Buttah!

[ivan]

along with Plugras, Celles, Land O Lakes Creamy and ???

Vologodskoe butter?

(just being patriotic)

Ah, my heart swells with pride as my eyes mist up with bittersweet emotions.

Of course, we invented butter, you know.

[Oreganought]

It all comes down to butterfat content, the more the better.  Most American butters are 60-70% butterfat many of the imported premium butters are 80+%.  Plugra has one of the greatest % of butterfat something like 85%.  For me I like the French Normadaise butters with a butterfat content of like 83%, the plugra is a bit too rich for me (yes a few points can make a difference) to eat with bread.  I understand however that the plugra is the best for baking.

That's interesting jordan,I believe most Canadian butter is around 84% butterfat.Now I understand why all the talk about imported butter from France,Italy,Germany.I use a brand called Lactancia,quite sweet and rich.

[gknl]

Chicken fat. Pork fat. Bacon fat. Duuuuck faaaat.

Not butter, can't be used as omnipresently.

But still good.

Once, at a restaurant in Germany (where the butter was amazing), there was a crock on the table filled with white stuff. Thinking it was butter, I greedily slathered it on my bread only to find it was goose fat. My father was very amused.

Actually though, once I scraped it off into a reasonable amount, it wasn't bad. And by the third bite, I was liking it. But it wasn't butter.

Someone else asked this too, why is Euro butter so much better than ours? I remember liking the German milk better too, especially the milk in the packages that didn't need to be refrigerated before they were opened.

[malarkey]

Pork fat on matzah!  Jinmyo, that brings new meaning to the tired term "fusion food."

This made me laugh out loud.

I like the idea of doing a vertical butter tasting. I love the Isigny Ste Mere normandy butter too. I've had Plugra, I think its good, but I've not tried the Lurpak yet. Since a few of you said it tastes 'cheesy' I'll have to try it.

"It comes down to the cream" - Hey that would make a good sig line.

When I was a child, we'd get milk from the neighbors Jersey cows. A good 3 or more inches of cream would rise in those glass gallon jars, as thick as creme fraiche right on top. I used to spoon it off and eat it just like that much to my mother's horror. She used to tell me my insides were gonna all stick together if I kept doing it. I grew up never understanding why people wanted to put sugar in whipped cream, to me its always tasted just right the way it is.

[Jon Tseng]

Come late to the conversation as ever

At Sainsburys in the UK they have an own-label Bavarian butter. It is awesome - the only butter I have had which actually tastes of cream, and miles better than the AOC d'Isigny butter I used to use.

Anyonw in the UK should look out for it - comes in gold wrappers as part of the Only the Best range. best way of contracting a coronary yet found

cheerio

J

[Human Bean]

Tillamook. Unsalted. Local, cheap, meets my needs for tasty saturated fat (well, and their cheese too). I'll have to look for the whey cream version.

[Priscilla]

Saw Jaaaymaaay using Lurpak the other week. Silver-wrapper unsalted, just like what's in MY refrigerator!

[Sandra Levine]

At AHR's suggestion, i bought some Vermont Cultured Butter recently.  It comes in a chub, like a sausage, wrapped in paper.  It is very very good. The first "local" butter that rivals the Normandy Beurre D'Issigny that I love.  I will bring these to the vertical tasting,

along with Plugras, Celles, Land O Lakes Creamy and ???

Ocelli?

[Vanessa]

along with Plugras, Celles, Land O Lakes Creamy and ???

Vologodskoe butter?

(just being patriotic)

Ah, my heart swells with pride as my eyes mist up with bittersweet emotions.

Of course, we invented butter, you know.

Oh my God - what is it about e-gullet that keeps stirring up old memories from the past?

I lived in the USSR for a year, nearly 20 years ago, in a provincial Russian town, closed to foreigners, and unknown to all except Russians who know the front ran through it for a large part of their WWII or who are into the poet Mandelshtam, and to those English students that used to get dumped there, like me.

I have always considered that one of the main reasons for my survival was the fact that I managed to find a regular source of butter in a little shop tucked away at the bottom of some flats in a courtyard. It didn't come in a packet like that illustrated, but in a large mound on the counter. These were the days of the EEC butter and meat mountains and I have always suspected that they were selling the butter off cheap to the USSR.

This was a town where there was no meat in the shops. It was only available in the market for an exorbitant price. However, due a boyfriend with some mysterious connections, I used to be able to acquire meat from the hi-fi shop.

Those were the days.

v

ps. Confirmation: Lurpak in the UK is considered thoroughly inferior!

