Having a pony roommate was an adjustment; there was a lot about Earth she had to get used to . . . and a lot of ideas she'd brought with her that you had to get used to.
She was a heck of a cook, though, and didn't mind sharing, so you were more than willing to let her have the kitchen.
And then you came home and discovered that she was making butter. Which she must have known she could buy at the grocery store if she wanted butter.
Now with a Russian translation by Mordaneus!
Ficbook
Ponyfiction
Chapters (1)
Inspired by this image: who says that doomscrolling Facebook is a waste of time?
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879533986303606834/1202080440018804746/pre-made_butter.png?ex=65cc27a6&is=65b9b2a6&hm=6f600cf6fdb78500dd8c0443d0d26d16a774e78568608c689e33517ce276a890&
I was pondering the potential idea of a pony who had a half-human name and came up with the name "Velvet Elizabeth," although at the time I didn't have a story for her to be in.
As for a description of her, I got really lazy and just googled "MLP OC" and scrolled down until I found one I liked. Granted, it was a pegasus, but just imagine she doesn't have wings. And probably a different cutie mark, but I didn't say.
cdn.ych.art/auctions/kazziepone/ca8jjoq_Falling_Leaves_Ref.png
Source
She's adorable!
The ten-second primer on buttermaking is that traditionally you used the bacteria that you got (whether you wanted it or not) when you were milking the cow. These days with modern pasteurization (Louis Pasteur invented it), the stuff you need to make butter happen on its own isn't in the milk any more. There are ways to put it back in, or you can use raw milk (which of course comes with the risk of getting stuff you don't want).
A large percentage of Americans are terrible at geography.
The musical Evita is about Eva Perón, or María Eva Duarte de Perón, First Lady and then spiritual leader of Argentina from 1946 to 1952. The only song I can remember from the musical is Don't Cry for me Argentina, which kinda gives away the nation.
There's probably at least one thing I forgot to mention that someone'll remind me of in the comments
Back in the mid eighties, when store-bought unsalted butter wasn't a thing around us, my mom made butter from store-bought whipping cream. Ever since then, I've gotten worried I was beating it too long when making whipped cream.
My grandmother used to make savory waffles with cubes of ham in the batter and slather it with herb butter.
I am constantly disgusted by "buttermilk" pancake and waffle mix that's obviously just mislabled cake mix with almost half a cup of sugar per serving. Clearly, nobody who buys that shit ever had actual buttermilk. IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SWEET.
Your little "humans and ponies interact" slice of life stories remain a delight.
Forgetting batponies? Typical hooman.
You do this, you are basically trading time & convenience for more expensive, less nutrition.
Oh & Imperial is margarine, vegetable oil. NOT butter. I can't tell the difference.
Posted in
Admiral Biscuit's Fleet (group)
Pony On Earth (folder)
But seriously, homemade bread is a life changer.
Grew up on a dairy farm. Grade A with production starting around 1960 and running until around 1990 (when I was in college and there was no more free labor and yes I'm old bite me) Back in the dawn of civilization, the farm used a separator to (naturally) separate the cream from the rest of the milk, which was thrown away (Yes, that's the same skim milk you pay three bucks a gallon for at the store now). Cream would be stored in big steel ten-gallon cans and kept in a chilled water bath until the milk wagon visited to take it to the creamery (of which we still have one in operation around here). Around 1965-70, dad bought the stainless steel milking system with three stalls and pipelines and a 300 gallon bulk tank so he could sell Grade A whole milk to Middle America Dairy, so the ten-gallon steel cans and heavy manual milkers went into the closet, thank God. (picture a stainless-steel 'pot' that holds five gallons, with four cups on top, that has to be *lifted* one-handed to hook onto a belt that goes over a cow's back so it is suspended right where that same cow can plant a hoof in your face at the least opportune time. Now lift that same *full* milker when done so the top can be taken off and the milk poured into a steel can. Pipes were a godsend.)
And with all that, we did not churn our own butter. Takes forever, the mixer/can tends to leak, the ending result has to be filtered out of the skim milk, and gently salted or it doesn't taste like butter. And the store has it in stick form, pre-measured.
