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History

Elaine Khosrova traces the invention of butter back to Neolithic-era Africa 8,000 B.C in her book. A later Sumerian tablet, dating to approximately 2,500 B.C., describes the butter making process, from the milking of cattle, while contemporary Sumerian tablets identify butter as a ritual offering.

In the Mediterranean climate, unclarified butter spoils quickly, unlike cheese, so it is not a practical method of preserving the nutrients of milk. The ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to have considered butter a food fit more for the northern barbarians. A play by the Greek comic poet Anaxandrides refers to Thracians as boutyrophagoi, "butter-eaters". In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder calls butter "the most delicate of food among barbarous nations" and goes on to describe its medicinal properties. Later, the physician Galen also described butter as a medicinal agent only.