Butter of Corfu

I am one of the lucky ones who has tasted butter of Corfu. The original stuff, wrapped in paper and encased in a light paper box. With the light distinctive sour taste that resembles cheese spread or yogurt, full in buttery flavour. Recently, I tried to purchase this renounced Greek product in order to make some “kourambiedes”, only to find out that every product sold, was named as “Corfu Type” and not “Corfu butter”. So, as i was writing about butter in general, I tried to find out what has happened and this honest, flavourful butter is off the market

What is Butter of Corfu

First of all we have to make clear that butter of Corfu is one of the most known butter of Greece. It was produced from cows milk and buttermilk using the churning technique after the raw material was fermented. From this fermentation process, comes the slight sour distinctive taste that Corfu Butter has. Although, butter of Corfu is a fermented butter, the one thing that gives its full flavour body is the cow’s diet. Corfu’s flaura, due to the excess humidity and warm climate, consists of a variety of herbs and other plants like chamomile, hyacinth, orchids etc.

So why nowadays we only find Corfu Type Butter

There is a simple reason about that. The factory that produced this famous Greek product, shut down in 1994. Since then the word “type” is written in all products made in the same way as butter of Corfu. The question that rises is that since the same recipe and procedure is used to make this product, why do we still have “type” on the product name? And that is a really good question.

If we want to answer that question, we have to analyse the whole production procedure in order to understand the exact reason that, although modern factories use the exact same production method of fermenting the milk and churning, it is not the same product. Corfu’s cows were fed with the plants that were grown on the island. That means, that both the milk and the cow’s meat, were “flavoured” by all those wonderful herbs and plants. This diet, combined with Corfu’s micro-climate that allowed the fermentation process naturally gave to this butter its distinctive flavour. Basically, it is the first product of its kind that had all the qualification of being certified as a Protected Designation of Origin product but never got this certification.