Butter: Silky Smooth
Spread on bread or added to dishes, butter is making a comeback.
Some foods were never meant to be liked. The lima beans of the world, the powdered coffee creamers, those black-bean-lentil cakes that call themselves burgers, all born into sad-sackery. Me, though, I am a superstar, a talented actor with celebrity charisma. I’m the one people gravitate to at the dinner party. The smooth one who inspires superlative idioms and gets featured in dramatically lit portraits on Time magazine.
So why am I slogging it out with other fats just to stay relevant? When you’ve needed something silky and spreadable to moisten your bread, I’ve been there. When you’ve hankered for creamy sauces, I’ve melted myself right into them. And yet you’ve forsaken me. Butter consumption declined during the 20th century, mainly because of the rising popularity of margarine, which, until recent years, was perceived as being healthier.
Take that Time cover. That was actually a good moment for me. It was captioned ‘Eat Butter’, which I loved. I had survived the low-fat craze of the ’80s and ’90s, had endured margarine’s half century in the sun, celebrating when she finally got locked away in health gaol. Butter was back, the article said. But as soon as it hit newsstands, Harvard University nutritionists and other wonks were so eager to tear me down again. They recommended ‘moderation’ and reasserted
that that sanctimonious chump extra virgin olive oil was healthier than me.
I’m telling you, you should audition me again. I’m from the cream skimmed off milk. Does it get any better than that? Cream contains tiny fat globules that f loat around ignoring one another. Yet when you shake, beat or churn them enough, amazing things happen. Fi rst you incorporate air, whisking up whipped cream; churn longer and the fat globules start sticking together until blobs of golden dairy fat are floating in watery milk – buttermilk. Drain, wash, give it a knead or two, add some salt and ta-dah!: me!
Among cooking fats, my genius dominates for a reason – I alone am an emulsion of fat, water and milk solids. Being so emulsified might sound like meaningless nonsense, but this is wildly important. Every other fat you cook with is pretty much just fat. But if you’ve dipped lobster in melted butter, you know I contain multitudes: I’m the white foam on top (sugar and proteins), the cloudy liquid at the bottom (water), and the clear yellow stuff in between (ghee).
It’s the way I shape-shift among these parts that makes me so good. I’m solid and firm when cold, so you can layer me into puff pastry; when baked, I melt, leaving behind tender and flaky layers. I can be softened at room temperature just enough to be creamed with sugar, trapping air for the lightest biscuit dough.
By melting me very carefully to maintain my emulsified state, chefs made me the foundation of sunny hollandaise and herbal béarnaise and just about every other classic sauce with body but no greasiness. I’ve always known when to act subtly. My ghee, unlike my easy-toscorch milk solids, has a high smoke point and is frying-friendly, so I’m the cooking fat in India.
In Europe, I first was peasant fare, as the rich were well-larded with poultry and pork fat. But when medieval Catholics OK’d me for meatless Lent, I got a toehold in the upper-class diet.
But then Emperor Napoléon III ran low on butter for his troops and put out a call for someone to approximate my sublime flavour and texture. Some idiot flavoured milk with beef tallow (ew), and a long line of poor imitations followed. Later, scientists altered vegetable oils to hydrogenate them, making them spreadable. Yes, margarine pushed itself onstage. Butter rationing during World War II helped margarine, too, especially when the government allowed producers to add yellow colouring to its unappetising pale grey shades.
Read the headlines today and you’d think I’d made a comeback, but my saturated fat continues to be a controversial in the face of healthier options like the monounsaturated fats in hohum olive oil. But live a little, would ya? I’m butter, baby!