"Butter probably originated amongst the nomadic peoples of central Asia--quite plausibly first discovered by accident after a hard day in the saddle during which the rider's neglected container of milk had been constantly churned. Iti s used gradually spread to India and Europe, although Greece and Rome, both olive-oil cultures, it was at first treated with both suspicion and derision as an inferior foreign product...There are two main strands in the history of butter. In the Indian subcontinent it is preserved by melting it and straining off the impurities (see Ghee)...The European tradition, on the other hand, has been to preserve it with salt."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 48)

"Mac Block suggests: It may be that in the final reckoning we owe butter to the nomadic peoples of the Europe-Asiatic plains.' He mentions the Mongolian technique of churning cream horizontally in a leather flask suspended above the ground, after it has been skimmed off with milk. This is the most archaic way of butter-making, still practised by the people of the Atlas. By the time invaders from Asia settled a Sumer around 3500BC, they were shaking cream in a vertically designed churn...The Celts and then the Vikings passed on a taste for butter to their descendants; they may have derived that taste partly from their origins, but also from the fact that cattle did so well in their various adoptive countries, always chosen for green pastures...The ancient Greeks and Romans did not use butter much in their cooking...Butter was not really used much in Italy until the fifteenth cnetury; in France, it features in a third of the recipes of the sixteenth century [cookbook] Livre fort excellent. The use of butter for thickening sauces, in the classic manner, was slow to infiltrate the kitchen. The influence of the example set by the Vikings and Normans when butter consumption began is obvious; in those parts of Western Europe which they later colonized...Not until the fourteenth century did the Church have anything to say about butter in its directives for fasting."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat [Barnes & Noble:New York] 1992 (p. 120-1)

"In myths of ancient cultures, butter symbolized fertility as well as purity...Myths of Hindu India attest to the purity of butter, particularly of clarified butter of ghee, a golden liquid produced by melting the butter and then removing from it the whey products that rise to the top and the salt that sinks to the bottom. To the Hindus, ghee is a sacred substance, a product of the sacred cow; in myth, ghee arose at the beginning of the world, as the gods and demons churned the ocean of milk. During the Deluge, soma..the elixir of life, had gotten submerged in this ocean, and the gods had to retrieve it to regain their strength. They used the snake deity Vasuki as a rope and Mount Mandata as a churning pole to churn the ocean until high gods and sacred objects arose from its depths, solidifying like butter from milk. Soma, the elixir of life, finally emerged...Hindu rituals today often involve the use of both fire and ghee as purifiers. Worshippers anout images of gods such as Vishnu and Krishna with ghee; they also wash them with milk, or with a mixture of milk, curd, butter, honey, and sugar. The effectiveness of this purification stems from the belief in cows themselves as purifiers...Indian cooks today frequently incorporate butter, or ghee, into recipes. It has become a cooking staple, and some pious Hindus continue to believe in its sanctity...The ancient people of Iceland also linked fire with butter: Farmers' wives traditionally appealed to Gobhin, the smith god, to watch over their butter...The Masai, a pastoral people of East Africa, consider butter an agent of belssing and use it as an ointment in all life-cycle rituals. The Masai consider milk the ultimate food and consider butter refined milk; they say that it provides sustencence and ensures growth and fertility. Tibetian pastoralists, who rely on the yak, assign special significance to yak butter as well, and Tibetan lamas spend months every year carving statues of the deities form the butter...In Ireland, Saint Brigit took over the functions of the earlier Celtic goddess Brigit, a mother goddess and guardian of cows and ewes...The goddess...also appears to have had a magic store of butter, and fed the people from its inexaustible supply."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: A Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 46-7)
[NOTE: This book contains more information than can be paraphrased here. It also contains a short list of recomended books for additional reading.]

