“Near dusk every afternoon, Junior Cunningham would milk at least one cow and bring the milk from the stable up the hill to our house. He would fill a large pitcher with the day’s fresh milk and pour the remainder of lukewarm milk from the pail into a large stone jar in the back kitchen, and then cover the jar with cheese cloth. Twice each week Mary Sue, “Toots”, would come to churn and make the butter into round cakes probably 6 inches in diameter and an inch thick. She formed the cakes and smoothed them using her hands and a small wooden “butter paddle” . When she was finished, she made a daisy design on the top of each cake, wrapped each one in waxed paper, and put them into the refrigerator, Until that point, everything in the butter- making process happened at room temperature - i.e. hot in the summer and chilly in the winter. Obviously, they weren’t nearly so elegant as the French ones, but they were bright yellow and beautiful to me with that daisy on top!”
A good friend sent this in response to my piece on Jean-Yves’s artisanal butter and graciously allowed me to share it. Her remembrance needs no embellishment. Artisanal is artisanal no matter where or when. And I imagine that thousands of miles and different tongues wouldn’t have kept Mary Sue and Jean-Yves from understanding one another. Artisans both- making the ordinary, extraordinary.
My friend concluded, “I realize that this sounds like pioneer days to most people. Even to me!” She’s probably right, but The Age of Corona has forced us all to reexamine “normal”. Maybe “the new normal” isn’t what we’re after. Possibly, “normal” is just a dryer setting.