The definition of produce (or one definition) is 'agricultural products collectively, especially vegetables and fruits' so this may be partly redundant.
Fish-loving pegasus rolling their eyes.
I had a similar experience when my roommate made home cooked corned beef with brine made from scratch. Considering I've only had corned beef from a can before then, eating that masterpiece was a religious experience and my soul entered another plane of existence.
Another great slice of life with cute ponies, nice!
No B5? Heathen!
Fun Fact: Part of the reason US milk "can't" get into Canada is because all our milk is required to be pasteurized. Now you know part of the reason behind the "dairy wars" between Canada and the US.
11813168
While there are reasons you might want to make butter from unpasteurized milk or with added cultures¹, this is not necessary to get butter. The real problem with making butter from store bought milk is that most of it is at least partly skimmed and even full-fat milk and cream is generally going to be homogenized² specifically to keep the fat from separating. (As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a regular store that carries creamline³ milk.)
1: The short reason is that the flavour is slightly different.
2: A process you might call "anti-butter churning", as it breaks up the fat globules.
3: Which is what is required to label milk "whole milk" here in Canada, now you know why we have the double-take inducing "homo milk".
11813265
Nothing about the narrator (as opposed to AdmiralBiscuit) suggest he knows much of anything about food, except how to eat it.
Great little story. I love what a goob the narrator is!
11813265
My dad's family ate a lot of Cajun dishes, which meant a lot of crayfish, which my grandmother used to call "mud bugs." I think "sea bugs" is a perfectly cromulent term for shrimp!
11813354
Do you Canadians also share the "egg wars" between USA and UK ?
The Brits do not wash their eggs, as this damages the shell constitution. This is why you see eggs stored at room temperature on shelves and they do not spoil.
The Yanks wash their eggs, and now they need to refrigerate them. The two sides can never meet. One side would need to build refrigeration space and the other would need to change their health codes.
I live in Australia and we don't wash eggs, they are sold on the shelves.
EDIT: Long Live Babylon 5 !! (and it's Atari graphics)
11813168
Very cute, and you certainly got things right enough.
Sometime, I plan to try pasteurizing raw milk from my folks' farm without the homogenization step to see how it tastes.
It'll also keep much longer too.
I have a bread machine recipe tucked away somewhere that only works well with raw milk. Since the end product is cooked, no worries about anyone off the farm catching anything from it.
That is a legit concern, if a relatively small one.
11813457
Google says we wash, sanitize (and refrigerate) but not bleached. It's for the same reasons as the US. Salmonella concerns.
I've made homemade butter a couple of times. Our nearest grocery store carries a brand of milk that comes in glass bottles from if not a local farm from a mid-level farm that's not exactly Old MacDonald nor mega-brand factory farm either. So, in short, a touch higher quality than the 2.99 cheap jug milk. I used straight cream, and with proper rinsing and some salt, it was pretty darn good. The first time I didn't rinse it properly so it still had the buttermilk sourness but with trial-and-error comes experience.
That said I like to think I am a relatively good cook/baker but I'm sure Vee would run rings around me in the kitchen. That old-world knowhow that a good portion of our world has long since forgotten. I can make lots of tasty food and have enough experience to be able to alter print recipes and experiment a bit but if she threw down a pallet of raw ingredients and said go, I'd be more than a little bit lost, like I could figure it out eventually but not right at a mere glimpse.
There’s a “well butter my Biscuit” joke in here somewhere…
In any case, a lovely bit of your signature slice of life style. Pat of life? Smear of life? Whatever the case, enjoyably cozy bit of silly pony-human interaction wherein the pony is wise. Thank you for it.
11813237
Had some and while it was astounding, the prep and cost tended to nix the idea of keeping it around.
Stargate's Canadian-made though.
Which just goes to show how nonsensical all the rest of this pro-American statement is. Even at it's peak, America was never quite that great. Trust an American on this.
Traditionally NOT considered a manly task, but I'll let him have this anyway--I'm getting the impression he does have a bit of an ego that could bruise easily otherwise.
