(New) A Ritual Special Project, Mainly Involving Butter

After more than a year of silence on here, we would like to use this blog to introduce the first of our special projects. We have decided to use some of our resources to "incubate" (though we do shudder to use the word for non-egg-related contexts) the development of artisanal, high-quality products suitable for our shelves, and for all shelves clamoring for such things.

We wish to do this by supporting a team of farmers, small producers, and chefs who are happy to develop things from very basic beginnings.We've been around and seen the potential of our land and its produce, but it's gonna take more than our collective efforts as a company.

Our first such project is loosely called "The Butter Project", which we are doing together with chef Jordy Navarra of Black Sheep. The goal is to produce a local butter from pastured (grass-fed) bovines, without artificial colorants and preservatives, beyond food-processor-DIY standards, and something to replace the margarine plaguing our fair islands. Eventually, we hope.

Jordy at a farm together with an actual, partially-black sheep.

Jordy is a talented young man who has put massive effort into bringing Filipino produce into a contemporary dining setting. Black Sheep's signature dish, the Bahay Kubo, actually showcases all the vegetables from the song "Bahay Kubo", which actually gives a rollcall of humble, diversified Filipino garden-farm species. He also bravely serves things that are quite risky because of local diner perception. We applaud him for that, and for many things.

Two prototype butters, for tasting.

Furthermore, his restaurant uses massive amounts of butter (he was one of  those who was really interested during our first butter production runs), so he knows what a good butter tastes like, acts like, behaves like. Last month, we embarked on our first trip with Jordy to Negros Oriental to see the milking process, pasturing process, separation process, and all other processes necessary to get butter.

And the results with one visit were astounding (wait til the coming weeks for even more progress!). After a few days, there was already a secret trick or two developed by Jordy, who donned lab equipment and went where no ordinary person could go (into the dairy lab). His getup and the off-limits nature of the operation left us no choice but to dub the operation "Breaking Butter". Obviously, no meth synthesis was involved. The experience and education was very encouraging for the people running the dairy as well, who were stuck on the confounding question of "Why does ritual want us to make weird-tasting butter?".

A butter tasting at the dairy processing plant. Everyone's first taste of cultured butter.

Tomorrow, we are unveiling the raw cow's milk butter, aged butter (which tastes of a blue-veined cheese), and raw carabao milk butter at Yummy Eats 2014. Come by for a free sample. Remember, these are works in progress. But we feel the quality is getting closer to some of the nicest European butters. Your support will help push us further along to creating the most perfect butter a tropical island can produce.