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• Butter has enjoyed a long history all over the world, from Middle Age Parisians being denied the coloration of butter (in the case of it not being yellow enough) to American Pioneers multi-tasking by making butter by allowing the motion of the wagons to churn milk as they traveled. In fact, by WWII butter was so popular that there were shortages due in part by the Army’s consumption of over 200 million pounds a year!
• Butter is often seen as an indulgence. Supposedly the Butter Tower of Rouen, for example, was built from money paid by parishioners in exchange for being able to eat butter during Lent.
• Beware the butter! From Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: “Before the deceased body of a Parsi is removed from the house, the forehead is smeared with clarified butter or ghee, and the dogs of the house are admitted. If the dog or dogs lick the butter, it is a good omen; if not, it signifies perdition.”
• Margarine is not the only butter-pretender – Witches Butter is the common name for a certain familiar-looking fungus that grows on trees, and Bog Butter, found in Northern Ireland, is a buried (and sometimes forgotten) variety of the stuff to preserved to enhance natural flavors.
• Speaking of butter-imposters of course brings us to Margarine. Emperor Napoleon III offered a prize to anyone who could come up with a butter substitute. The winner was Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, a French chemist, who created oleomargarine, a combination of clarified beef fat, water, and a bit of tributyrin (a milk fat) – yum!
• The love-affair was short-lived, however. In 1886 Grover Cleveland signed the Margarine Act, a tax on oleofats. In the early 20th century margarine was defined as a harmful drug
thanks to the powerful butter lobby, with five states going so far as to dye margarine pink so there would be no confusion. And of course Julia Child famously noted on her television cooking show, “If you’re afraid of butter, as many people are nowadays, just put in cream!”
• No matter how you feel about margarine, take the Mental Floss quiz and see how you fare with these fabulous facts.
• Butter can also be used as art, like in these beautiful highly detailed Tibetan Butter Sculptures and also in creations by the Butter Cow Lady who, yes, made life-size cows from butter as well as a curious butter sculpture of The Last Supper.
***
So how do you Flossers indulge with butter? Margarine versus Butter? And has anyone ever made it themselves? Do tell!
Hungry for more? Venture into the Dietribes archive.
‘Dietribes’ appears every other Wednesday. Food photos taken by Johanna Beyenbach. You might remember that name from our post about her colorful diet.
Comments (13)
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Much like cheese, I feel that almost everything can be improved with butter.
I wonder why I’m lovably plump…
Great article, Allison! For fun, you should check out this site:
bunsofbutter.com/50Factslyrics.html
posted by Josh on 5-20-2009 at 9:47 am
Just use butter. At least it’s food. Just don’t use a pound of it a day!
posted by Samantha on 5-20-2009 at 10:15 am
Butter all the way. While it may not be the healthiest thing on the face of the earth, at least it’s a natural product and you know what you’re getting. Margarine is just too “unknown.”
And, yes, everything tastes better with butter!
posted by Rachel on 5-20-2009 at 10:26 am
Butter…yummmm!
Butter may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but at least it’s a natural product and you know what’s in it. Which cannot be said of (gag) margarine.
posted by Rachel on 5-20-2009 at 10:42 am
I’d love to see a column about English muffins!
posted by Sarah in CA on 5-20-2009 at 11:51 am
My sister is lactose intolerant–and, since I eat the same things as she does most of the time, we use a brand of faux-butter called “earth balance” that’s really made from vegetable oils.
earth balance tastes miraculously like butter. I think some chemistry students at Cornell invented it, or something. If you’re looking for a delicious substitute, try it!
posted by beam on 5-20-2009 at 12:06 pm
home made butter is one of the easiest things to make, if you have a stand mixer. Just pour heavy cream in to the bowl and using the whisk attachment, beat until butter forms. So much better then store bought stuff and wonderful on fresh baked bread.
posted by Gayle on 5-20-2009 at 12:42 pm
I will not eat magerine but I wanted something a little easier on the hips than regular butter. I found a light spreadable butter that is real butter but mixed with a lower calorie oil (canola I think) so all you taste is butter. I love it.
posted by Lisa H on 5-20-2009 at 3:47 pm
Yeah butter cow! The Iowa State Fair has had a full sized cow sculpted from butter for nearly 100 years. The butter cow lady retired a year or two ago, but the tradition lives on. Besides cows, other celebrities (especially those from or somehow connected to Iowa) are sculpted. Last year there was a sculpture of Shawn Johnson of Olympic gymnastics fame.
posted by SDK on 5-20-2009 at 4:29 pm
I agree with beam – I found out I was allergic to milk in my 20s and now I eat Earth Balance – best thing there is if you can’t have butter.
veg
posted by vegebrarian on 5-20-2009 at 5:23 pm
I love butter. We make our own bread at home and there’s no better snack then a slice of it with butter. I’ll have to make some tomorrow because that sounds good!
posted by Tricia on 5-20-2009 at 5:50 pm
Lisa H – There is no lower-calorie oil – if your spread has fewer calories than butter, it’s because a non-oil liquid has been added or it’s been pumped up with air. Plus, butter itself isn’t all oil; there is some water emulsified in with it.
posted by me on 5-21-2009 at 12:05 am
butter! :) We use a butter that is mixed with olive oil. Sparingly, of course.
posted by dawn on 5-24-2009 at 6:52 am