There IS, actually, but I'm pretty sure it involves math that goes beyond his level of understanding.
They do kinda look like bugs, though. Very tasty bugs...that are also a little expensive, so I don't get to enjoy them as nearly as often as I'd like, but there it is anyway.
Anyway, yet another reminder why homecooking from scratch still rules above all.
But I admit to being a lazy cook that often can't be bothered to put the effort in, so while I can cook better than our humanist protagonist, it's nothing compared to Velvet Elizabeth's skills.
11813168
The average person in the world is bad at geography I've found, as I've met plenty of people from other countries, even as far as from the other side of the pond, that aren't much better at it. I think it's a little less the people themselves and the education systems that aren't putting as much emphasis on it as it once did...probably for the worst, but that's a topic for another day.
11813457
Considering the possibility of salmonella, I'll take take washed eggs any day of the week.
11813465
I've never had raw milk, I don't live next to a dairy farm in any relatively close place. Pasteurizing is a great thing, and I don't care if people complain it tastes worse. I'm not dying or getting sick from dairy.
11813457
Babylon 5 used Commodore Amiga graphics, not Atari. They had a "render farm" of Amigas equipped with NewTek Video Toasters, running Lightwave as the 3D modeling & animation software.
P A T R I O T I S M 1 0 0
Given that insects are a highly derived group of insects, "sea bugs" seems quite appropriate.
So if you want to make butter at home, Tasting History with Max Miller did an episode on it recently.
So, seems like she is really good at making organic and healthy stuff.
Me likey.
Good job word-smith.
11813897
Erm, washing them doesn't eliminate the possibility of salmonella, it makes it possible for the salmonella to get inside the egg due to taking away the protective layer that stops that. That's the whole reason washed eggs need to be refridgerated - to stop the bacteria developing into a threat while inside. And, well... if not washing eggs makes salmonella more of a possibility, you'd think there'd be a noticably greater amount of cases in countries were they don't, yet I haven't been able to find anything that even suggests that. Which makes sense since, you know, we don't typically eat the egg shell, certainly not raw. Not that I'm saying the American way is wrong - it's not like refridgerating them doesn't work - just that both seem to work just fine.
I mean, don't get me wrong, there are definitely areas where food in different countries is worth feeling proud of - as evidenced by the fact that my first thought, upon seeing that the story was about someone being surprised by the greatness of homemade butter, was "Well, with American Butter, I'm not surprised"* and my second thought was "Mind you, if the narrator was British and it was about the properly roasting coffee, I suspect an American would say the same thing**." But eggs? I reckon both are just fine.
*And yes, I know that store-bought British butter isn't a patch on homemade either, just that there is a noticable quality gap.
** At least, that's what I hear from everyone I know who's tried both and who wouldn't rather get blasted with a super soaker of boiling coffee than drink the stuff.
11814089
Lol, thanks for the correction.
My brain knew what it was, but my fingers typed the Atari game machine.
11813897
Washing the eggs actually strips the protection that prevents such spoilage (and disease).
It's counter-productive. Now the eggs need refrigeration or else you can get sick from nasties that would have been stopped by... well... nature doing it's thing.
Eggs are amazing. Even their ability to resist rolling (which is why they are shaped like... eggs!)
EDIT:
This pic came to mind after I hit Post.
static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/03/04/13/oranges-Twitter.jpeg?quality=75&width=990&crop=3%3A2%2Csmart&auto=webp
Sometimes we humans need to stop being stupid and let nature protect it's own produce, the way it has since the dawn of time.
11814254
If humans didn't meddle, we'd be stuck with inedible wild bananas, and that Comfort guy wouldn't be able to make his stupid https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Banana_argument
This was surprisingly informative.
Hurray for Velvet Elizabeth expanding the horizons of others n_n
11813184
I didn't know you could make butter from whipping cream. Huh, learn something new ever day
11813206
I discovered when doing research that pancakes could be a vessel for anything you chose to put in them, and it doesn't surprise me that the same holds true of waffles.
