Farmer Jack Conway found the ancient butter ball on June 1, about 16 feet deep in the bog, and said that the strange discovery left his hands smelling just like normal butter. After doing some research, he determined that he had found “bog butter.”
— Cavan County Council (@cavancoco) June 10, 2016
In this case, experts speculate that Conway’s find may have been an offering to the gods, as it was not inside of a wooden container, as other finds of the same material have been.
“It’s very noteworthy,” Savina Donohoe, curator of the Cavan County Museum, told Fox News of Conway’s find. “Butter, a long time ago, was very valuable – it was seen as a luxury.”
In 2014, Irish celebrity chef Kevin Thornton ate a sample of 4,000-year-old bog butter. He was so intrigued that he buried some of his own butter in a bog to go back for later.
“I was really excited about it. We tasted it. There’s fermentation but it’s not fermentation because it’s gone way beyond that. Then you get this taste coming down or right up through your nose,” Thornton posted.
“Because it’s a historical thing and you can’t really take it, I decided to bury some myself. It’s coming to a slate near you.”
