But how does it taste

October 22, 2020 12:58 PM

Mysteries of the 2,500-year-old butter found at the bottom of a loch (The Scotsman): “Because of the fantastic anaerobic conditions, where there is very light, oxygen or bacteria to break down anything organic, you get this type of sealed environment. When they started excavating, they pulled out this square wooden dish, well around three quarters of a square wooden dish, which had these really nice chisel marks on the sides as well as this grey stuff.” Related: Bog Butter Barrels and Ireland’s 3000-Year-Old Refrigerators (JSTOR Daily)

Previously

posted by not_the_water (17 comments total)

I bet the bog butter would go really well with the sarcophagus juice
posted by The otter lady at 1:22 PM on October 22, 2020 [8 favorites]

I bet the bog butter would go really well with the sarcophagus juice


Spread and drizzle them on bread made with ancient Egyptian yeast.
posted by me3dia at 1:55 PM on October 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

"Bog butter" sure sounds like a euphemism for... something.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:08 PM on October 22, 2020 [8 favorites]

would go well on a bog chip roll
posted by scruss at 2:58 PM on October 22, 2020

I can't believe it's still butter!
posted by The Great David S. Pumpkins at 3:09 PM on October 22, 2020 [24 favorites]

sarcophagus juice

"In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,"

-Seamus Heaney, The Touland Man
posted by clavdivs at 3:29 PM on October 22, 2020 [7 favorites]

There's a chippy in Dunblane that deep fries Mars Bars in this stuff.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 4:00 PM on October 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

I Can Very Much Believe That's Not Butter
posted by um at 4:58 PM on October 22, 2020

Cueing metatalk question in 3, 2, 1...
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 5:28 PM on October 22, 2020

We all joke, but there are Scots who would absolutely eat this. A barrel of shipwrecked Second World War lard washed up in 2013; the quote, from one Hibernian saturated-fats connoisseur:

"The lard was covered in the largest barnacles I've ever seen. Animals, including my dog, have certainly enjoyed the lard, and it still looks and smells good enough to have a fry up with."

posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:50 PM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

The butter then may have been turned into cheese by adding rennet...
I’m not a cheese maker, but I don’t think that’s how it is supposed to work.
posted by TedW at 7:39 PM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

one Hibernian saturated-fats connoisseur

Don't you mean Caledonian?
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 7:53 PM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Related: the man who sank 1700 lbs. of cheese in the Baie des Ha! Ha! and lost it.

That story is mildly interesting; the fact that there are not one but THREE bodies of water in Canada called the Baie des Ha! Ha! (avec ponctuation) is very interesting
posted by babelfish at 8:52 PM on October 22, 2020

I will never go to those places for the same reason I will never go to Plymouth Ho! in England - I resent being yelled at by place names. I expect civility in geographical nomenclature.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:58 PM on October 22, 2020 [5 favorites]

That's OK thatwhichfalls, we have Westward Ho! in England as well. They're yelling at each other, not at you.
posted by dowcrag at 1:27 AM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Regarding identical place names; a lady here in Norway had a spot of trouble getting the air ambulance to pick her up after a burn injury as there were 10 bodies of water called Svarttjern ("Blackpond") in the area.... (CW: mostly-healed burn injuries)
posted by Harald74 at 2:27 AM on October 23, 2020

I feel that we have a good contestant from modern times in the airport jungle juice. Now we just need to figure out how to lose it for centuries.
posted by Harald74 at 2:28 AM on October 23, 2020