I actually don't know what real buttermilk should taste like. I've had supposedly 'buttermilk' things before, but I don't know if they're the right flavor. They probably aren't.
Also it's crazy how much sugar some breads have.
11813207
Thank you!
11813208
He also forgot kirins and donkeys and whatever the hell Capper is
Lots of species in Equestria he didn't mention.
11813225
Yeah, basically. But I do get it; a lot of those foods cook faster, have long shelf lives, and not everyone has a fully-equipped, fully-functioning kitchen. Plus there's a learning curve to cooking stuff, and preparing it more from scratch.
I can tell the difference.
Fun fact, I knew that Imperial wasn't butter. In fact, I picked it 'cause I googled a list of worst butter, and it was on the list.
Thank you!
11813237
Or if you can't bake it yourself, legit bakery bread instead of the plastic-bagged stuff. Not quite as good as making it yourself, but way ahead of commercial loaves.
11813262
If you went to college 1990, you're not that much older than me.
If you had any trees in Kansas, you could also use those milk jugs to store sap in.
Back in the day, you'd have taken those jugs to the train station, probably (unless the creamery was local).
And skim milk is yet another former garbage food we now pay a premium for. It has no taste, I don't know why people drink it. It's like water with chalk added.
I feel like this is why back in Ye Old Times you never wanted to arm-wrestle a milkmaid.
I've only tangentially touched on farm labor IRL, and it sucked every time. I can't imagine doing it every day whether you want to or not--especially with dairy cows, where you have no choice.
Actually, speaking of dairy farms--when I was growing up out in the sticks, a lot of dairy farmers would plow their road so that the milk truck could get through. After all, if it doesn't, you lose the day's profits. We got stuck on one of those roads one night and had to walk home. When my dad went to get the car the next day, it had been moved into a farmer's driveway; apparently it had been in the way of the milk truck so he'd just moved it.
I think that making your own butter is one of those things where you only do it if you're really a cooking snob or else if you have sincerely held beliefs that would prevent you from taking the easy choice at the grocery store.
That having been said, there's a lot of cases where that holds true when it comes to food. Like people who can their own stuff, I can appreciate the dedication and time one takes to do that, but it's not like you have to do it (in most cases).
I suppose after the zombie apocalypse when butter is the new currency, anyone who makes their own will be laughing at the rest of us.
11813265
It kinda is, but then our narrator isn't the brightest crayon in the box.
"Sea bugs are tasty!" (Silver Glow, probably)
11813331
This is true of many commercially-available overprocessed foods. My Mom makes the best lemon meringue pie from scratch. It doesn't hold its shape quite like the store-bought ones do, but that's because it has real ingredients instead of gelatin and artificial lemon flavor (and color). And her meringue just melts in your mouth, it's like biting into a cloud.
11813344
Thank you!
11813354
It didn't start with the word "Star," so it wouldn't have fit the rule of three
I thought ours was, too, but maybe not. I honestly don't know.
11813366
I'll just quote the whole thing 'cause you're spouting facts
I only barely touched on butter-making, since it didn't matter for the story that it be entirely accurate, I just needed a close enough approximation to know what the human narrator would 'see' and Velvet's complaints which wouldn't necessarily be entirely accurate. I did watch enough YouTube videos to learn that you couldn't make it from gallon milk at the grocery store without adding something (I don't remember what that 'something' was) and that historically, some of the bacteria/spores/whatever on the teat would give you another thing you needed for the process, but which now is often added in (I don't know if this is always the case).
It reminded me of a Townsends video I watched some time ago about cheesemaking. Traditionally, the cheese-in-progress was left uncovered and you usually got the yeasts (I think) that you needed from the air. They didn't know what yeast (or whatever) was back then, just that if you made cheese this way it usually worked. Sometimes it didn't.
11813425
Yeah, the narrator's kind of an idiot when it comes to lots of things.
So am I, but I at least know that Venezuela was in South America and Evita was in Argentina.
11813430
Thank you!
They are kind of buggy, so it's reasonable to say that, I think. I suppose that would make crabs sea spiders.
11813457
Don't you also have irradiated milk in boxes, or am I thinking a different country?