Food - Drink
The First Butter Was Invented By Accident And It Didn't Come From A Cow
By LAUREN ROTHMAN
Any milk can make butter, which is produced when churned or otherwise agitated milk coagulates into a semisolid cream. It turns out that the discovery of butter was most likely an accident, the result of a long-distance traveler whose unstable pack animal mode of transportation had shaken his milk into something very different.
Elaine Khosrova, author of the 2017 book "Butter: A Rich History," dates the origins of butter to Neolithic-era Africa around 8,000 B.C. and the nomadic sheep herdsmen traveling with their flock. When the sheepherder reached to take a drink of his milk, he found it had coagulated into a mixture of butter and buttermilk due to the trip being on shaky terrain.
In her book, Khosrova follows butter's evolution from accidentally shaken yak, sheep, and goat's milk to its deliberate manufacturing, a move that, based on a limestone tablet unearthed by archaeologists, may have taken place around 4,500 years ago. Since then, butter has become one of the most beloved and used dairy products.