The "mother" concept of starters is a bit of a myth. The ambient bacteria wherever you live, eventually overpowers whatever you have started with. This is true of any starter - be it yogurt or sourdough. So your starter will eventually have a population of the local bacteria. Having said that, we do make yogurt in our Instant Pot and it is way better than any store bought yogurt.
1
I use my Instant Pot and let it sit 14 hours. What I wouldn't give for some south Asian starter, though! My starter came from the tangiest plain yogurt I could find at TJ's, which has been discontinued. Mine is tangy, but I'd like to try it tangier, I'd love it super sour.
My mother would occasionally drink a glass of buttermilk, and I like that, too. I enjoyed making kefir, bc it's makes itself right in the fridge, but my husband doesn't enjoy it as much as yogurt. I still have grains in the freezer. The IP is ideal for me because I can leave the yogurt overnight and production doesn't monopolize the oven.
"The yogurt sits in an unheated oven with the light on for a few hours until it sets, then he puts it in the refrigerator to chill."
This method works fine in warmer climates. In colder or even cooler areas of the country like where I live it is a non starter (no pun here :)
I used to use a dedicated yoghurt maker, can be bought online for $20 that kept it at a constant 110 degrees F and for the last few years I use the Instantpot with a Yoghurt setting for six hours.
I use the Yogourmet starter and have experimented with other starters from culturesforhealth and other online stores. Reusing a few teaspoons from the previous batch of yoghurt can keep it going for a few years. People borrow from each other when the yoghurt becomes a bit watery, here we just use a new starter pack.
The Bulgarian starters are closest to the South Indian version of the youghurt, IMO.
I bought a dried starter culture and used a small amount for each batch of yogurt. The problem with making a successive batch from the previous one was that the two varieties of bacteria (lactobacillis bulgaricus and lactobacillis acidophilus) became unbalanced with each iteration from the original starter so that no two batches tasted the same or even similarly
How do the South Asian cooks handle this variation? Or, do they?
I was never successful making yogurt until I got an "instapot" with a yoghurt function - I couldn't hold the temperature correctly. But with the pot, it couldn't be simpler, and we're rewarded by the best tasting yogurt we've ever had.
I make both cow and goat yogurt. It helps to use the best milk you can find!
For the cow, I use equal parts whole milk and heavy cream and let it ferment for a full 24 hours. For goat, I skip the cream and let it too ferment for 24 hours. This is Chef Jeremy Umansky's recipe - from "Larder" in Cleveland.
It's great.
I've tried a couple of times making yogurt with raw cow's milk which for some reason was not very good. The flavor was good, but the texture was not. No clue why. Any thoughts?
2
I have experimented with many different methods to produce yogurt, from Instapot, crockpots, insulated coolers, and blanket wraps. The easiest, cleanest, and quickest I have settled on is using a portable electric proofing drawer. Consistent results with very little effort or calculation.
When my grandmother's family came to New York from Germany in 1866, they seem to have brought their yogurt culture with them. I was told that to do this a handkerchief was boiled, dried, placed in the yogurt. Then the handkerchief was again dried, carefully folded, and wrapped in waterproofed material. This was packed with the family possessions. Once in New York, the handkerchief was placed in prepared milk, and the culture restarted the family yogurt. But long before I was born the family had stopped using yogurt.
7
Love this article. I started making yogurt because I couldn't find any in the store that was sour enough. It seems all of America is into sweet (or neutral) yogurt. I incubate it in a pyrex bowl under a down quilt for 24 hours. I do find that my refrigerated starter mutates over the course of a few months, gets a white fuzz on it, so I haven't been able to "age" it. Helpful hints welcome!
3
@Lily Propogate your starter from batch to batch. Save a bit from Batch #N to make Batch #N+1 and so on. You can always freeze some. To use later just let it thaw out and it will do the job as your starter.
3
@Lily, Lily, I am Armenian and first generation American. We always made our own yogurt and I still do. You don't save the same starter. You use that starter but keep yogurt from the new batch for your starter next time. You never eat all of the yogurt. Pull out about 1/3 cup and put it aside in the refrigerator. Then eat all the rest of it.
I used to make perfect yogurt with my oven that had a pilot light. Now ovens do not have pilot lights so I do the "blanket method" and it works fine. For more sour yogurt don't refrigerate it immediately. Let it sit at room temp for another 12 hours or so then put it in the refrigerator to thicken up.
5
@Alice Kacherian Trent
Correct! There is no separate starter to be maintained like you might do for making Sourdough Bread. You use the yogurt from your current batch of yogurt as the culture to make the next batch of yogurt and so on. Thus always a good idea to put a small amount aside just so that it is not accidentally consumed!
2
I would absolutely love to have a starter from my Finnish grandmother's viili .... a true childhood memory. Viili tastes like yogurt but is sort of stretchy-- Finns say you can buy it by the yard. Very easy to make --- just a large spoonful from the starter, mix with milk, and leave it on the kitchen counter overnight.