"The first creameries (butter factories) appeared in upstate New York in the late 1850s and early 1860s...The industrialization of butter production truly took off in the last decade of the nineteenth century, promoted by the invention of the mechanical cream separator. Earlier, the size of creameries had been constrained by the time needed to wait for the cream to rise to the top of the separating vats. The mechanical cream separator allowed cream to be separated out from whole milk in a matter of minutes rather than days, and creameries could start butter production with cream rather than whole milk. Factors production of butter rose from 29 million pounds in 1879 to 627 million in 1909 to over 1 billion in 1921. With this rise, dominant brands appeared. In the nineteenth century, butter was marketed mainly in tubs and portioned out by the grocer to individual buyers. In 1898, the first packaged butter was marketed by Beatrice Creamery Company."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 143)

"Q: What is double butter, which is used in the original recipe for fettuccine Alfredo? Where can I buy it? - Pope Welch, Jackson, Ga. A: The original recipe for fettuccine Alfredo does call for three ingredients - unsalted butter, grated Parmesan cheese and fettuccine. No cream sauce or other additions. From time to time, I've seen that recipe and a reference to double butter. The American Dairy Association had no information about double butter, and several Italian chefs in Atlanta hadn't worked with it either. They said you've got to use the best unsalted butter you can find. At the restaurant level, that might be Plugra butter, unsalted butter produced in Flushing, Ohio. It's a little richer than regular butter. It has 82 percent fat, compared with 80 percent fat in regular butter. And it contains less moisture - 16.5 percent, compared with 18.5 percent - so the flavor is more concentrated. But unfortunately, Plugra isn't available at retail. Lynne Rosetto Kasper, a St. Paul, Minn., writer who has lived in Italy and written about Italian food, said although she has never seen double butter sold in Italy, that fettuccine recipe undoubtedly called for the most flavorful unsalted butter on the market. And that would depend on the dairy. Your best gauge is taste."
---"FOOD TALK Guessing the riddle of 'double butter'," Anne Byrnfood, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, December 3, 1992, Section W (p. 3)

"FETTUCCINE AL BURRO is associated in every tourist's mind with Rome, possibly because the original Alfredo succeeded in making its serving a spectacle reminiscent of grand opera. It is the same ribbon shaped egg pasta that is called tagliatelle in Bologna; but the al burro preparation is very Roman indeed in its rich simplicity. Nothing is added to the pasta except grated cheese and butter - lots of butter. The recipe calls for doppio burro, double butter, which gives it a golden color."
---Food of Italy, Waverly Root [Vintage Books: New York] 1971 (p. 86)

"After churning, the butter is further worked, and also washed in plain water, to remove as much of the buttermilk as possible and improve the texture and flavour...This also improves keeping quality, as does the addition of salt, which discourages the growth of bacteria. Butter, whether salted or not, is not a fully preserved food; indeed, it begins to deteriorate (albeit slowly) at once."
---Oxford Companion to Food,Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 117)

"Fresh or sweet butter, so often specified in our recipes, is butter that has been neither salted nor clarified butter keeps remarkably well (it is the milk solids that are so subject to turning rancid) and serves very well for frying, and is indeed then far easier to handle. For many purposes, salt butter was well washed before use to remove the salt. While it then never has quite the flavor and charm of fresh butter, it was surely in no worse condition than most of the butter we are able to buy today, which has little character to begin with and has sojourned in cold storage for months."
---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York] 1995 (p. 9)

"Butter...Most of the recipes in this book call for sweet butter--first-grade butter made from sweet cream with no added salt. Sometimes amounts vary in a single recipe...If you wonder why the lovely, plate, delicately fragrant, waxy curl on our Paris breakfast tray is so good, here is one reason."
---Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer & Marion Rombauer Becker [Bobbs-Merrill Company:Indianapolis] 1975 (p. 539)

[1875]
"10,000 lbs of Unsalted Butter, fresh from the Churn, to be sweet and free from buttermilk."
---display ad, Freeport-Journal [IL], February 24, 1875 (p. 5)

