When Butter Doesn't Taste like Butter
A Hankerin' for the Days of Freshly Churned Butter
Really ... what is popcorn without melted butter? Lobster and crab legs are an expensive and coveted delicacy, but I don't think it would be the same without being able to slip it first into a little cup of golden, drawn butter before popping it into my mouth.
I don't know how she managed it, but even though money was tight, Mom always made sure we had butter. Potatoes were a staple for nearly every meal in our Irish/Catholic home, and I think boiled or mashed potatoes without butter was considered a sin, right up there with eating meat on Friday.
I don't think I ever tasted margarine until I left home after highschool in the mid-70s. Some say margarine is one molecule away from plastic, and back then the taste made that theory seem plausible to me. Today's margarine is much more flavorful and new forms are constantly being tinkered with to lower your fat intake, scrape your arteries of cholesterol, and probably even get rid of the bags under your eyes. No matter, there's still nothing that can replace real butter.
For a real treat, Mom would stop at Kennedy's on Elm Street and pick up a pound of butter, chopped from the larger block and wrapped in snowy-white butcher paper. That was real butter. If not Kennedy's, Land O'Lakes was the only butter to grace our table, and I carried that tradition to my own years later. No plastic tubs would fill the cupboards in my house.
What's happened to butter over the years? I'm not so brand conscious today and will pick up whatever is on sale, but none of it tastes like the butter I remember risking Mom's wrath for in my youth. I find myself adding more and more melted butter to a bowl of popcorn and still don't get the smooth, buttery taste to justify the amount of fat I just crammed into my mouth. My morning tea with toast isn't quite the same either.
Why doesn't butter taste like butter anymore? Have cows evolved that much in the last few decades? Is it because we're feeding them hormone-laden garbage instead of what God intended? Are bovines becoming stale from being locked into stanchions instead of grazing naturally? Do I have to go to California to get butter from a happy cow?
I wonder if Kennedy's is still on Elm Street.
Published by Marie Anne St. Jean - Featured Contributor in Lifestyle
A Top 1000 Content Producer for the last three years, Marie Anne is a retired U.S. Marine MSgt whose weapons of choice are now crochet hook and pen. When not writing for Yahoo! sites such as YCN! Voice... View profile
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34 Comments
Post a CommentI always use butter to make my cookies! 5*
I also have noticed a very distinctive flavor change in butter. I have two guesses(I am being serious).It could have something to do with the gulf oil clean-up or the chem-trails that are often in the sky.Please, check out the documentary movie called "What in the World Are They Spraying" by G.Edward Griffith.
you know its funny, I too grew up using only butter, and loved it, but somewhere I changed off to margerine, I do keep butter for baking cookies for my son and stuff like that though. There's nothing like the smell of melting butter in a pan to me
And oh, yeah, Land'O Lakes and Kellers were and are the only butter we'd buy.
You know, you're right! I doesn't taste the same. Our family only had butter on holidays, tho, so that's why, when I finally moved out, the first thing I bought was real butter! Oh, I cooked with margarine, but there was butter in the potatoes and on the bread.
This is wonderfully written! I accept having a certain margarine that says people can't tell the difference between it and butter (ICBINB, in case I'm not allowed to say the actual name) for my toast and potatoes, but you simply can not substitute margarine for butter in baking. Scandinavian cookies like spritz are not the same without real butter. The butter of today does seem paler in color, almost like some of the fat solids have been removed. Maybe that's what has happened? Could it be an effort to make butter "healthier" and more attractive to people who have been told to cut back on the fat in their diets? Anyway, excellent and nostalgic article.
LOL? Exactly. Land O'Lakes butter tastes rich and creamy -- grocery store butters will NEVER taste this good so step up and pay for the taste of real butter -- Land O'Lakes is the BEST!
Too funny! I have noticed this about a lot of foods--they just don't taste as good as they did when I was younger. Or is it my taste buds getting older? LOL
Glad all the cows around us are out grazing naturally!!! Great article.
Enjoyed the read!