of clarified butter manufacturing are identical in every country. However, some differences exist especially as regards the duration of heating and whether or not some clarifying agent is added to the boiling butter. In the Indian sub-continent, the heat treatment is carried on until the colour of ghee becomes slightly brownish and no clarifying agent is used. In Africa, heat treatment seems to be shorter. In general, clarifying agents are always added to the boiling fat in Africa and in the Near East area. It is either crushed dates in Mauritania, wheat in the Near East area, bishop's weed and Cardamon seeds in Ethiopia, or even onion and dough in Afghanistan. Clarified butter is salted
in Egypt, Qatar and in Afghanistan. It is sometimes flavoured before preservation with turmeric (Jordan), with honey and date juice (Mauritania), or with rosemary and thyme in Morocco. Nowadays, clarified butter can be made either from butter or cream under large-scale industrial conditions. Temperatures are better controlled and result in higher yields than with the traditional method. In one process, the separated cream is churned into butter which is thereafter converted into ghee. In the other, cream is directly clarified to give ghee. However, the taste and flavour of the final product are usually weaker than they are in the traditional product. Clarified butter is usually used for frying and represents the main source of food fat in many countries. |
| 3.1 | - NAME: | GAIMAR Country: IRAQ |
| | - AREA OF ORIGIN: | Southern and central areas of IRAQ |
| | - AREA OF PRODUCTION: | Mosul, Tikriet, Baghdad, Mukdadia, Basmah, Kadsia |
| | - ORIGIN AND HISTORY: | Unknown |
| | - DESCRIPTION AND | |
| | CHARACTERISTICS: | |
| | Raw material: | Cow and buffalo milk |
| | Type: | GAIMAR is fresh cream with high fat content. It is thick and homogeneous. Its colour is white and it has a fresh flavour. |
| | Consistency: | Liquid |
| | Composition: | Moisture: 31% |
| | | Not fat dry matter: 8% |
| | | Fat content: 61%. |
| | - TECHNOLOGY: | Milk is heated, then cooled and cream is separated from milk and packaged mechanically. Its shelf life bout 4 days at 4°C. |
| 3.2 | - NAME: | GIBDE Country: CHAD |
| | - AREA OF ORIGIN: | Arbouchatak area |
| | - AREA OF PRODUCTION: | Arbouchatak area (Chari Baguirmi) |
| | - ORIGIN AND HISTORY: | Unknown |
| | - DESCRIPTION AND | |
| | CHARACTERISTICS: | |
| | Raw material: | Sour cow milk called Raïb |
| | Type: | GIBDE is an unwashed butter which still contains some buttermilk (Rouaba). Its colour is white to yellowish and has an even appearance. Its texture is thick and homogeneous. It has a very mild taste of milk. |
| | Consistency: | Thick |
| | Composition: | Unknown. |
| | - TECHNOLOGY: | The gourd containing Raïb is shaken vigorously for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature until the butter grains separate from buttermilk. Fat droplets are then collected with a kind of dipper and transferred to another calabash. In this container GIBDE keeps for 21 to 30 days in a relatively cool place. |
| | - REMARKS: | GIBDE is sold in bulk on the market or is exchanged for other food (millet….). It is used also for cooking baby food. |
| 3.3 | - NAME: | KESHDA MOSAKHANA Country: EGYPT |
| | - AREA OF ORIGIN: | EGYPT |
| | - AREA OF PRODUCTION: | All over EGYPT |
| | - ORIGIN AND HISTORY: | Unknown |
| | - DESCRIPTION AND | |
| | CHARACTERISTICS: | |
| | Raw material: | Buffalo milk |
| | Type: | KESHDA MOSAKHANA is a heated fresh cream characterized by a cooked flavour. It has a sweet taste and is usually shaped in the form of a cylinder. |
| | Consistency: | Thick |
| | Composition: | Moisture and dry matter content are unknown Fat content: 35% |
| | - TECHNOLOGY: | Milk is boiled for 30 minutes and then is poured into a shallow container (tin-plated copper container). Milk is cooled by taking part of it in a cup and pouring it into the rest of the milk. This step is repeated several times until a thick foam is formed on the surface of the milk. Meanwhile, the milk cools down to about 40°C. It is then left overnight until cream is formed on the top of milk by gravity. The thick cream layer formed over the surface of the milk is collected and formed into a cylinder. The cream cylinder is then cut into 10 cm long pieces to be sold. The shelf life of this product may be up to one week when kept in a cool place. |
| | - REMARKS: | KESHDA MOSAKHANA is usually used as a topping for oriental pastries. It is marketed in small shops where dairy products are sold. |
| 3.4 | - NAME: | SHMEN/SEMMA Country: ALGERIA |
| | | MALI |
| | | NIGER |
| | - AREA OF ORIGIN: | |
| | - AREA OF PRODUCTION: | All over camel rearing areas especially in the Sahara |
| | - ORIGIN AND HISTORY: | Camel butter usually contains a lot of impurities (sand, hair…) and rapidly becomes rancid. As the fresh butter is difficult to preserve, the Turags improve its keeping quality by transforming it into butter oil. |
| | - DESCRIPTION AND | |
| | CHARACTERISTICS: | |
| | Raw material: | Camel milk |
| | Type: | SHMEN is a clarified butter made from soured camel milk |
| | Consistency: | Soft |
| | Composition: | Unknown. |
| | - TECHNOLOGY: | Fresh milk is poured into a goat skin bottle and is allowed to ferment for 12 to 24 hours at 25–30°C. This skin is never washed with water. Inside the temperature rises to 28°C. In winter, the goat skin is often placed into the ground near a warm fire to reach the optimum temperature before making butter so as to facilitate the development of the fermentation. Sour milk is poured into the churn made of a goat skin. Churning is done when the container is half filled with sour milk. Air is blown into the container and the top is tied up. It is hung on a tent pole and rapidly swung to and fro. This is done in the early morning and the amount of butter obtained is said to depend on the skill of the man
doing the churning. No churning is done during the day as solar heat apparently impedes proper separation of the fat. Some cold water is added into the goat skin before the end of churning in order to improve the firmness of butter. It is then placed in a kettle and melted at 100–120°C for 30 minutes. A clarifying agent is added to hot butter and it is stirred with a wooden spoon. This agent can be crushed dates or a grated, roasted piece of ram horn, or also leaves of certain plants or seeds. Heating destroys most of the bacteria and the clarifying agent collects the dirt and floats to the top, where it can be skimmed off. If dates are used as clarifying agent, it is then given to children. If not, it is thrown away. The leaves give the specific colour and aroma to the butter. |
| | - REMARKS: | This
clarified butter is used for cooking and is not eaten as butter. the
buttermilk is used to prepare a dry cheese: AFIG. It is known as SUBAG in
SOMALIA. |