3
@JM Good to see another heroic viili-an. See the other comment, so far, mine, on viili:
https://nyti.ms/2EDvLKJ#permid=30805847
I loved this article! I have made yogurt for years, and alternate with buying Straus yogurt which is local and organic. On a trip to Philadelphia I discovered the most delicious yogurt, Seven Stars, and I duct taped and bubble-wrapped a container to bring home with me to San Francisco so that I could use it to make the same yogurt. Although I was using Straus full fat milk, the taste and texture of the resulting product was very close to the original. However, last week, my boyfriend uncharacteristically decided to turn on the oven to make something and did not notice the 3 glass-lok containers of yogurt incubating there by the pilot light. When I got home, the smell of burning plastic from the lids was noxious. But worse were the 3 plastic lids that were now fused to the baby yogurt. C'est dommage! Auwe! The whole mess was thrown away, and now I must wait until my April trip to Philadelphia to secure more of the delicious culture from Seven Stars.
8
@artlife Thank you for letting us know about Seven Stars- I will be going to Philly shortly for my daughter's seminar and you can bet I am going to get some back to Cincinnati.
1
I loved this story. I’ve heard of immigrants drying their starter to a powder and transporting it to their new home in that manner. It demonstrates how fundamental yogurt is to so many cultures. If you’d like to dive deeper, please check out my cookbook, Yogurt: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
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@Bottles and others, here is my family way for Thayirsaadam (South Indian yogurt rice).
Cook 1 cup of long or medium grain white rice.
Turn the rice out into a large glass or metal bowl. When cool a little, add about 1 tsp (or to taste) salt, and mash the rice thoroughly, using your clean hand or the back of a ladle.
Add 2 C or yogurt or buttermilk + 1 C water. Mix and mash thoroughly. As this mixture sits, the rice will absorb the moisture and get dry and firm. Add a little warm water or milk to loosen.
It's important that the final texture be thoroughly mashed and rather loose and wet. A mistake that people often make is to make it too dry and tight in the beginning.
Then, in a tadka pan or a tiny skillet:
warm 2 tbsp cooking oil (eg peanut, or untoasted Indian sesame oil - NOT the darn aromatic Chinese kind).
Add 1 pinch of hing (online or Indian store)
1 tsp of black mustard seeds. These will start sputtering. Turn the heat very low.
Add 2 dry red chillies, broken in half
Add 10-12 fresh curry leaves (murraya koenigii), pinched in half to release the flavour compounds.
Fry these for about 30 seconds.
Dump this spiced oil into the yogurt rice and mix well.
You can use 1/2 inch ginger finely grated + 1-2 hot green chilli sliced into rings, instead of the dry red chilli.
Serve room temperature, with South Indian mango or lime pickle, and/or dry potato curry or similar dish. Or even just plain. For us, it's a universal elixir and a lunchbox staple. Ahhhh ....
3
@S - I do not get it that the rice has to be mashed - it actually makes the whole thing very homogenous and without any character. Give me unmashed rice any day !
What this is missing are diced cucumber and grated carrot tossed in. Yum. Great for picnics.
@Sanjay;
Totally Yes to the diced cucumber and grated carrots.
Another option: handful of pomegranate arils.
This story resonates with me. I came to the US as a graduate student and every time my mother visited me from India, she would try and make homemade yogurt using store brands, but they were always slimey and too tart. I don't know the origin of the culture that i'm using now, it probably came from an aunt who has been making her own yogurt since the 70s...but it is worth the effort every night, after my kids are asleep, to boil the milk, wait until it hits that sweet spot of warm but not too hot, and add the previous day's yogurt, and gently slip it into a warmed-up oven to set for the night. My daughters are American, but they can tell when the yogurt is 'made by amma' :). Thats a wonderful feeling.
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@RP
This made me smile. In my house it is always "Appa's Thayir".
I am proud of my Yogurt strain and it has been going on for 12+ years. Making it every few days is a ritual for me that I am quite proud of. Not even my mom or mother-in-law will be ceded that privilege when they visit from India :)
3
Though not of South Asian heritage, the ease and pleasure of making yogurt at home utilizing the constant temperature of a foolproof multicooker devise is my jam these days. Customized to my preferred thickness and pucker, homemade yogurt, with just made granola and fresh fruit is way better than anything bought at a box store. Fermented food rocks!
4
I don't know any Indians who use their own culture over and over again. In fact, it gets more sour with age and needs to be replaced with a fresh culture periodically.
