I can't believe it IS butter!

Butter for Apple Crisp
Originally uploaded by madaise

I didn’t quite expect this news so soon, but wealthy, industrialized nations are running out of food. Japan has a severe shortage of butter – they’ve basically run out. This article explains some of the contributing factors. The scary news is, it seems like this is just further expansion of a trend we’ve seen in places like Haiti and Egypt in the past few weeks, and not an isolated incident to be brushed aside as irrelevant. In fact, as this article points out, Canada and the US are already seeing rationing and shortages, especially of rice (even Jay Leno mentioned it on his show tonight). I’ll admit we’ve been stocking up on 20 pound bags of rice, when we can. Each store will only allow us to purchase one or two bags at a time. We also haven’t been able to purchase fresh curry leaves (not related to curry powder, but still a staple of Indian cuisine) for over two months now. They’ve just become too expensive for the small shop where we buy our Indian groceries to even bother stocking them anymore.

So I’ll continue trying to grow stuff on my balcony, but this just reaffirms my belief that the more I can make and do for myself, the better able I’ll be to deal if and when I find myself facing a shortage of something more serious than curry leaves.

I was thinking about how I've been learning to make yogurt, sour cream, and assorted other dairy based products, and I realized that part of the problem with buying only processed, packaged, preservative laden foods is not just that they are unhealthy (which they are), but that they allow us to mentally separate from what we eat.

I was thinking some more today about chickens. I had to admit that if I ever had my own, I’m pretty sure they’d just be for eggs. I don’t know if I’ll explain this very well, but I don’t actually like animals all that much, to be honest. I have a cat that I adore, and believe to be the cutest feline ever born, but I don’t feel the need to pet dogs I see while I’m out walking, and in fact I go out of my way to avoid them. I don’t think I ever want a dog of my own, and I’m not sure I ever want another cat either. Anyway, point being, as much as I wouldn’t peg myself an animal lover, I also don’t think I could stomach killing a chicken. Buying the meat on a tray wrapped in plastic allows me to detach. This is the obvious, classic vegetarian argument.

What often gets overlooked, at least by me, however, is the mental and physical detachment we also have from other foods we eat. Like yogurt. As long as I’d only bought it in a tub in the store, I hadn’t really thought about what it was that made it yogurt. Now that I’ve made it, I actually understand what it is. I’ve made bread, and soda, so now I understand what makes the bubbles in each of them. It’s kind of like those cheesy public service announcements say: “The More You Know”…

Last week, I made butter! I know that the Japanese butter shortage is just a reflection of a general shortage of milk products, but I wonder if they’re still able to buy cream? Because that’s all that butter is!

I know that knowing how to make butter won’t help me in the event that my area experiences a serious shortage of milk products, but I think the more I know about how to make the foods that I eat, the better prepared I’ll be to deal with the sudden unavailability of products I’d previously taken for granted would always be on the shelves of my local store. I don’t know how it breaks down financially, but I’m pretty sure that if I don’t save money, it won’t cost me any more to make versus buying ready made butter…plus I’m reducing the amount of packaging I’m introducing to the landfill, and it's super easy for me to find local cream where I live.

I’ll direct you to Crunchy Chicken for the more specific instructions, but basically, it’s super easy, and goes something like this: put cream in a jar, making sure to leave plenty of air in the jar, and put the lid on. Shake like crazy till it solidifies (I shook for less time than Crunchy’s directions, I read others that said they shook longer…she describes the stages, though, so you’ll be able to figure it out). Use a spatula to squeeze the liquid out of the solid, pour it off (saving it for later use). Add a little salt, and enjoy!