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Butter Through the Ages · Reading list

Recommended Books

A working bibliography on butter and the wider world it lives in — food science, dairy history, traditional cookery, and the small rituals of churn and crock. Most are written for general readers; a few are reference works for the seriously curious. Affiliate links to Amazon support WebExhibits.

The Story of Butter & Milk

  • Butter: A Rich History

    Butter: A Rich History

    Elaine Khosrova · 2016

    A James Beard–nominated cultural history by a former pastry chef. Khosrova travels from Bhutan’s yak-butter altars to Vermont creameries, then closes with core butter recipes — pâte brisée, beurre manié, croissants — for the home cook.

    View on Amazon →
  • Milk! A 10,000-Year Food Fracas

    Milk! A 10,000-Year Food Fracas

    Mark Kurlansky · 2018

    From the author of Cod and Salt: the sweep of dairying from the first domesticated aurochs to the modern raw-milk wars, with 126 historical recipes for cheese, yogurt, kefir and butter sprinkled throughout.

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  • The Untold Story of Milk

    The Untold Story of Milk: Green Pastures, Contented Cows and Raw Dairy Products

    Ron Schmid · 2003

    A scholarly defense of pasture-raised raw dairy, written by a naturopath. Schmid digs into the politics of pasteurization and the nutritional case for full-fat traditional milk — the substrate from which butter is made.

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  • Cheese and Culture

    Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization

    Paul Kindstedt · 2012

    A University of Vermont dairy scientist traces fermented milk from the Neolithic Fertile Crescent through monastic Europe to industrial creameries. The clearest survey of how dairying actually worked at each stage.

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Cooking & Baking with Butter

  • Butter Passion (Bordier)

    Butter Passion: History, Culture, and Recipes from Bordier Butter

    Jean-Yves Bordier · 2019

    The story of the Saint-Malo butter Michelin chefs fly in by the kilo, paired with 40 recipes from chef Sylvain Guillemot and 180 photographs. As much a portrait of the Breton butter-making craft as a cookbook.

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  • The Butter Book

    The Butter Book

    Anna Stockwell · 2024

    A small, illustrated celebration of butter packaged to look like a stick of it. Recipes lean toward compound butters — seaweed, hot-honey, raspberry-thyme — with concise notes on sourcing, salting and storing.

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  • Flavored Butters

    Flavored Butters: Nuts, Dairy, Herbs, Fruit

    Offerico Maoz · 2005

    More than sixty-five recipes for compound butters, sweet and savory — pesto, artichoke, curry, roasted jalapeño, maple, espresso buttercream — from an Israeli chef and food stylist.

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  • Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient

    Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes

    Jennifer McLagan · 2008

    McLagan’s James Beard Award–winning case for butter, lard, schmaltz, suet and bone marrow. She wrote three pages of this exhibit on comparing butter with other fats, debates and controversies, and nutrition.

    View on Amazon →
  • Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

    Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

    Samin Nosrat · 2017

    Nosrat’s framework for understanding how the four elements behave in any kitchen, butter chief among the fats. Won the James Beard Award and inspired the Netflix series of the same name.

    View on Amazon →

Kitchen Science

  • On Food and Cooking

    On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

    Harold McGee · 2004 (rev. ed.)

    The standard reference. McGee blends gastronomy with chemistry, history and linguistics; his pages on the molecular structure of butter, cream and milk fat are a quiet classic.

    View on Amazon →
  • CookWise

    CookWise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking

    Shirley O. Corriher · 1997

    A biochemist’s take on home cooking. Each of the 230 recipes demonstrates a technique, with troubleshooting notes for everything from stuck pastry to broken emulsions.

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  • What Einstein Told His Cook

    What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained

    Robert L. Wolke · 2002

    A chemistry professor and longtime Washington Post columnist answers the questions cookbooks skip — including why a recipe might call for both unsalted butter and added salt.

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  • Molecular Gastronomy

    Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor

    Hervé This · 2006

    The first holder of a doctorate in molecular gastronomy tests culinary lore from the lab bench — among other questions, whether butter or oil better keeps pasta from sticking.

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  • I'm Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0

    I’m Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0

    Alton Brown · 2006

    The James Beard Award–winning method book from the Good Eats host. Each chapter is a master class in one cooking method, with the science laid out alongside the recipe.

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Make It Yourself — Butter, Cheese, Yogurt

  • Home Cheese Making, 4th Edition

    Home Cheese Making, 4th Edition: Recipes for 100 Favorite Cheeses

    Ricki Carroll · 2018

    The completely revised edition of Carroll’s 1982 classic, now with 35 new recipes and full-color step-by-step photography. Covers butter, fresh cheeses, mozzarella, blues and goat’s milk varieties.

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  • Making Cheese, Butter & Yogurt

    Making Cheese, Butter & Yogurt

    Ricki Carroll · 2003 (Storey Bulletin A-283)

    The 32-page Storey pamphlet that has launched a thousand kitchen creameries. Lightweight in format, complete in coverage — a useful first step before the full Home Cheese Making.

    View on Amazon →
  • Real Food: What to Eat and Why

    Real Food: What to Eat and Why

    Nina Planck · 2016 (rev. ed.)

    A farmer’s daughter’s defense of butter, egg yolks, raw milk and grass-fed beef. Helpful context for the dairy and animal-fat sections of this exhibit.

    View on Amazon →

For the Bookshelf

  • The Butter Battle Book

    The Butter Battle Book

    Dr. Seuss · 1984

    Seuss’s Cold War parable in which the Yooks butter bread side up and the Zooks butter it side down. Whimsical, melodious — and a New York Times Notable Book of the year.

    View on Amazon →
Amazon links use the WebExhibits Associates tag webexhibits-butter-20; purchases support the exhibit. Cover images are served locally from webexhibits.org.