Butter is a natural dairy product made by churning fresh cream until the fats separate from the liquids. According to U.S. government standards, butter must be made exclusively from milk, cream or both, with or without common salt and contain at least 80% milkfat by weight.
To produce it, modern creameries use highly controlled methods to inspect, separate and pasteurize the milk and cream. Once pasteurized, the cream is churned until it becomes solid. Then it's packaged and distributed to your local supermarket where it waits to be brought home and spread onto fresh bread or baked into a perfectly flaky pie crust.
I remember first tasting butter when I would go to Auntie Alice's place as she would always have pandesal and Anchor butter. At our house, Mom will trick us to using margarine instead because at that time we wouldn't know the difference. She would buy the Dari Creme brand, as we all know, margarine is a lot cheaper than butter.
Breads and pastries would not be the same without butter. To make pie crusts, we need butter. To make croissants, more butter. Mashed potatoes are just nicer with butter. Lola Chayong used to fry lightly seasoned pork tenderloin in butter and we would then drizzle the used liquid butter on our hot rice. To fry eggs, it just tastes better when done with a little butter. I don't think there is anything that will taste better if not made with butter.
Recently a lot of people shun butter because they say it's unhealthy. They use lots of these "spread substitutes" like canola spread, olive oil spread and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" spread. Yeah, I can't believe that they will substitute butter with all these artificially and chemically produced stuff.
The traditional kaya toast won't be popular without that nice dab of cold butter in between the warm and toasty bread slices.
I believe in moderation. Having butter every now and then won't be that bad. The French eats a lot of butter and they still have a big population.
Life is short, Love butter NOW.
*photo courtesy of www.bigoven.com
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