[1879]
"The liking for butter that contains a very small percentage of salt is a taste that is rapidly growing in this country, and one which dairymen would do well to cater to. Of course, as butter of this description will not bear long keeping, it must of necessity command a higher price than that which can be held to meet the demands of the market. on this account its manufacture will ordinarily be restricted to dairies that are situation within a relatively short distance of certain great centers of consumption. In this City, the demand for this species of butter, due, doubtless, to our large German and French population, is very great, but as mentioned above, the liking for this article is rapidly growing among those with whom the taste is not an inherited one. Indeed, it only needs a short sojourn in an inland town or on a farm in this country to become aware of the strong liking that exists for butter of an exceedingly salt variety. There may be not the least difficulty in obtaining butter that is fresh as regards time, but the landlady of a village boarding-house, or the wife of a farmer, cannot understand the liking that her guests have for what to her is an exceedingly insipid article of food. Another circumstance that must always add to the cost of butter with which little or not salt has been worked, is the fact that a much greater degree of care is required in its making. Salt, when plentifully used, is a notorious disguiser of imperfections, while, on the other hand, impurities can be detected in strictly unsalted butter that are not apparent in milk. For this reason the utmost cleanliness in the manufacture is necessary, and though what is known as a naturally cold hand for touching butter is often spoken of as highly desirable, it is much better to have it made in such a manner that direct contact with the hand is unnecessary. A device, which seems to have originated in Holstein, has recently been introduced into on or two of the fancy dairies in the State of Massachusetts. This is a rapidly-rotating separator, build upon the principle of a centrifugal machine in a sugar refinery. The fresh milk is poured into this, and by its rapid revolutions the cream is in a minute or two separated from the thin milk; presses are then used which squeeze out all the lactic acid that is to be found in the buttermilk. By this process unsalted butter can be made which will, by careful keeping, retain its good quality for some little time. No doubt, as the demand increases, facilities for meeting it will be found and applied, as Americans are never backward in adapting means to ends; but under the most favorable conditions, butter of this kind will probably command a price fully 50 per cent higher than that demanded for the ordinary grades."
---Editorial, New York Times, November 10, 1879 (p. 4)

"A short time since we referred to the increased use of unsalted butter in this country, and as a sequel to what was then said, it may be well to call attention to the circumstance that a process has recently been invented in England by which butter of this kind can be kept certainly for months, and possibly for years, without apparent deterioration. An experiment made proved that fresh butter when treated with this preservative could remain exposed to the action of air for three months, and at the end of that time it was hardly possible to detect the difference between it and the newly-made article. Some experts at butter-tasting, it is said, through that it lacked something of the aroma which butter fresh from the dairy possesses, and that an exceedingly slight trace of salt in it would impart to it more character. But for all practical purposes the article, at the end of three months, was as good as at the beginning, although under ordinary conditions it would have been considered unfit for eating at the end of ten days. The 'preparation,' as it is called, by the use of which this result is obtained is at present a secret. It is an odorless, tasteless, and harmless antiseptic, and has also the merit of exceeding cheapness; so much so that the quantity needed to preserve a pound of butter costs in England about half a penny. It is worked into the butter directly after churning, and then all that is required is that the manufactured article should be kept in a tolerably cool place. The change which this discovery promises to bring about can hardly fail to be an important one, as it will tend to equalized the cost of the best table butter through the entire year. Hitherto, in the Winter months, the price of even mildly salted butter has been high, for the reason that that made in the Summer for Winter consumption could only be kept pure by the admixture of a large quantity of salt. The same is true of what is known as cooking butter, which, as it is frequently made in a hurried and imperfect manner, is only checked from early putrefaction by the excessive use of saline preservative. Now, if salt is no longer necessary, butter may be good or poor, but in either case its merits or faults will not need to be disguised under a covering of salt. It is also intimated that the same preparation can be applied to the preserving of fresh meat,and if this proves to be true, its effect upon the trade and dietary customs of the world will bake the discover one of the most important of the century."
---Editorial, New York Times, November 22, 1879 (p. 4)

