Blessed Butter: Bogs and Beyond

Stories of Scotland

Annie and Jenny

History, Places & Travel, Society & Culture

4.8 • 728 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Annie and Jenny churn through the rich history of butter in Scottish and Irish cultures. We slip into a buttery journey from the ancient practice of making bog butter to the evolution of dairy farming in the chilly northern lands. Learn about the fascinating genetics behind lactose tolerance and how aurochs, the wild ancestors of cows, shaped our dairy destiny.

But there's more to this episode than just butter history, there’s also fatty folklore. Jenny brings to life a haunting Scottish folklore tale involving a blacksmith’s wife, a magical bridle, and a transformative curse. This story weaves through the dark and mystical paths of ancient Scotland.

We delve into the art of butter-making and explore the vital role of butter in Scottish households.

Don't miss this spread of historical facts, folklore, and fun, all buttered up in this episode of Stories of Scotland. Tune in for a dairy dose of culture, history, and whimsy.

Independently made in the Highlands, Stories of Scotland is gratefully funded through listener support on Patreon. www.patreon.com/storiesofscotland

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Stories of Scotland, 2024. We wish you all the mightiest of turnips for this great new year and a very joyous January. I'm Annie and I am some
0:24.4	very distinctive dairy. And I'm Jenny, a suitably moist environment. In this episode, we're covering
0:32.4	all aspects of butter. From production to preservation, creamy culinary charms to slippy superstitions,
0:40.4	and of course, fatty folklore. Fatti folklore is the most fantastic folklore. Now I am genuinely
0:48.2	thrilled about this episode. I am bouncing up and down because it means I finally get to discuss something that I've
0:55.7	obsessed over for the past year. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning.
1:02.6	It's the last thing I think about before I go to bed. It is what I'm going to name my firstborn
1:07.9	child. It is, of course, bog butter. This is such a fascinating aspect of
1:14.4	Scottish and Irish history that I try to bring it up in conversation with almost everyone I meet,
1:21.9	even at quite inappropriate times. I'll just be in the doctor's office and I'll ask them if they know about
1:28.9	bog butter. And you know, weirdly, that's not the first time they've been asked at that day.
1:35.4	It's because the person who was in the waiting room with me heard my lecture on it. So.
1:41.4	But before we get that lecture, Annie, let's first consider how Scotland became such a buttery biscuit base,
1:50.0	turning this corner of Europe into a dairy queen's dream.
1:54.5	You need two critical things to make butter.
1:57.4	The first is a mammal, because mammals produce milk. This means that technically you
2:03.6	could make butter from bear milk or bat milk, but luckily for us, our ancestors decided that these
2:10.4	weren't exactly the easiest teats to tug. The second vital element for making butter is in fact
2:16.7	these very ancestors themselves,
2:19.3	because we need a species with enough curiosity to shake, stir or disturb cream enough that it churns into a lovely thick butter.
2:30.3	Because while butter is a natural product, it still has to somehow go through this processing stage.
2:38.4	What's interesting is the first prehistoric people who lived in Scotland actually lived a dairy-free diet.
	...

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