4
In connection with a book I am writing called Yoghurt: A Global History, for Reaktion books in the UK, I have done extensive research on this ancient superfood. It has a remarkable history and has touched people from every corner of the globe. I started making my own yoghurt at home, sometimes using the oven light method and more recently in an Instantpot. It is so satisfying waking up in the morning to find a fresh batch of yoghurt that my grandchildren and entire family enjoy every week. I too save my culture to inoculate my next batch and find that continuity very comforting. As a Jewish cookbook author, connecting with one's heritage and preserving food memory is vital, I give so much respect to those who covet their starter cultures as that is very much a part of keeping their broader culture alive.
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@June Hersh
Dear June I think it is a bit much to equate the broader culture to a starter culture of yoghurt. At the same time I would make the point that just as the taste of a good yoghurt should be balanced , so should our world view be.
1
@bananur raksas She did not "equate" the cultures, but stated that the one (dairy) culture supports expression of the second. I agree.
1
There is probably a bit of myth involved in these tales of ancestral yogurt cultures. If you think about it, how likely is it that no microbes that these cultures encounter after a certain point will become part of them? We don't live in laboratory or even industrial conditions, and what makes a home-brewed culture (fairly) stable is probably a preponderance of certain microbes in a symbiotic relationship. Over time, you can expect that new microbes will nudge aside some of the existing ones.
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@William Wescott
It’s 100% that phenomenon of immigrants giving themselves extra points for being “different”, I think because the west promotes the “exotic”, and you can always play to that hunger of white people to be seen awarding points for foreignness.
Nothing exotic about yogurt, and I’ve made it at home using pavel’s yogurt. It’s indistinguishable from any 100-year old ancestral thingie. Also indistinguishable from any other hyper “authentic” goo from a distant granny. What is this? The difficulty of assimilation? Stop exoticizing immigration!
3
@William Wescott It's more complex then that; the whole point of starter is that the bacteria are acid-tolerant and secrete acid that prevents bacteria in the air from colonizing the yogurt. So the population of bacteria that can survive in the starter remains relatively stable throughout time. Additionally, the starters that many of the these families use are very different from commercial yogurts. I've done a few microbiology studies (for fun) comparing my Indian friend's yogurts to commercial yogurt brands. Without a doubt, the homemade yogurt contains a much more diverse and complex group of bacteria (although in that sample I also identified EHEC -- which can cause diarrhea -- so there's a reason why commercial yogurts use starters that come from pure cultures).
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@NH
You seem sour like spoiled yogurt! Why? :)
I am as Americanized as any Indian can be and yet enjoy my yogurt routine. I don't think it is anything special or exotic but just a connection to bygone does.
One can assimilate to one'e new milieu and still retain fondness towards older things separated temporally and geographically. They need not be mutually exclusive.
10
Several years ago I made yogurt. In 2012, my son an Organic Chemist told me a lot about the benefits of kefir (kee-fur, or kehf-ur). My first batch was my first taste of kefir. It was strangely good, creamy, zesty with little bubbles. Kefir took less time than yogurt to make, and it does all alone. Humbly spoken, I am an expert on the nuances of kefir culture, the "how to" as kefir brews itself into perfection. Store bought kefir should be organic, made with whole milk only, like yogurt.
We inherited these probiotic cultures from goat shepherds thousands of years ago, making the culture a precious heirloom.
We share probiotic cultures as an offer to the very goodness of life. When you give culture away you say: "it's a commitment, stay with it."
And so it goes.
Kefir is a fermented probiotic dairy product. My dog and I have kefir every day. One of us licks the bowl. Kefir is said to be tolerated well by those with lactose issues. Kefir tastes a bit like yogurt with a twist of buttermilk. It has fizz and once you are addicted..total satisfaction.
I blame my excellent health on having kefir., and at 71, I am a believer.
12
My wife has been making yogurt at home for 45 years. It's inexpensive, healthy, and always available. However, most of the ladies from India don't do it anymore. I don't know any young families, including my children's', that make yogurt at home this great old fashioned way. They are into healthy food and diets but ignore perfectly good traditions.
5
A lovely article that made me want to try South Asian yoghurt. I’ve only had the commercial Greek variety, and now realize I’ve been missing something special.
The stories about preserving the culture for years reminded me of a story about sourdough mothers that had survived for maybe a hundred years. And I fondly remember making Friendship Bread from a plastic bag of starter I received as a Christmas present, then passing along baggies of spawned by the process to my daughter and two friends. (I think this was a variety of Amish Bread, and would love a good recipe so I could do this again!)
These wonderful traditions remind us of how we pass our the best of our cultures (in both senses of the word) from one generation to the next.
6
I've tried the other varieties mentioned in the comments but honest to goodness the very best yogurt in the US is from a Georgia dairy that let's their cows roam outside. Try "Dreaming Cow" brand plain yogurt. Unfortunately they stopped distributing in Colorado but next time I see it I'll grab some and use it as a starter batch.
4
Indeed, an excellent article.
I am spending my fourth winter in Mumbai where I was born some 70 years ago.
