Organic Pastures sells unpasteurized butter, and overnight ships it in a temperature-controlled styro-pack. It's very expensive ($10.50 a pound plus shipping), but worth it. I bulk ordered over a year ago and the butter in my freezer is still in perfect shape when I take it out. You guys should put together a group order and get about twenty pounds of the stuff (that will lower the shipping costs per pound). It's night-and-day better than even the most expensive boutique butters at area gourmet stores because it hasn't been stripped of its flavor through pasteurization.

I sounded the klaxon call about this stuff a year ago, but not much came of it.

You'll thank me when you try it - I promise!
Rocks.

Intriguing. I've sent them an e-mail asking if their cream is heavy cream. I use Lewes Dairy pasteurized cream and Harrisburg Dairy pasteurized milk now for ice cream in a hand cranked White Mountain freezer. I really wonder what this would produce?

I was also just looking at Wegman's selection of imported butter in their Sterling store today. They have about a half dozen varieties but I did not see this. For anyone reading this the butter I am referencing is NOT in the dairy section but in their bread section near the front of the store.

Thanks, Don. I will try this. My hope is to order not just their butter but also milk and cream. I'm thinking of the pecan caramel ice cream I can make....

I especially like how all products shipped outside of California are "not for human consumption" and are labeled to be used as "pet food".

Brilliant! This may be the first time the "dog" actually feeds me.

Have you conducted side by side taste tests of your ice cream made with the Lewes cream and such against that bought at Giant, WF, etc? I would be curious to know if anyone could really detect any difference when there were no preconceived ideas. Heck, this can be an open question on almost any 'fancy' product.

Cool site Rocks. You offered to hook me up months ago and never followed through. I'll just have to get my own stash.

You would think, having breastfed two children, that I would be above such feelings....but I am utterly grossed out at the idea of buying cow colostrum.

Hmmm, think we can get a group together and buy a cow or two? Click here.

Why do you call "pasteurized" cream and milk "fancy" products? They are less processed products that years ago were the standard before "ultrapasteurized" and their longer shelf life replaced them on most shelves. Yes, they taste better. No, I have not made the two side by side but I have made the same flavor several days apart and there was a significant difference. For myself the difference between pasteurized and ultrapastuerized is roughly equivalent to, say, fresh and frozen french fries. For cream top milk there is absolutely no replacement. I think the real loss is that so many people on this and other boards have no idea of what this even tastes like!

I'm just surprised that you would call them "fancy." Years ago in the U. S. and even today in many other countries of the world there are many, many foods still produced and eaten the way they have been for centuries. The real shame is that here it has become increasingly difficult to find them, and, in some instances more expensive to buy the "real" thing. Almost without exception the "replacement" is a poor imitation.

I read mdt's post to refer to "fancy" as the Lewes cream and the Giant brand the "non-fancy." Whether or not it is worth the extra cost or trouble to seek out the "fancy" product is to be answered in a blind taste test. Did I get this right, mdt?

In my neck of the woods in New England, it is very easy to find pasteurized (as opposed to ultrapasteurized) cream in supermarkets.

But I can't ever remember seeing unpasteurized butter anywhere. Thanks for the tip!

That is why I had fancy in quotes. I was not talking about the pasteurized cream specifically. I was using your post as a starting point to discuss what products are worth the extra dollar, drive, time, etc. to obtain when making certain dishes.

It is too bad that many products are hard or expensive to get since they have essentially been replaced by those that are massed produced. The more that people are educated that there are other options available the better off we will be. People need to be more vocal about obtaining these 'fancy' products so that they become easier (and hopefully less costly) to get.

While I agree that many items are worth the extra effort, I still believe that blind tastings would produce some pretty interesting results.

I just this minute finished cross-tasting the Organic Pastures butter against two gourmet-store items: La Baratte des Gourmets, a demi-sel from France which is ferociously salty, and Delitia, an Italian butter "dalla produzione del Parmigiano Reggiano" which is extremely creamy tasting (83% butter fat). Both are excellent (and expensive at $6.00 for half-pound wedges), but neither has the same depth of flavor as the Organic Pastures because they've been pasteurized - except for the persistence of the salt in the French butter, the finish just drops off like a rock whereas the flavor on the Organic Pastures lingers-and-lingers.

(These were brought up from Ellwood Thompson's in Richmond, so I'm not sure if you can get them here.)

Cheers,
Rocks.

The recent flurry of activity on the Butter thread has prompted me to resurrect this.

Although I haven't had it in three years, Organic Pastures had the best butter I've ever tasted in the United States (with the possible exception of an unpasteurized Italian goat's-milk butter that I had mail-ordered from Formaggio Kitchen, but that wasn't a domestic product).

Organic Pastures used to bulk-ship butter at a discounted rate (twenty tubs or so). I'd be up for buying a couple pints if anyone wants to assemble a co-op. It freezes beautifully, and can be used six months later like it was brand new.

Cheers,
Rocks.

I too would be interested in purchasing a couple of tubs of butter if enough people are interested in placing a bulk order. At the moment, I purchase the Kerrygold Butter at Wegmans.