[1911]
"In contrast to the general taste, there has developed in the larger cities a considerable demand among the customers of high class stores for un-colored and un-salted butter--variously known as "Fresh," "Sweet" and "French." Some of the French stores of the metropolis and elsewhere have always handled this for their patrons, but the present sale to a large number of families of other nationalities and to many high class hotels and restaurants is of comparatively recent origin. The perfumed butter used in Paris is made by taking pats of "fresh" or unsalted butter and placing them on a layer of some variety of flowers, according to the perfume desired, a piece of muslin being laid between the butter and blossoms. Another layer of flowers is placed above the butter and then ice is added."
---Grocer's Encyclopedia, Artemas Ward [National Grocer:New York] 1911 (p. 90)

[1879]
"The second international dairy fair was opened in the American Institute building, December 8, with a fine display of dairy prdoucts, cattle and machinery. The exhibits included butter, cheese, dairy cattle, implements and machinery for butter and cheese making, and agricultural designs and models for creameries, cheese factories, dairy buildings and farms...Butter makers in other dairy countries have, however, made great progress in improving their product, and the average quality is much better than it was five, or even three years ago... Margarine butter, or oleomargarine as it is called here, has also assisted in bringing about this result, as it competed cussessfully with the poorer grades of ordinary butter, and obliged European butter makers to make an effort to produce a superior article."
---"The International Dairy Fair," Scientific American, December 27, 1879

[1886]
"Oleomargarine was discovered by the French chemist Mege. it was bitterly opposed in this country, especially by the American Grocer and its owners in New York, but it has so completely overcome popular prejudice that the Thurbers are now extensive owners in the manfactories of what they once abused so roundly. Laws have been passed obliging those who sell it to brand all packages plainly as olemargarine, but this has only served to show the public that it is so near an approach to butter as to need a distinguishing mark. It is made of clean, fresh fat, because it would be almost impossible and very expensive to make a creditable article out of fats which have the least taint. The Thurber establishment in New York city is said to turn out more oleomargarine than the whole State of New York does butter. Many factories now exist in all parts of the Union."
---The Grocers' Hand-Book and Directory for 1886 [The Philadelphia Grocer Publishing Co.:Philadelphia] 1882, 1886 (p. 142-143)
[NOTE: Francis B. Thurber was a wealthy New York City grocer.]

[1911]
"Oleomargarine, also called Margarine and Butterine: was invented by the French chemist, Mege Mouriez in 1871. As manufactured to-day, it is generally composed of 40% to 45% beef or Oleo oii; 20% to 25% Neutral lard (from the first rendering of the leaf fat of the hog) and 10% to 30% butter, milk or cream. Vegetable oils, such as cotton-seed oil, are sometimes added. The mixture is churnted at a room temperature above the melting point, and then chilled and salted, worked, etc., in about the same way as butter. At the solicitation of those interested in the prdouction and sale of butter, Congress passed a law, effective July 1, 1902, placing a tax of one-quarter of a cent of a pound on uncolored Oleomargarine, and a tax of ten cents a pound on the colored product. In a great many states, manufactuers are, under severe penalties, entirely forbidden the use of coloring matter. The law also requires that all Oleomargarine shall be plainly labeled, that it shall not be sold in substitution for butter, and that when used in hotels, boarding houses, etc., the fact must be made known by announcments to that effect posted where they may be readily seen. The manufactuers of Oleomargarine claim that their product is equal to the finest dairy butter in purity and nutritiveness and that in flavor it is far superior to the cheaper grades of butter. These claims are supported by many chemists and scientists."
---The Grocer's Encyclopedia, Artemas Ward [National Grocer:New York] 1911 (p. 419-420)