This is a cream separator. They still make them, but the new ones don’t have near the ruggedness or durability of this vintage Montgomery Ward separator. This ingenious device was American made, and has withstood the test of time. It is still in perfect working order despite many years of hard service. I have pulled it out of retirement from a neighbor’s barn.

In short this device allows the quick, clean separation of cream and milk. It is hand cranked and easy enough for children to use–just ask anyone who grew up on a farm from the 30’s to 50’s. By using a cream separator one can achieve a very pure level of separation–the richest cream and the skimmest of milk.

We don’t often think in terms of cream these days. Skim milk is generally looked down on as tasteless, barely better than water. Yet, not that long ago, these two items formed a currency in rural America which bought education and opportunity for anyone who wanted to own a cow and apply a little elbow grease.

Back during a time when cattle and milch cows, especially, were largely fed grass, cream was really the “Fat of the Land.” From cream we get butter, sour cream, cream cheese, double cream, clotted cream, and so much more. Cream is easier to store, lasts longer and provides a richer source of nutrition than whole milk alone. Cream was separated to sell and profit by, while the skim milk was for everyday, to make lean, soft cheeses, or to feed to the pigs.

This little powerhouse of a cream separator, which once sold for around $17.50, is rated for around 225 gallons per hour. The most I have put through it so far is 18 gallons. I would have been hard pressed and sore of muscle to get anything more through in an hour. With the gears cranked up to speed and humming, the milk flowing through its series of cones and channels I was able to get a gallon and a half of cream from all that milk. With a bit more effort I turned the cream into its more stable form of currency: butter. About 5 pounds of butter. Now those of you doing the math at home are probably wondering what the fuss is about. It all sounds like an amazing amount of hard work. You would be right. But, in a world where our priorities are out of balance, where the natural order of life, work, food and living are skewed, it would seem unbalanced in itself. It took me 4 hours to milk enough to get the liquid which I ran through the separator. It then took another two hours to skim the milk, clean the machine and churn the butter. If I got 5 pounds of butter, which sells at around $7 a pound (have you ever priced “organic” butter?), I would have made $35–or at least saved that much–or earned about $5.83 per hour.¹

However, you cannot equate farming and the time spent producing food with an hourly wage. If you try to do that you will go mad. There is much more which I earned besides saving myself the $35 in butter at the store,² There is the manure from the cow for my vegetable garden. There is the buttermilk which I use in biscuts and pancakes every week. There is the skim milk which I can feed to the pigs and drink. There is the savings of not driving to the store for butter, milk, butter milk, or cream. There is also the fact that if I keep up walking back and forth to the pasture, milking the cow, carrying full pails home, cranking a manual cream separator two or three times a week, that I will never need to pay for a health club membership. And of course there is the fact that I know what is in my food, where it has come from, and how it was made. Priceless, as they say.

So the next time you reach for a pint of cream for your coffee, a pound of butter for a special cake, some buttermilk for a recipe, think about where and how that came to be on the shelf. Think about how far it travelled there and if it could be found closer. Consider if you have the desire and ability to produce such items yourself. Whether you could skim some of the fat off the land. Then give a thought to those of us who work hard behind the food products you take for granted and think about reaching out in your local area and meeting some producers for yourself. Who knows, you might make new friends, and find yourself cranking a separator of your own one of these days.

Technorati Tags: cream, butter, raw milk, cream separator, Montgomery Ward, milking, cows, farming, agriculture, food production, agrarian economy

1. We are, here, assuming that the cost of production–the cow, the feed, the equipment–is negligible, which they aren’t but dang close. [↩]
2. Ben Franklin’s adage echoes in my head every time I milk or crank the separator: “A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned” [↩]