My mother hardly had any money but this article did bring back memories of her "curds". And I remember her serving us just curds and sugar as a dessert.
Now, in Mumbai - hardly anyone I know makes curds at home - the store bought yogurt has as many varieites as we find them in America.
Even today, after my cook has cooked up some spicy food - I reach for yogurt - there is nothing like it.
Having lived in other parts if the world - yogurt is truly universal.
One thing I wish this author had mentioned. It is far easier to digest yogurt than milk - which most Indians have difficulty with.
And lack of refrigeration forced Indians into yogurt as it continues to this day. In villages, yogurt is kept in red clay pots wrapped with jute cloth - always kept wet. And they are always hung on a wire - perhaps to keep away from rodents and others
I am surprised that the author did not take us to the next step of yogurt
The buttermilk or lassi as it is called here. I remember my mother making buttermilk by hand with a wooden stirrer that sometimes we were impressed into doing. It comes with salt or sugar. I prefer the salt version.
In Mumbai now - even buttermilk is available in stores which was never the case in earlier times.
Road side vendors still serve lassi during summer months - especially in Mumbai along it's beaches called "chowpatty".
8
This article gave me food for thought.
Has anyone noticed genetic mutations of bacteria in the cultures kept over several human generations? Such mutations were likely to occur. If yes, has the taste of yogurt changed, and how does one select the original culture's strain, to preserve the taste forever?
4
Not just an Indian phenomenon. My grandmother brought yogurt culture over from Bulgaria in 1914, and kept it going for many decades. It eventually died out. She visited Bulgaria again in 1966 and returned with more yogurt culture. She made it every week in a blue bowl, and I loved the tangy taste of Bulgarian yogurt.
10
This is a very good article; change names and it could be any South Asian household. Yogurt is highly priced especially in vegetarian households. The author fails to mention that Western flavored yogurts can have animal-based gelatin, that one could inadvertently consume.
2
Married to a South Indian, I became hooked on homemade yogurt (curds) while living in India. Our daughter's comfort food is rice and curds with pickle. Now back in the US, it took me a while to figure out what I needed was an heirloom culture. Luckily it is possible to buy them. We've been using a Bulgarian heirloom culture for 7 years now and it's great. Check out: https://www.culturesforhealth.com/ and make sure to look for the heirloom cultures as they sell both. Not exactly the same as my mother-in-law's, but pretty close and FAR better than store bought. I will never go back to store bought yogurt, ever!
3
@RF Thank you, RF!!! I had researched making kombucha and bought the starter from CFH. I have given so many of those starters away! So I bought the Bulgarian one and can hardly wait. I think a commenter at CFH gave a great adaptation for the 7 jar makers, and I have one. I will love not buying more yogurt in plastic containers!
Ten years ago Harold McGee graced these pages with his yogurt wisdom. I've followed his advice a gallon at a time since then. Thank you for the cultural update on cultures. Now I'd like to try some regional variations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15curi.html
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Re: "This yogurt tasted alive."
I had to smile. Because back before cell phones and t.v., when i lived in the small village of Kanadukathan, in Tamil Nadu, in 1977, I used to joke that the Yogurt, or as they call it in Indian English, "Curd" and in Tamil , Thayeer, was so full of bacteria you could put your ear over the stainless steel tumbler and listen to it.
One of the hardest things at first living in Tamil Nadu was getting used to just how powerfully sour the curd was.
And after boiling the very watery milk that i bought at the "milk depot" at 5 am, (which was actually a little empty yard where a middleman set up a table with a large pot in which was emptied all the farmer's small vessels of milk after testing with a small device to ensure the water content was below some minimum, after which he sold the milk for a profit to everyone else without their own cow or goat) it was so hot by 9 a.m. that the curd would set within an hour or two at most.
It was this yogurt that i then made into buttermilk, lassi in Hindi and Mohru in Tamil, with mustard seed, cumin, curry leaf, ginger, hing, and salt, and then distributed it for free to the local poor kids, who lined up outside our gate promptly at 6.30 a.m. Some of whom drank it right away for breakfast, but the poorer ones saved it to have with their lunches rich in red and green chilli. This was either a Tamil custom, or a Nattukottai Chettiar custom, to distribute mohru to the poor. Beats paying fair wages....
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@eyton shalom
Just made what my husband calls chambaram (keral iyer terminology), the neer mohru you described. Used a small amount of kefir diluted with a lot of water, added salt, hing etc. Water can cause digestive distress because it is a tropical country and contamination is common. However, butter milk/lassi/mohru is acceptable to drink because it has the beneficial bacteria counteract the effect of harmful ones. Orthodox Tamilians would not drink water at the homes of people they do not know but will accept mohru, particularly while traveling. Distributing the mohru free to all is a social courtesy. fill a large pot with that mohru, leave a large spoon in and keep a tumbler (with rim) next to it on the front veranda, any passerby is welcome to stop and have a drink. The rim on the tumbler allows one to drink without the rim touching the lip - so the next person can use the same tumbler.
