
For South Asian Cooks, Yogurt Starter Is an Heirloom - mykowebhn
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/dining/homemade-yogurt-starter-south-asia.html
======
pradn
My family came to the US like 20 years ago and I can't remember a day when we
didn't have yogurt. Whenever my family goes on a long trip, we have to do two
things: get a neighbor to water the houseplants, and get a yogurt culture when
we come back. In South India, it's traditionally eaten with rice as the last
course of a proper meal. It's the perfect antidote to hot curries and pickles
that come in the main part of the meal, so a meal isn't complete without it.

Young children usually start off eating solid food with a mix of rice and
yogurt.

In rural areas, families make yogurt with their own cows and buffaloes and
might pick a particular one for yogurt because taste varies between milk
produced by different animals.

Going to relatives' places you'd notice two differences in their cooking: the
way they made their chai (brand of tea, how much sugar, cardamom or not) and
the texture and tanginess of their yogurt.

~~~
delibes
More anecdotal cross-cultural fun stuff... I have some Lebanese friends and
noticed that their children seem to start eating labneh (somewhere between
thick yoghurt and soft cheese) very early.

Also the Armenian word for cheese is 'paneer'.

People across the world can share a lot in common if they want :)

~~~
davchana
Paneer is also exact word for home made cheese in Punjabi language. Not a new
one.

~~~
danans
Both usages are borrowed from the Persian language

~~~
elsonrodriguez
Of note is that Persian, Armenian, and Punjabi (along with English) are all a
part of the same language family: Indo-European.

The cross-pollination of words between the members of the family always amuses
me.

~~~
twic
Given which, i wonder what the root of "paneer" is in Proto-Indo-European, as
it doesn't seem very similar to "cheese". I looked it up, and didn't find a
good answer. I did find a few other things, though.

Apparently "cheese"/"Käse"/etc is from a word something like "kwat", meaning
"to turn sour". I would guess that Russian "kvass" is from the same root,
BICBW.

Russian and other Slavonic languages have "syr", from a Proto-Indo-European
word cognate with "sour". I have no idea what the difference between syr-sour
and kwat-sour is.

The romance "fromage"/"formaggio" is from a root meaning "formed", because
southern European cheeses are made in moulds or something (except in Spain and
Portugal!). I always assumed this was connected with the fact that southern
European cheeses are more likely to be soft than in northern Europe, but
that's conjecture. If so, the etymology tells you that soft, formed cheeses
came after hard cheeses, and largely displaced them.

Anyway there's more here:

[https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-
cheese.ht...](https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/etymology/say-cheese.html)

~~~
danans
It's not a definitive etymology, but there is this Sanskrit (therefore Indo-
Iranian) term which may be related:

payasya पयस्य mfn. (-स्यः-स्या-स्यं) 1 Made from milk, (curds, butter, cheese,
&c.)

itself derived from the word "payas" which means "water or milk". It's a
possible connection to the "pa" part of the Persian word "paneer", at least.

[https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-
koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014...](https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-
koeln.de/scans/WILScan/2014/web/webtc/servepdf.php?page=502)

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yogurtforyou
Making (and eating!) yogurt is one of the simplest and most satisfying
pleasures in the kitchen.

1\. Heat milk to 180 degrees (F)

2\. Let the milk cool to 108-112 degrees (F)

3\. Add starter*

4\. Divide into jars and cover with lids

5\. Leave your jars someplace warm...in a lightly warmed oven in the
winter...on the counter in the summer

I like mine tart...so I'll leave it out for 24 hours. But generally if you
leave it overnight, you'll have delicious yogurt in the morning.

*If you don't have access to someone with yogurt to borrow starter, you can get a starter powder in the store. The first generation won't have much flavor. But you can re-use a few spoons of your homemade yogurt as the starter moving forward. Each generation will successively develop great flavor.

~~~
alexhutcheson
If you have an Instant Pot (or maybe another electric pressure cooker), it has
a "yogurt" setting that automates steps 1, 2, and 5. It will heat your milk,
alert you to when to add the starter, and hold the temperature in the desired
range for as long as you want. If you're lazy like me, you can skip the jars
and just make the yogurt directly in the stainless steel inner pot.

~~~
shostack
Any issues you've encountered or considerations? I've been looking for an
excuse to test this in mine but haven't yet.

~~~
alexhutcheson
If you regularly cook savory foods in your Instant Pot, then the O-ring might
have picked up the scent/flavor of that food. The first batch of yogurt I made
had a faint "taco meat" taste for that reason.

Vinegar, lemon juice, etc. didn't work to get the smell out of the O-ring, so
I ended up just buying another, which I use exclusively when making yogurt.
Alternatively, you might be able to just take the O-ring off when making
yogurt, since you don't actually need it to be sealed, but I haven't tried
this.

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AdmiralAsshat
I haven't yet seen an explanation on whether there's any perceptible advantage
to a particularly well-aged starter, or if it's just an emotional connection.
Does yogurt made from a 25 year-old starter actually _taste_ better? Does it
taste any different from a month-old starter from the same region? Or is it
just the idea of having an uninterrupted line of culture going back to one's
homeland that makes it enjoyable?

I don't dismiss that there could be something to it--I've been making no-knead
bread for about six months now, and I usually leave a little bit of the
previous dough to mix in with the new batch, because it gives it a slightly
fermented, sourdough-like quality. But I'm only testing no-fermentation versus
slight fermentation, so it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison with
month-old culture versus decade-old culture. Considering how many other things
controlled by bacteria tend to get better with age, I could certainly see it
happening: I'd just want to see some hard (or even anecdotal) evidence.

