He Collects Kitchen Tools He Used to Hate

He Collects Kitchen Tools He Used to Hate AG WORLD Ag World 14-4-19 Traditionally, children have enjoyed Saturdays because they didn't have to attend school. Not Bill Maloney. He hated Saturdays because he had to help his mother chum butter. Bill grew up to be a farm implement dealer in Avon, Ill., but he didn't limit his wheeling and dealing to machinery. Years ago, he decided collecting churns was a "butter" idea than using them, and he has focused on the cream of the crop. He owns churns made of tin, pine, granite, glass, stoneware, marble, porcelain, spongeware and many other materials. Dasher churns are well-known, but Bill also has a pump churn, a cylinder churn, a churn operated by a foot pedal, a swing churn, and a treadmill chum. The latter was powered by a dog or a sheep walking on a treadwell. Bill's collection contains a rectangular shaker churn, a cube-shaped churn and a barrel chum. One churn holds 15 gal. of cream, and another is the size of a quart jar. "My favorite is a blue porcelain churn 100 years old," Bill says. It's the oldest churn in his collection. Although butter churns date back to the 15th century, buttermaking did not become popular in America until almost 300 years later. The first recorded use of butter churns in the U.S. was in 1644. The first cows had been imported 20 years earlier, but they were used mainly for milk. When Americans did begin making butter, they churned it at home. They used homemadechurns, too, and as aresult, these early churns vary in design and size. The plunger churn is one of the earliest types. Made like a barrel with staves and hoops, plunger churns also were called "broomstick churns" because the plunger resembled a broomstick. Attached to the bottom of the plunger were four paddles with holes for churning the butter. A simple tin churn, called a "piggy", because of its shape, hung on a hook from the ceiling or wall and could be swung back and forth until the cream turned to butter. The pump churn operated by pumping the handle up and down, and the barrel churn was simply a mounted barrel turned by a handle at one end. Wood chums were the most popular, and oak was a preferred wood because it would not give the butter a bitter taste or strange smell. Churns came in all shapes - round, square, cylindrical, cube, diamond and others, and they ranged in size from 3 pints to 60 gal. The smaller churns could be operated on a tabletop or in the lap. During the latter part of the 19th century, churns were made in factories. Eventually motors powered the churns. After butter production moved out of the home, churns and other tools associated with buttermilking became collectibles. But there's one thing Bill doesn't do - chum butter. He'd rather spend his Saturdays looking for additions to his collection. After all, another churn may be just down the road a ways. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bill Maloney, Avon, Ill. 61415 (ph 309 465-3184).

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