What is Irish bog butter?

Irish bog butter is almost always made from milk fat which has been buried in a bog. What makes it so special is its age. Often unearthed by turf cutters, these chunks of butter can be thousands of years old and only becoming inedible after centuries in the ground.

Is bog butter still edible?

A new study has now revealed that the ingenious practice dates back nearly 4,000 years, 1,500 years longer than previously thought. The bog’s preservative powers are so strong that butter can still be edible after centuries in the ground. This is thanks to the cool, low oxygen and high-acid environment.

How does bog butter taste?

I met a man who’d eaten a sandwich made with bog butter that a friend had dug up while cutting peat. He said it tasted pretty much like you’d expect butter to taste. Other brave souls from modern times have sampled it and described it in less flattering terms: “pungent,” “funky,” “putrid,” and more.

What was bog butter used for?

Researchers believe that people in ancient Ireland used to bury butter and other goods in Irish bogs as a form of food preservation since the acidity of the soil and a lack of oxygen prevented things from spoiling.

Is bog butter good?

Bogs are Ireland’s original refrigerators. And they are pretty good—even 3,000 year-old bog butter is edible. We know this because archeologists tended to eat it.

Where was bog butter found?

“Bog butter” refers to an ancient waxy substance found buried in peat bogs, particularly in Ireland and Scotland.

What is the oldest butter?

In 2013, a fellow turf cutter in County Offaly found a massive container holding 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of bog butter believed to be 5,000 years old. The Cavan County Museum says in medieval times, butter was a luxury product that was used to pay taxes and rents.

What is a bog Irish?

bog Irish pl (plural only) (derogatory) People of low-class Irish ancestry.

How bog butter is preserved?

Looking at over 274 instances of bog butter from the Iron Age to medieval times, Earwood concluded that early Celtic people probably sunk the butter in the bog simply to preserve it or protect from thieves. The cool, low-oxygen, high acid environment of the bog made a perfect natural refrigerator.

What is the oldest butter in the world?

What makes Irish bogs special?

Ireland’s Bog Bodies. Bogs are an integral part of Ireland’s natural landscape. These waterlogged, nutrient rich patches of land are used as a source of fuel, as an entire ecosystem for wildlife and plantlife, and even as a tourist attraction for certain off-the-wall activities like bog swimming!

How much bog is left in Ireland?

approximately 50,000 hectares
Today, there are only approximately 50,000 hectares of “intact” high bog remaining, with losses due mainly to exploitation and reclamation. Much of the surviving raised bog is considered to be of poor ecological quality and less than half of this is of high nature conservation value.

Why is Ireland full of bogs?

Layers and layers of decomposed plants build up and, combined with acidic water, resulted in bogland. Raised bogs however formed as a result of the Ice Age, which ended in Ireland around 7000 BC. As glaciers made their way over the land they left uneven terrain which water collected in, forming thousands of tiny lakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iy6HT1ZjPo