Buttermilk

By Beth Yarbrough

Here are two things I know to be true about buttermilk: I don’t like it, and I cannot cook without it.

We may have strayed away from the custom of simply enjoying a nice cold glass of buttermilk here in the South (I was never a member of that club anyway), but that does not mean it isn’t an essential ingredient in every noteworthy Southern kitchen from Amarillo to Annapolis.

For instance, we really can’t make biscuits without it. There are entire biscuit cookbooks out there, half a dozen of which I own. They sing the praises of all sorts of wonderful biscuit recipes using everything from cream cheese to Seven-Up. And in the interest of fairness, I have tried a few. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’m in the kitchen with White Lily Self Rising Flour, Crisco, and buttermilk. There is not a better biscuit to be had anywhere in the land.

Cornbread isn’t quite the same product, either, without the use of buttermilk in the batter. And we eat a lot of cornbread around here. Even if we’re just opening a box of good old Jiffy Mix to go with a can of pinto beans (it happens), out comes the buttermilk. We do have our standards.

Desserts love buttermilk, though they often don’t shout it. For years - okay, decades - I struggled to find my footing with pound cakes. All my friends had perfected their own signature versions that they hauled to funeral gatherings, or gave as Christmas gifts, or offered through a back door to a neighbor who needed a smile.

Then one day I was going through Miss Lizzie’s recipes and noticed a tightly folded piece of note paper. Opening it up, I found her recipe for Lemon Pound, and right there at the top of the list - buttermilk. And, yes, that was the day I found my footing. I no longer have to hang my head at funerals.

While it is true that the South is the land of buttery sugar, and we fry anything that will hold still long enough - either that or throw a little bourbon at it - there is also that elusive ingredient in everything from pie to pancakes and fried chicken to ice cream that we can’t seem to live without - ice cold buttermilk.

Just don’t ask me to drink it.

Photo via Food Network.