Pomazánkové máslo (literally: "spread butter") is a traditional Czech and Slovak dairy product. It is a

spread Spread may refer to: Places * Spread, West Virginia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Spread'' (film), a 2009 film. * ''$pread'', a quarterly magazine by and for sex workers * "Spread", a song by OutKast from their 2003 album ''Speakerboxxx/T ...

made from

sour cream Sour cream (in North American English, Australian English and New Zealand English) or soured cream (British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, ...

milk powder Powdered milk, also called milk powder, dried milk, or dry milk, is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and do ...

and

buttermilk Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most m ...

powder. It also contains starch, salt and usually herb or similar flavoring. The Czech food regulator (Státní potravinářská inspekce) requires the ''pomazánkové máslo'' must consist of at least 31%

milk fat Butterfat or milkfat is the fatty portion of milk. Milk and cream are often sold according to the amount of butterfat they contain. Composition Butterfat is mainly composed of triglycerides. Each triglyceride contains three fatty acids. Butt ...

and 42%

milk solid Powdered milk, also called milk powder, dried milk, or dry milk, is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and do ...

s. Milk fat cannot be replaced by

vegetable fat Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fa ...

. Popular flavors include herbs ( parsley,

basil Basil (, ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' , also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" refers to the variety also k ...

, oregano,

marjoram Marjoram (; ''Origanum majorana'') is a cold-sensitive perennial herb or undershrub with sweet pine and citrus flavours. In some Middle Eastern countries, marjoram is synonymous with oregano, and there the names sweet marjoram and knotted marj ...

, and

chives Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae that produces edible leaves and flowers. Their close relatives include the common onions, garlic, shallot, leek, scallion, and ...

), garlic,

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term "ham ...

, bell pepper and

horseradish Horseradish (''Armoracia rusticana'', syn. ''Cochlearia armoracia'') is a perennial plant of the family Brassicaceae (which also includes mustard, wasabi, broccoli, cabbage, and radish). It is a root vegetable, cultivated and used worldwi ...

. The ''pomazánkové máslo'' was first made in a dairy located in Liberec in 1977. Annual Czech production is over 8,000 tons. Major producers are Madeta and Choceňská mlékárna.

European Union regulation A regulation is a legal act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into nation ...

has forbidden the ''pomazánkové máslo'' label because it contains the word "máslo" (butter). According to European regulations, only products containing more than 39% of milkfat can be called butter. The Slovak Republic accepted this decision immediately, whereas the Czech Republic did so after several court hearings. In Slovakia, the new names for the product became "smotanová nátierka" (cream spread) and "roztierateľný tuk" (spreadable fat), while a Czech name wasn't initially established due to the hearings - however dairies announced that they would call their product "máslová pomazánka" (buttery spread) or "máslový krém" (buttery cream). Nevertheless, at the beginning of 2013, the

Ministry of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...

announced that the product would be named to just "tradiční pomazánkové" (literally: "traditional spreadable"), simply dropping the word "máslo" from the end of the product's name, and by the end of 2014, the new name had become widely adopted.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pomazankove maslo Czech cuisine Fermented dairy products