At long last, butter worthy of the name

It’s the fat content that makes all the difference, Tom Lozar says.

Where we came from, food was rationed. But the Communists had just given back my uncle’s notarial licence, so my aunt, the notary’s secretary, took payments in chickens, eggs, vegetables and butter. Grateful country folk always found a way.

The butter, which came from Flower, a cow I knew personally, was wonderful. I thought about Flower and her butter often in Canada, which welcomed us with open arms and terrible butter from anonymous cows in 1954. The butter stayed awful for 63 years, until quite recently.

In 1954, the butter was so bad we thought we had mistranslated. We couldn’t believe it was butter. And it was salted. Eventually, I found out it was awful by fiat. Legislation said something, some thing, was butter if it had 80 per cent butterfat. As Flower could have told you — “Moo?!,” to translate from the Slovenian — good butter cannot be made with that lowly percentage. Cannabis was an election issue recently, but butter, with minimum butterfat at 82 per cent, never has been. What an unserious country we are.

Or were. For this past summer was butter’s summer. I, an old Canadian now, was standing on Aug. 19, 2017, at 10:37 a.m. in front of the dairy display in the IGA in Knowlton. I was smirking at the fancy containers and fancier names for the soi-disant butter, with all manner of “nutritional” information, except the essential. How much butterfat to nourish the soul? We must assume it was all the default 80 per cent.

Then, luckily, my immigrant’s smirk still permitted me to espy a tub of butter from Chagnon, a dairy in Waterloo, Que., which proudly, though also shyly, announced in a small but bold font that it was made with 84 per cent butterfat. I naturally noted the time of the historic discovery and I went home and tasted it. It was wonderful, almost Flower’s. That extra four per cent did it.

Now, though it was a churner, yearning, who made the wonderful butter, more butterfat is an easy trick. I give greater credit to the front office in Waterloo. They knew there was a flotilla of real butter lurking in Canadian waters now that the free trade agreement with Europe had been signed. It was just waiting to come ashore. With that butter, Canadian butter could not compete. The seemingly miraculous butter from Haute-Yamaska in the Eastern Townships was merely Economics 101.

And then one day in a dairy case, I saw what appeared to be Président butter. Butter connoisseurs will know the garish package. The wily topic sentence on the package explained to the unknowing that Président is “France’s No. 1 branded butter.” I knew that. So why, if French, is it so relatively cheap, I asked. And was told in the next sentence that this butter was actually only “inspired” by Président butter and was “replicating ” it. The name was simply bought. The butter, a knock-off. Yet, although its packaging was so shamefaced, the butter was a knockout. At last, Canada can make proper butter, but is ashamed after all these years to call it Canadian.

But these are revolutionary times. The other day, a butter from New Zealand came ashore at a fruit store on Parc Ave., where it berthed beside a butter simply called “84.”

So now that we finally have real butter, you probably want a recipe. Here it is. But it’s a little tricky.

Take a slice of your favourite bread. Reverently spread on it a schmear or, if you prefer, a layer of butter, with 82 per cent butterfat, minimum. Unsalted, bien sûr. There it is, that is what you’ve been missing all these years! The greatest of the cheeses, really. Try it with a Niagara gamay, perhaps.

Oh, and make sure you read this article on a day when butter is supposed to be good for your health. If not, wait until tomorrow, when it will be.