[snowangel]

Too bad you can't include butter from Hope Creamery in your tasting. They are located just over an hour south of the Twin Cities, and get their cream from local farmers. They ship no further than the Twin Cities (to insure freshness), and the wrappers are all dated. Several local chefs did blind taste tests of butter (imported, small batch U. S. creameries, and the local biggie -- Land O' Lakes), and Hope won, hands down. Available at my local grocery for $2.99/lb salted or unsalted. I often catch Peter on the counter eating butter (he does use a spoon, not fingers).

I had a friend who did a summer stint at Land O Lakes, and their cream is trucked in from all over the U. S. Interesting that at the groceries in the Twin Cities (home of LOL), salted is more expensive than unsalted. Some of the big batch butter companies also package under more than one label. They have a room filled with different brand boxes!

[snowangel]

This is an interesting article on the making of "artisan" butter:

http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1119/...rticle10396.asp

[pjs]

Having read Priscilla sing the praises of Lurpak in the "What did You Cook" thread I finally broke down and bought some at the local grocery. Only three dollars and change for a ½ lb.

Thanks Priscilla--just what I needed--one more essential worth paying an obscene price for.

PJ

[Jaymes]

My neighbor swears by Falfurrias butter. No one has mentioned it here. The box says that is is made by the Falfurrias Creamery, and distributed by Keller's Creamery in PA.

Have any of you heard of this butter or tried it? If so, what do you think? I buy D'Issigny for good, Pflugra for pretty good, and Land O' Lakes for everyday.

But my friend says that Falfurrias is better? Huh?

[Priscilla]

Having read Priscilla sing the praises of Lurpak in the "What did You Cook" thread I finally broke down and bought some at the local grocery. Only three dollars and change for a ½ lb.

Thanks Priscilla--just what I needed--one more essential worth paying an obscene price for.  

PJ

PJ, and wasn't it SO WORTH IT.

I know some consider Lurpak run-of-the-mill supermarket butter; wish it was so here.

Be sure to visit Lurpak.com, cited by Shiva earlier on in this discussion. Some people know Lurpak when they see it. Course it's the Danish Dairy Board, who owns the brand, but still.

[Flossie]

I remember my aunt making butter in the late 1960s. She had milked her own cows by hand, then churned the (unpasteurised) milk and shaped the butter. As I recall, the butter had quite a strong but not unpleasant flavour which varied with the time of year, dependent on what feed the cows were receiving.

She also baked wonderful bread and the combination of the two tastes is a very happy memory.

[helenas]

One more butter to try: Cadi - "authentic pirenees mountain butter" - tried it with just piece of country bread and Jacksons Of Piccadilly Earl Grey tea (another current product of choice). Perfect five o'clock!

[hedgehog]

I see I'm a little late on this one, but just in case someone is interested in one more point of view on lurpak butter.

I think the reason Danish lurpak is so popular in some middle eastern markets is it is the butter of choice. In north africa and the middle east where local cows are highly suspect for producing clean milk, the lurpak butter was always there for a price. The Danes have been selling their butter in that part of the world for over a quarter of a century.

I'm not surprised that in the lpst twenty five years a lot of middle easterners who have settled here in the states look for the quality ingredients they knew back home.

Edited March 17, 2003 by hedgehog (log)

[Priscilla]

Interesting, Hedgehog.

And good for the Danish butter makers, too -- but, if the quality wasn't there, picky Middle Eastern cooks would not cling to a brand name, I believe, same as picky cooks of any ethnic background. I am happy to benefit from this historic relationship.

I have noticed Danish pork in Vietnamese markets -- I wonder if it is a similar story?

[pjs]

Lurpak rules. At least, it rules out here in the hinterlands where choice is limited. It seems to have a high water content though, which makes for much spitting and spatter in a hot pan, but that's a small price to pay for the end result.

PJ

[Priscilla]

Well, my friend the Costco maven gave me a gold-foil-wrapped chunk of Irish butter she bought there, representing 1/3 I believe of the Costco bundle. Salty good for table use, with that almost cheeselike Lurpaky texture, and very very yellow.

[Peter B Wolf]

A little trivial info about 'Lurpak'.

While stationed in Germany as a Civilian with US Forces ('85-'99), all Commissaries caried 'Lurpak' in addition to 'LandO'Lakes' at the terrific price of $ 0.75 per 250gram (salted or unsalted), American LandOLakes was selling for around $ 1.80 for a pound (453.4gram).

The majority of soldier's wifes wanted no part of it (not 'American').

"German" born wifes of soldiers always bought 'Lurpak', since the same butter in a German Supermarkt was about twice as much: Deutsche Mark/DM 2.40 for 250gram (approx. US$ 1.20 at that time - varying)

'Sam's' currently sells Plugra at $ 4.00 per pound,

Shaw's Supermarket sells "KerryGold" at $ 6.20 per pound.

And this is Maine.