6
@Jana thank you Jana. i think in those days orthodox Tamil Brahmins would not take food or drink at any lower caste home or restaurant.
And It IS a lovely social courtesy the distribution of mohru free to all, and as with most charity, the person giving gets much more than the person receiving.
I just noticed that in KKN, where a construction laborer worked all day for 8 rupees if male, and 3 if female, at a time when one kg of rice was 2.5 rupees, (their lunches were often a huge amount of rice with some pickle on the side and maybe some kind of fish curry, that the idea of poor feeding, annually on a death anniversary, or daily, which is what the free mohru looked like in KKN, seemed like something to assuage the conscience of wealthy folk that could in fact have paid their workers and servants a living wage.
Once, visiting my pious Hindu friend in Karaikkudi , S. Pasupathi, i cut the crust off of some bread, and he gave it to his workers to eat. What does that tell you about their wages?
It not just India, obviously, we have the same problem in USA with the decline of unions, and the legitimization of blind greed post Reagan that's reached its acme, inshallah, under our Fake President
1
As the story goes, when my grandmother came to this country from Lebanon in 1914, rumor has it, thinking there was no Laban, "yogurt" in America, put a little starter in her apron and let it dry and reconstituted it when she got here. They made theirs with goats milk for many years until the milk was not available. Like the authors story, she would add the starter to the milk when she could put her little finger in it for 10 seconds., stir together, put a lid on the pot, cover with a heavy towel until cooled and refrigerate. It was heavenly. She would also take a quart or two, strain it overnight until it was the consistency of cream cheese which we called Labne, and use it for a spread.. I've told this story many times and the article confirms these rumors for me. Thank you.
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It's the way I feel about my kefir. Each morning it is a delight to strain the kefir through a sieve, fill two small glasses with fresh kefir for breakfast, and stir a heaping tablespoon of remaining kefir grains into a fresh glass of milk. What I like about kefir is that the grains work at room temperature, so there is no need to keep the milk warm. The glass of fresh milk with kefir grains transforms magically into thick kefir by the next morning, and it is so much better than any store bought kefir.
https://wp.me/p44c6k-4Wu
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Think about it. The yogurt culture (types of bacteria) colonize the intestines. Gut bacteria affect behavior, according to recent research. That means, when you continue to use the heirloom culture, your gut has almost the same bacteria as your great grandmother's. Perhaps you will function with as much wisdom as she did.
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"My boyfriend broke up with me? Have some yoghurt."
Brilliant! As is this warm, wonderful article about preserving and passing along a family's (literal) culture.
2
Homemade starter cultures for fermented milk are, of course, a worldwide staple - as we of the Finnish-American diaspora, whether "Yoopers" from the "U.P." (Michigan's Upper Peninsula) or from northern Minnesota. Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, northern Massachusetts, et al, can attest.
I refer, of course, to viili, the half-stretchy, half-creamy Finnish yogurt-analog whose starter cultures, sometimes passed along in reused pill bottles, first came my way via my paternal grandmother c. 1998. One of my fellow booksellers at Borders Books and Music in South Portland, Maine at the time was Rick Hautala (1949-2013), a noted writer of horror fiction - and fellow Finnish-American.
When Rick heard that I was about to take a vacation in the U.P., he mentioned viili and noted that at family gatherings over the years his relatives seeking a starter had whispered among themselves like junkies seeking a clandestine fix.
So when I returned from my trip with the desired culture, he actually, in our store's break room, bowed down before me in reverent gratitude as though I were a tribal chieftain (or a fierce giant out of the Finnish folk-epic the Kalevala?).
Some months later after faithful replication of his starter, he was overcome by ancestral tragedy, as his daily batch, left perhaps too long before renewal, had turned watery and inert, and emailed me: "I've lost my Finnish culture."
Those lacking relevant relatives will find the internet chockablock with viili vendors.
3
Thank you Priya Krishna, for this article. I forwarded it to my parents, who have been making yogurt from a culture brought from India, for as long as I can remember. My mom has reverted to making her own paneer too, after a few years of using store-bought. I resisted learning these tricks for so long, but now I am appreciative of the chance to perpetuate the traditions. Now I am craving some lemon rice with dahi!
2
In my diplomatic career, we made yoghurt while living in Tehran. We used a culture I had obtained from sheep's milk yoghurt from a family in Isfahan. It tasted great. Very tangy. We loved making "mast o khiar" with chopped walnuts - a yoghurt and cucumber "soup" topped with the walnuts. A wonderful summer time cooler.
