Although it took time and hard work, the process ofmaking butter was fairly simple: Milk was poured into shallow pans to cool. After the cream separated from the skim, it was ladled off the top and poured into a churn for agitation. When pea-sized lumps formed, they were worked into butter. The by-product, buttermilk, was fed to livestock along with the skim.

Women churned with the help of the children, and grandparents living with the family were expected to help too. Math Ohnsorg, St. Anthony, said he often cranked the wooden churn as a boy, but that he tired out before the butter set and his mother had to finish. Mothers told stories while churning, and it was said that a grandmother could rock the baby in the cradle, hear the younger children's prayers, and churn butter all at the same time."

Farm butter quality and flavor varied from batch to batch and from season to season. Women were proud of reputations acquired for butter commanding good prices in local stores and storekeepers asking for their butter. Many women sold butter formed in special butter molds and prints, often handmade by the men of the family. Poorquality butter was dumped into large barrels or tubs, from which customers filled their jars, crocks, or firkins.

Because cows did not produce milk all winter, butter was made for winter use in fall and stored in cellars, wells, spring houses, or streams of running water until it froze, or in firkins, tubs, or animal skins, preserved with salt or brine. Often the butter did not keep well or for long. Once the winter supply was used up, the family did without butter until spring.

Cheese

Early farmers also made two kinds of cheese: fresh and ripened. Ripened cheese was more difficult to make: it had to be processed and aged over time, so small amounts were not practical. Few Stearns County families bothered with it.

Fresh, or cottage cheese, however, was very popular. Rosalia Fuchs, Greenwald, said her family made cottage cheese from milk left on the back of a wood burning stove to sour. The liquid was drained Off, salt was added to the remaining curds, and the family ate the cheese on bread or with potatoes. It was often spread on bread and taken to the men working in the fields. Alfred Ebnet, Holdingford, said his mother used another method for making cottage cheese: She put sour milk into a flour sack and hung it from the branch of a tree to drain off the whey. Once drained, the cottage cheese was eaten on potatoes, sometimes with chives added for flavor.