~~~
Kalium
It's not likely to taste better because it's older. It _is_ more likely to
yield a more consistent flavor that can't be readily acquired from elsewhere.

Over long periods, this kind of tradition can yield unique flavors in yeasts.
You can see the results of this in the many different yeasts used to make
beer.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
That was sort of what I was trying to figure out--whether it's appreciably
better, or if the family eating the same strain of yogurt for 25 years has
simply become accustomed to that particular taste.

~~~
NegativeLatency
"Better" is subjective. It's better if you like it better.

Is Blue better than Green? To some: yes, to others: no

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delibes
Part-Armenian. My relatives told a story that when their grand-parents went to
the USA, they soaked some cotton fabric such as handkerchiefs in yoghurt, let
it dry, and then just packed it in with other clothes. On arrival they then
rehydrated to have their culture.

~~~
delinka
That's brilliant. I didn't know the bacteria could survive drying and
rehydration.

~~~
GauntletWizard
I'm going to guess that you've never baked your own bread, then, because most
bread yeast comes in a dry form and requires you to add water to it before
adding to your recipe.

On that subject, bake your own bread! It's simple enough to do, and you can
get all the ingredients and a bread pan for $20. It's one of the best kinds of
science experiment: one where you get a delicious treat at the end. Well worth
doing in your lifetime.

~~~
retzkek
> bake your own bread!

It really is incredibly easy to bake your own bread, and everything about it,
from the smell, to the texture, to the taste, is just wonderful! I think a
common reason people don't is because of the time commitment, but the secret
is to break it up into several days, and keep the dough in the fridge/freezer.
_The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day_ really changed my perspective on
bread baking, and now we always have fresh bread. Even if I'm not eating it
(probable gluten sensitivity and mainly low-carb adherent) I enjoy making it
for my wife as much as she enjoys eating it!

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xerxex
I am an Iranian (Technically West Asian) and I can totally relate to this
article!

What I find challenging in yogurt making g is to keep the yogurt culture from
drifting and in its original state. After a while my culture becomes more
acidic and less thick. I think its due to other local bacteria invading my
culture, which I try to keep pure by sanitizing anything that comes in contact
with it. I find it surprising that it is not an issue for most people in the
article.

~~~
em-bee
as i memtioned elsewhere, i found that freezing keeps my starter fresh.

~~~
xerxex
Thanks for the tip, I will try that!

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selimthegrim
This explains in part why one of the Hari Kondabolu-inspired jibes against
Bobby Jindal on Twitter punched above its seeming weight - “Bobby Jindal is so
white he actual(ly) has yogurt in his yogurt containers” - ie, he hadn’t eaten
it all or used it for starter and wasn’t using the remaining empty containers
for storing leftovers like 99.9999% of South Asian Americans I know.

Viz. the following comment on the article -
[https://nyti.ms/2tI0PCZ#permid=30800352](https://nyti.ms/2tI0PCZ#permid=30800352)

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Yetanfou
Those who read Michener's "Centennial" might remember this person in there who
carried a sourdough starter on his body on his trek to the Klondike and
started some form of business based on it there. I read it just out of primary
school (about 40 years ago) so I don't quite remember the details but the
practice of keeping the starter for some fermentation process alive over a
longer period of time is known and practised all over the world.

~~~
liquidwax
That's Centennial? I thought I read that in Alaska

~~~
Yetanfou
Very much possible that I mixed up the two, I read both around that time...

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morningmoon
You can also make yogurt with cashew, coconut, or soy “milk” as well. Try it
sometime! I don’t eat dairy and have really come to love homemade soy yogurt
or “yofu” :)

~~~
em-bee
that's interesting. i wonder how that tastes compared to milk yoghurt.

~~~
Aromasin
Soya yoghurt is definitely more similar to dairy yoghurt than soya milk is to
dairy milk. The underlying tastes are only subtly different, in a way a merlot
grape wine might be different to a cabernet grape.

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calvinbhai
This certainly is true, even for me :)

I'm using a culture that was brought into the US even before I was born!

Best way to sustain the culture especially during long trips, is to have
friends / family nearby who will do the needful and keep the culture fine
(make new yoghurt) while I'm out traveling. I didn't realize this was big
outside of south India.

Good to see that people from other countries do it often too.

ps: Why does NYT hesitate to say India/Pakistan, instead of lumping them into
one generic "South Asian"? I hesitate to say "South Indian" because that's
generalizing 8+ languages, 4+ scripts and a few hundred cultures, cuisines and
arts.

Hope the North American media learns to not be lazy ;)

~~~
Cursuviam
I don't understand your ps. Are you saying they should or shouldn't use the
term South Asian?

~~~
calvinbhai
I prefer they don't.

It generalizes the people/region way too much, and selectively.

Good/Positive stories refer to the region in a generalized way, while the
negative ones can get really specific, even though it is prevalent in more
than one country.

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ofcrpls
I think the Cooks title is selling it short. This article spurred a huge
discussion on my twitter timeline where most families have it going for at
least half a century.

~~~
j45
The history of the diasporic yogurt cultures would understandably be shorter,
and the article too, is written from a diasporic perspective.

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ultrasounder
Yogurt also apparently is Rich in probiotics! I never ever goto bed without
having a cup of Yogurt. Disclaimer I am a South Indian and Yogurt/ buttermilk
is THE staple diet for a lot of us. We make use of Buttermilk in a lot of
various dishes prominent of which is the _Morkozhumbu_. You got to eat it to
believe it. Ethereal.

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AltmousGadfly
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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gauravjain13
I don’t even read articles posted on HN anymore; just the comments. That’s
where the action is.

