Khosrova - Butter: a rich history

N ORBU MARCHES UP THE STEEP SLOPE, TRYING TO catch up to his mother. The three-year-old carries a small bowl and a look of determination. His blue plastic boots slip often on the dewy turf, but he steadies himself and keeps on, his little body leaning into the tall rise of earth. The boy is headed toward a flat ridge about two hundred yards above where a small herd of yak are gathered. This is a familiar hike for Norbu; every morning he makes the ascent to claim his breakfasta bowl of warm yak milk that his mother will dispense from the animals.

By the time the boy reaches the ridge, his father, Kado, and mother, Choney, have just begun their daily two-person operation of plein air milking. Norbu knows to stand by as this familiar negotiation of man and beast unfolds. He climbs a wobbly side of the small bamboo-fenced corral surrounding a group of restless calves. Inside, his father ropes one of the young animals by the neck and leads it out a makeshift gate, pushing back other calves that crowd near the opening. Theyre hungry for the milk of the mother yaks lingering outside the fence.

But Choney takes the first share of milk. With a wooden pail hung from a rope around her neck, she aims to collect about six gallons of raw, whole milk to fill her churn for butter making this afternoon. Here in Bhutan, yak butter is a virtual currency, the gold of nomadic highland yak herders like Kado and Choney who sell or trade it for rice, tea, barley, and other bare necessities. As the number of these high-altitude herders dwindles in Bhutan, the appearance of yak butteroften bundled in thick green leaves and tied with bits of stringis increasingly rare in the towns and cities. Norbus parents can sell theirs for twice the price of cows butter made in the valleys. Locals place a premium on handmade yak butter not just because its traditional but because its considered healthier and better tasting, especially in their su ja (black tea whisked with butter and salt). Having loyal customers in the lowlands, Choneys butter is often sold even before shes churned it.

But before this precious butter can be made, let alone change hands far below in the valley, the female yak (locally called dri [pronounced dree])must first be induced to give their milk to the cause. That is the work this early morning, like countless mornings before. Mother dri dont readily cooperate with milking, even when its a routine maneuver as it is for this herd. Maternal instinct dictates that they withhold the milk in their udder for a calf. So to start the let down of milk this morning, Choney and Kado use an ancient dairy ploy: One at a time, Kado brings a calf out of the corral, prompting its mother to slowly sidle up alongside her babe. (Domesticating these massive animals is all about shepherding their offspring; yaks will never desert their young.) Kado allows the calf to suckle for a minute, which triggers the release of milk. Then he quickly pulls the young animal off the teat with his rope as Choney steps in; she briefly strokes the flank of the dria kind of preemptive milking signaland then kneels beside the udders. She wears a full-length Bhutanese kira, essentially a wrap skirt with a red fleece jacket and red wool cap; its August, but the temperature hasnt yet edged above 40F. As Choney sits on her heels, balancing the pail in her lap, she begins milking by first wiping the dris teats with a wet rag. She wraps her fingers around two teats and alternately pulls and squeezes in a fast, steady rhythm. Dual streams of milk swish into the pail.

The calf, meanwhile, strains against the rope to be with its mother, hungry for more milk. But its mom is indifferent now; she stands placidly as if being milked by Choney is somehow hypnotic. Beneath her thick horns, she gazes east at the horizon. Under a cobalt sky the rounded arcs of land covered in whiskery grass repeat endlessly, endlessly; for the yak, it represents a continuous buffet.