For starters, use the finest, most authentic buttermilk you can find. This in itself starts a pivotal discussion on what is real buttermilk? The best we have in Maine, if not in most of the country, is Kate’s Buttermilk made in Arundel, Maine, our backyard producer of fine butter products like its buttermilk and butter. In fact, the renowned producer of heirloom grains, Anson Mills, in South Carolina instructs in their recipes for cornbread or biscuits to use Kate’s Buttermilk. That’s quite an endorsement coming from this southern stalwart of southern foodways.
The bible on buttermilk has unadulterated southern roots. The renown of this food staple can be found in their luscious cakes, pies, biscuits and pastries. Southern chef Sean Brock in his various cookbooks calls for “full-fat” buttermilk. It’s really an oxymoron because buttermilk is low in fat. But it’s made from the leftovers of churned butter, which is made from whole milk before the milk is separated. Most commercial producers use skimmed milk to which yogurt or other cultures are added to give tang and heft to the finished milk. Most of the time grocery store buttermilk is called nonfat. Kate’s is made from fresh cream churned into butter and its milk derivative.
Photo courtesy of High View Farm
Until recently you could find buttermilk at our farmers’ markets, but such dairy farmers who made the stuff found that it was more profitable to use the remains of churned butter for cheese and yoghurt products, which are in high demand. Occasionally, if you ask for it, Swallowtail Farms has real buttermilk made from raw whole milk. Balfour Farms used to make what they called old-fashioned buttermilk that had the little pieces of butter in it. High View Farm in Harrison–and at the Bridgton Farmer’s Market–which in my opinion made the richest, raw butter from their herd of guernsey cows also produced old-fashioned buttermilk that had little chards of the leftover butter from the solids to make butter from raw milk. Different from the cultured variety, which is thickened with cultures, this was thinner but very tangy and sweet, an irresistible yin-yang combination of flavors. Real Umami, if you will. They rarely make it anymore except by special request. Again, there are more profitable uses for the churned butter byproduct. Even their butter is in low supply since they use it for other dairy products.
