No butter melts French
THERE can arguably be no greater threat to the French way of life than a lack of butter.
For months France has been gripped by a slow burning panic that it is running out of the golden ambrosia, which is the base of croissants and pains au chocolat as well as the whole mouth- watering panoply of French patisseries.
Supermarket shelves have been emptied of butter as shoppers worry they will have nothing to put on their breakfast tartines of toasted baguette, while worried bakers fear a “croissant crisis” as prices spiral.
“We always loved butter, but we never knew how much,” sociologist Remy Lucas, who specialises in people’s relationship with food, said.
“Now we realise how important it is in our daily lives. Obviously we can replace it nutritionally but the idea that we might be without it is really unbearable.”
French people eat more butter per capita than anyone else in the world – three times more than Americans – yet still have among the lowest obesity levels of developed countries.
Faced with mounting anxiety about having to go without butter, churn makers said inquiries from city dwellers who clearly had no access to dairy cows had soared, while a spate of YouTube videos showing people how to make butter had been viewed tens of thousands of times within days of going online.
“It’s been a long time since I did a video which took off so quickly,” said popular recipe blogger Herve Palmieri.
“The last one that went viral with a few million views was ironically about how to make a chocolate cake without butter or sugar.”
Google said internet searches on how to make butter had rocketed 925 per cent between September and October.
Wholesale prices for butter more than tripled over the past year driven by rising demand in Asia, with Chinese consumers in particular reportedly developing a weakness for flaky, butter- rich croissants.
With many French supermarkets refusing to pay higher prices because they tend to fix them annually, butter has gone abroad.
The drop in supplies has been accentuated by panic buying, with the safety net of the EU’s once enormous butter mountain no longer there, having melted away to a mere 1 per cent of its size last year.
Parisian baker Dominique Eury said he had not encountered such a shortage in the 44 years he has been manning his oven in the 17th district of the capital.
“Ten days ago I could not get the butter or cream that I needed. Until now we have got by. What is really worrying me is the holidays,” he said.
Eury said he gets through twice as much butter during Christmas.