When we moved to India, to Bombay (Mumbai), we had to make yoghurt using powdered milk and the best powdered milk was Foremost. In fact, it was the only milk reconstituted using boiled and filtered water (we could not use water from the tap) that would "take" a culture and make a bowl of tangy yoghurt. We did not trust the local milk and were never sure it had been tuberculin tested. So, we became used to making our own. Like many Indians, we used it as a cooling complement to the spicy food our cook prepared. It could go with almost anything, and it was so healthy. Our children grew up eating it.
We had to be very careful not to put too big a dollop of "starter" in the bowl of warmed milk because otherwise it would not convert all of the milk to semi-solid yoghurt and we would get a runny mess. Today, we enjoy "Greek" yoghurt and also kefir that we drink at meals. It is, by the way, a great ant-acid if one feels "heartburn" coming on. And yoghurt and kefir help settle upset stomachs.
2
What was very touching about this article is how Western South-Asians pass on traditional cuisine to their children. In my own household, I am the cook in the house and have made a lot of traditional meals for my kids. My kids, initially, did not take well to my curries and preferred pastas and pizza. But I must have made an impression on them because now that they are all on their own, they have created a book of my recipes and regularly cook and ask advice about the dishes I made when they were kids. Thanks for the yogurt recipe.
17
Whenever I've tried making yogurt using my previous batch as a starter it always ends up thinner, and within 3-4 batches the entire batch tastes 'off' - even if I'm making it once a week. Does the culture need 'nurturing' in some way between batches?
1
@San Francisco Reader Remember these three tips, 1st and foremost use whole milk (preferably cow or buffalo milk and not goat or soyamilk) 2nd boil the whole milk prior and let it cool to room tempt (27 degrees C) and then add a spoonful of culture and mix it thoroughly. Lastly, if possible buy an porous clay pot from some Indian Grocery Store and let the milk and the culture curd, in it, in some cool place (18 to 22 degree C) The interplay of temperature and cool is the magic.
3
@San Francisco Reader - It is my understanding that the heirloom cultures described in this article have a stable culture of bacteria and that they can be used for generations without loss or alteration of the culture (provided they are regularly refreshed in a new batch of yogurt). Commercial yogurts do not generally have stable cultures - they become less and less viable over the course of a few batches. If you are using a commercial yogurt as your starter, that is probably why you are seeing a loss of efficacy. I use commercial yogurt for my starter and I find that I can use some of my old batch to start a new batch once or twice, but then I have to buy a fresh cup of yogurt.
If you're interested, a company called Cultures for Health sells heirloom yogurt starters, but none of the South Asian variety. Personally, I would really like to get my hands on some of these South Asian heirlooms.
9
@Neel You don't answer SFR's questions about keeping the culture going over several generations. I've been making my own yogurt for about 30 years, and can reliably get to the 4th generation using starter from the previous batch. Then I resort to store-bought culture for the next four batches; I don't want to chance wasting a half-gallon of organic milk on a 5th generation, which has happened in the past.
So how DO these families keep their cultures going for years? Is it like feeding a sourdough starter, or brandied fruit??
4
Pour the yogurt into a cheese cloth over a salad bowl (maybe using a strainer as support), let it rest for a couple of hours, and you have a deliciously thick “Greek yogurt”.
You can use the whey that has collected in the salad bowl as a replacement for water if you’re making your own bread, to get a rich and buttery loaf. Or for various ferments if that’s your thing.
1
Such a warm and loving story. I think any recipe that is shared and handed down from one generation to the next is a beautiful and rewarding ritual.
My mother's mother died when she was only 11 years old and she was the only girl in a family of 8 boys plus their cold and mean father. So, my mother didn't really have any kitchen or food treasures from her mom. But she created her own as she got older and passed them on to me. I have so many rich and meaningful memories of my mother teaching me and showing me how to do certain things in the kitchen, i.e., pie crusts, bread from scratch, even making her horrible chocolate fudge from scratch (that always resembled and tasted like wet sand). I still use her beat up old red Betty Crocker cookbook.
Time spent and shared in the kitchen with a loved one is always an investment in memory making. This practice of handing down family treasures and secrets go back more years than anyone can remember.
Even though I detest yogurt (never could cultivate a taste for the stuff) this article was fantastic. I learned a great deal and wish these family members many years of blissful yogurt making from scratch. Such a cool tradition.
Maybe these loving family ties and homemade yogurt is a key reason why people who eat the stuff live for 110+ years or longer . . . just a thought.
13
Thank you for this story. I am struggling to bring back my father’s yogurt culture - we were out of town for ten days and it lost its potency. Any tips for stimulating bacterial growth? It works easily enough in the lab for even frozen cultures but not as well for me at home.
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@Sushirrito
Add the frozen culture to lukewarm milk an keep it in oven with lights on for a couple of days. It did the trick for me. The first batch will not be good but you can use the culture from the first batch and second batch will be as good as the original one.
Hope it works for you.
