synthetic or artificial product. Whenever, therefore, a fermented beverage produced from natural sources is contaminated by artificial products the resulting compound is not so useful nor digestible. For instance, wine which is made partially from sugar and beer made partially from dextrose, although they may be healthful and wholesome beverages, are inferior in quality and character to the real product made from grape juice or barley malt.
Buttermilk.—The residue left in the churn in the manufacture of butter is termed buttermilk. There are two distinct varieties of buttermilk, namely, that resulting from the churning of unsoured cream and that remaining from the churning of soured and ripened cream. The first kind of buttermilk does not differ in its characteristic essentials from skimmed milk and therefore is not considered here. The second class of buttermilk is far more common and is a beverage of pleasing acid taste. When made from properly ripened cream it is wholesome and delicious, especially in summer time. Its composition is that of cream subjected to enzymic action during the ripening process by which an agreeable degree of acidity is produced due to lactic acid, together with the incidental changes which take place in the composition of other parts of the liquid due to enzymic action. Buttermilk also usually contains small particles of butter itself which escape aggregation during the final process of churning. In well prepared buttermilk, however, these particles of butter are not very numerous and they add nothing to the palatability, although they do add something to the nutritive properties of the beverage. The buttermilk represents that portion of milk which is one of the chief constituents of cream as far as bulk is concerned, freed practically from its butter fat. It does not differ greatly, therefore, in its chemical properties from skimmed milk, although there is a slight difference in the relative percentages of the milk solids in cream as compared with the same constituents in whole milk. The composition of buttermilk is shown in the following table: COMPOSITION OF BUTTERMILK.
From Sweet From Sour Cream. Cream. Percent. Percent.
Water, 89.74 90.93
Fat, 1.21 0.31
Milk sugar, 4.98 4.58
Protein, 3.28 3.37
Ash, 0.79 0.81
Acidity, . . . 0.80
Bonnyclabber.—Bonnyclabber is a term applied to milk which has become soured by lactic fermentation, producing a gelatinous coagulation of casein which is sufficiently firm at times to prevent the liquid from being poured. Clabber may be regarded as a natural cheese curd except that the fat is chiefly on top. It is a beverage or food of a very agreeable taste to most persons and is often eaten with sugar. In the summer it is often formed during hot murky
