About

Butterworld began at a flea market in New Jersey, with a single unexpected discovery. I came across an intriguing piece of equipment that caught my eye. When I asked the vendor what it was, he told me it was a butter churn. Something about it fascinated me—I bought it on the spot.

That first churn sparked a curiosity I couldn’t ignore. I started visiting more flea markets across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, hunting for dairy artifacts. Eventually, my search took me as far west as Indiana, where I found rare and unusual butter churns and other relics of the dairy world. One by one, my collection began to grow—old cream separators, butter molds, hand tools, even vintage wrappers and crates. Before long, my garage was overflowing. My wife—who isn’t exactly fond of dusty antiques—gave me the nudge I needed to rent an external storage unit to house my ever-growing collection.

The idea of curating a collection like this was planted in my mind years earlier by my teacher, David Winston. Around 2012, I had the rare opportunity to visit his home and see what was then the world’s largest private collection of books and artifacts on medicinal herbs. His dedication left a lasting impression on me. It inspired me to imagine my own world of preserved history, centered around butter and dairy.

One day, a New York Times bestselling author reached out. She was writing a book on the history and culture of butter and wanted to see my collection. I warned her it was all packed in boxes in a dark storage unit, but she insisted. I picked her up from the train station and gave her a tour—just me, her, and a flashlight among the artifacts. She was enthralled, took many photos, and ended up crediting several pages in her book to what she saw that day. Butter: A Rich History, Paperback – October 17, 2017, by Elaine Khosrova.

Today, Butterworld is a growing exhibition of 17th to 20th-century dairy artifacts from around the world. With over 200 antiques, the collection includes cream separators, butter churns, molds, stamps, prints, dairy books, posters, invoices, raw milk and cream bottles, hydrogenated shortening tins, and beautiful wooden crates and wrappers.

Butterworld is more than just a collection. It’s a tribute to a forgotten era of food history, where churning butter really did make hearts flutter.