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I don't make it on my own, but Fage is my go to! Why? It just tastes better than the others! Additionally, they are generous! No other producer gives us 7 ounces in their small cup!
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@Counter Measures Fage is a whole other animal from south asian yogurt. Greek yogurt is thick and dense whereas the South Asian cultures are creamy, light and smooth. The closest I've found in a US version is Brown Cow Whole milk yogurt. If you are lucky enough have an Indian grocery store in town see if you can get your hands on a tub of Desi brand yogurt. It is mind blowing different from Fage or Dannon or Chobani.
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@Diana Thanks! Don't understand Chobani's popularity! It's incredibly sour to my palate!
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Now you can buy as good Indian desert as made at home. Try Nanak's Desi ( Homestyle ) plain Indian yogurt. Very good.
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Last time I was in India, I happened to help my mom make her daily batch of yogurt. When I asked her how much culture I should add to the warm milk, she asked me to smell the milk first. Smelled milky. "Now add a little starter and stir well. Then smell the milk again", she said. I did and it still smelled milky. "That means you need more starter. Add a little more and stir it and repeat until it smells slightly sour." I've been cooking regularly for 20 years, including making my own yogurt at times and I had not known that you could smell the sourness from ~ a tablespoon of yogurt in a 12 ounces of warm milk. Mind blown! Thanks, mom!
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I love yogurt and I love making yogurt. Yogurt is truly one of the world's great foods. Out of convenience, I usually base my yogurts on a commercial starter (I find the Noosa brand produces a nicely sour yogurt with a creamy mouth feel), but I would sincerely like to try some of these South Asian heirloom yogurt cultures.
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The plain Noosa is just the best yogurt in the market now, full fat and tangy.
@Perry Brown. Hope you can find it. I can't describe it in words but the mouth feel of the traditional Indian culture is distinctly different than the one from store. I've made yogurt from both. The store one tastes a little more slimy to me, the traditional Indian one is just fresher & has more of a body.
Lovely, lovely piece! As a SouthAsian/South Indian, I would've loved to see a nod to that staple of South Indian diets - curd rice or thayir saadam (in Tamil)!
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@GS
I completely agree. This article is totally North-centric. It talked about India's diverse food culture referencing only 2 adjacent regions (Gujarat and Sindh). Not a word about South India. For us Southies, yogurt is a staple, no meal is complete without yogurt-rice. We also have so many yogurt-based dishes, similar to raita and kadhi, and more (pun intended).
And kadhi is made from spiced buttermilk or dilute yogurt stabilized with chickpea flour, not just spiced chickpea flour, as described in the article. That is an unfortunate error in an otherwise interesting article.
I have also heard of ladies dipping the ends of sari pallus or dupattas into yogurt, letting it dry, taking the flight to the US or UK, and then reconstituting the starter here.
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@GS
Agreed. But I would ask that these pieces remain inclusive of North AND South. Too often we read false binaries/narratives dividing the shared cultures of the subcontinent into ideological territories. Glad to read about the migration, resilience, adaptation of various families. More, please.
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@S Would love to get a good thayir saadam recipe. I tried Padma Lakshmi's but was a bit disappointed.
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Whenever we travel, we make sure to put some small batches in the freezer hoping some culture survives. It is agonizing to lose a culture. It takes many iterations and permutations to get it back and sometimes it is lost for good.
This is more peculiar to South Indian Tamil Brahmins and I suspect the author is one.
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One thing people from all walks of life, parts of the world, languages, cultures, races and religion can agree upon is - good food
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Armenians love their yogurt, too. I cannot remember a time when there were fewer than two quarts in our fridge. Our grandma's freshly made yogurt, a weekly production from a perpetual starter, was sweet first. Over a few days it grew tarter. She had a collection of old sweaters to wrap around the warm bottles, judging everything by feel and experience.
Yogurt is not pudding! Nor should it have that consistency. While fresh toppings, ie: fruit, are nice, it's the savory end of the spectrum we enjoy most: a cool counterpoint to rich warm bulghur pilaf, the basis for thick peppermint soup, a topping on stuffed peppers and eggplant, diluted over ice for a summer cooler with just about any shish kebab. Yum, yum and yum! There is only one commercial brand, Erivan, that tastes like Mama's.
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Peppermint soup? Sounds delish! Would you share the recipe or refer me to a source? Many thanks, Bess.
If you like homemade yogurt, I highly recommend homemade milk kefir. It's the milk of your choice, and milk kefir grains. Let it set in a warm spot for up to 24 hours to ferment, strain out the kefir grains, and enjoy. Tastes like a very tart greek yogurt, and is full of probiotics. It's a bit thinner than yogurt. I add honey, and berries to mine.
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@K.P., Canadian yogourmet makes freeze dried yogurt culture which is a powder starter culture. It is amazing. Tastes consistently fantastic and of made well takes just 4 hours to set.
http://www.yogourmet.com/ca-en/yogurt-starter-culture
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@K.P. have been making that for about three years now and I wouldn't be without it. sometimes leave it for 48 hours, gets more tart and yeasty.
