Making butter — one set of instructions for old-fashioned churned butter says it takes 30 minutes to never to get heavy cream to form into butter.
With that in mind, it was with some trepidation that I took wooden churn dash in hand for my first batch of homemade butter in a stoneware churn.
Why do I own a churn and why was I making butter? And what does this have to do with travel? It’s all related to the National Road Festival. (I’ve been involved since before the name change, when it was still the National Pike Festival. That’s pike as in turnpike, celebrating the first national road, which was, as the name implies, a toll road. It has nothing to do with the fish of the same name.)
Let the folks from out of the region be confused; we all know what it’s about: food, entertainment, and yard sales the entire 90 mile length of Route 40 in Pennsylvania led by teams of horse-drawn wagons through Somerset, Fayette and Washington counties.
What I do falls under the entertainment category, even though I’m usually preparing food. Most people wouldn’t want to eat food prepared under the conditions I face, and the Department of Health wouldn’t let me serve it to them even if they did want it. I use 18th century cooking techniques, baking in Dutch ovens, roasting meat over an open fire, and this year, making butter in a stoneware churn.
A leg of lamb on a spit over the fire attracts a crowd, most of whom ask, “What is that?” or “Are you really going to eat that?” A few stick around for the herbal medicine display; more are attracted to the animal pelts and other trade goods on display to give visitors an idea of what an 18th century trading company did, and even more are attracted to the canon and rifle firing demonstrations by other members of the Redstone Living Historians.
For the past six years or so, the Redstone Living Historians have been setting up at Scenery Hill, along the Washington County section of the festival. Every year we attract a small, dedicated following of youngsters attracted not by the history or the weapons firing or even the smell of the food, but by the chance to participate. Several of the high school girls in the reenacting unit set up a blanket with children’s games and for several years, I’ve recruited the kids to dip candles for me.
There have been times when I’ve had as many as 20 children lined up to dip candles, walking their ever-thickening wicks in a wide circle to cool the wax between dippings. Every year I worry that the weather will be too warm and some years it is, so when I saw a small butter churn at the Fort Frederick Market Days (see my column for April 10) last year, I decided to start saving my money to purchase one for this year’s Pike Festival. Unlike candle making, butter making does well in warm weather.
Less than 48 hours after buying my churn I found myself pouring a quart of heavy cream into its cavity and sloshing way with the wooden dash armed only with several divergent sets of instructions from the Internet. As I sloshed away I thought about that line “30 minutes to never” and wondered which I’d have. It seemed like there was no change in the cream as I pounded away. And then, after about 35 minutes, instead of sloshing I heard splashing. The buttermilk had separated from the fat and I had butter in the lumpy stage!
It’s hard to describe the satisfaction and sense of wonder I had as I poured off the buttermilk and rolled the lumpy butter into a wooden butter bowl for washing and salting. I can’t wait to watch the expression on the children’s faces as they have that same experience during the Pike Festival.
Note: The National Road Festival will be held May 16-18, with wagon trains traveling through Pennsylvania’s Fayette and Washington counties, as well as in Washington County, Md.