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I’m a south-Asian. Never heard of anyone carrying yogurt culture around. Butanyway, I always thought the major difference was between bhens-ka-dood, or buffalo milk, which is what we had, and cow’s milk, which we did not. That’s the kind of thing that makes you feel things never quite taste the same here.
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@NH It may depend on when you immigrated here. These days, stores - including regular grocery stores - carry lots of "good enough" options. I am a fan of Strauss whole milk yogurt. 20 years ago, the commercial options were few and far between and generally unappetizing. Gelatin based yogurts are a no-no. When I was growing up, there was a vibrant trade in yogurt starters among family friends. the starters can vary quite a bit too. Some set in a few others, while others take longer. Some can set in oven light temperatures, while others require closer to 85 degrees. Some taste sweet while others are more sour. So it was not uncommon to cycle through several starters before landing on the best one for our pallet.
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@NH If you are South Asian from South of India you would know. I am just joking but we from the South always never thought South Asia is one region. There is a South of South Asia and there is a North of South Asia. In the South of South Asia yogurt rules. We still have our grandmother's culture and by the way it must be the same Lactobaccillus living in our guts. Yes buffalo milk does change the flavor but just so much. It is your grandmother's culture and you grow up with it. And they grow with you - they being the yogurt culture (lactobacillus)
Two kinds of culture here. The culture of making the yogurt and traditions and the bacterial culture. One must realize that the composition of the bacterial culture is changing with each iteration depending on the place, starter's composition, the biome in the location.
So the bacterial culture is changing and adapting along with our human culture.
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I had no idea that many store based yogurts have gelatin, and that gelatin is animal based. Had to switch over to homemade starters some twenty five years ago!
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Yes. I know a few instances of this yogurt culture travelling long distances - sometimes across international borders it's not supposed to.
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@DM
"Not supposed to" - all living creature have been moving bacteria around since beginning of life. As far as lactobacillus family of bugs go, they are in the air all around us. Just a little more concentrated in the yogurt. You can open a bunch of probiotic pills into warm milk, leave the lid open and your yogurt conversion process has started.
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@Burning in Tx
I agree with you. The US Customs at the airports most likely would not.
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I recently learned the *joy* of making my own yogurt using the handy-dandy Instant Pot. It follows basically the same method described in the article, and is surprisingly easy. I start it (the boil, cool down, and mix in starter) before bed, let it ferment overnight in the instant pot and then refrigerate it the next morning. By the time I get home from work, I have sheer deliciousness. I love saving a few tablespoons to start the next batch, and hope to continue my own mini-tradition using my own yogurt culture for years to come.
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@JerseyFresh
try leaving the lid open for a little while. that will allow the biome in the area to interact with the milk/yogurt process. Then you would have your own version.
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I appreciate this recipe and will try it perhaps this weekend. I have been eating yogurt for breakfast since the days Dannon advertised the product using, I think they were Russian farmers, who Dannon claimed lived into their 90's because they ate yogurt everyday. Back then, as I recall there was no non-fat yogurt like there is today. I have always tried to eat whole milk yogurt and no sugars but today it's so difficult to find whole milk product the idea of making my own is very appealing.
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Even more Indian is a collection of empty clean Dannon plastic containers in which leftovers are packed away. Every Indian party ends with taking leftovers home in one of these tubs. For my family, not having yogurt was somewhat of a crisis. I try to make my own but it’s hard in Chicago winters to get it to set.
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@Pb I actually caved in and bought a yogurt maker ( check Amazon) for that same reason. It's about $50 ( I think there are cheaper versions though).If you have an instant pot, it has a yogurt feature as well but the yogurt maker is cheaper if you don't need to use the instant pot for anything else.
Works quite well. Now I've asked my mum to bring a milk double boiler from India.
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@Pb
Set your oven to Warm mode or the lowest temperature setting. Start the milk warming and cooling process. Add the culture. Wrap the container in cotton towels - important. Turn off the oven. Stick in the container and wait 8-10 hours. This has worked for me any my family in ID, WA, CA, PA and eventually TX.
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@Pb I use a VitaClay Organic Slow Cooker and Yogurt Maker available on Amazon. It has a ceramic insert. I just make the yogurt in it and keep the clay pot with yogurt in the fridge and serve from that. Also got a Bulgarian heirloom culture from https://www.culturesforhealth.com/ It's served me well for 7 years and the VitaClay is more reliable than the oven I find.
Ms. Krishna's is a remarkable story of preserving yogurt cultures across generations. May the yogurt-at-home-makers persevere in their efforts and put to shame the industrial giants of yogurt production.
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@Tuvw Xyz
Exceptional comment. I agree completely.
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