I'm bored and why is butter yellow?

[cuffs054]

My SO was waxing today about dear old Mom mixing the yellow dye into the margarine (to make it look like butter) during WWII. Yep, he's that old. Anyway, as I was making pineapple/coconut sherbert to be followed by coconut chocolate sherbert in the
W.G.Puck freezerizor, the question came up. Why is butter yellow?

 

[kenmore71]

Because back in the day when farmers grazed a small number of Guernsey or Jersey breed dairy cattle on grass the milk had a very high fat content (usually about 5%) and also a goodly amount of beta carotene that makes the milk a soft golden color. When you make butter from this milk it is slightly intensifies this color into a pale gold/yellow color. If you have only ever had butter "off the shelf" at the grocery store you owe it to yourself to go to a co-op or specialty store and get some "artisan" grade butter made from Guernsey milk. You may or may not like it compared to "store" butter, but it is the butter of our ancestors in Europe and the United States.

These days, most "store" butter comes from Holstein milk which is fairly low in fat content (3 to 3-1/2% on my brother's farm) and is generally while to slightly off-white in color. Butter made from this milk is naturally a pale cream color and the flavor is rather bland. Artificial coloring and salt are added to make it more appealing.

 

[tomturbomatic]

What he says

The butterfat globules are the colorful part of milk.

Trivia: Wisconsin did not allow margarine sold there to have the dye packet because America's Dairyland believed that if you were going to smear fat on anything, it was only going to be yellow if it was butter.

For an innovative use of butter see Last Tango in Paris.

 

[bajaespuma]

For an innovative use of Marlon Brando see "Last Tango in Paris"

 

Trivia quiz: How many of you knew that the reporter in "Mommie Dearest" that witnesses Joan trying to strangle Tina was played by Marlon's sister Jocelyn? I didn't.

 

[maytagbear]

Salted versus Unsalted butter---

I grew up with salted butter, when we weren't having Chiffon or I Can't Believe. . . for economy.

Now that I do my own shopping for myself, it is always real butter.

Unsalted butter goes rancid somewhat to extremely faster than salted butter. The snooty-tooty recipe writers say that the salt level varies, and for optimum results, "always" use unsalted butter. I know enough to decrease (but not omit) the added salt in a recipe, and no one has turned down my baking or other vittles!

Cook's Illustrated prefers Lurpak and Land O' Lakes. I usually get Land O' Lakes, because there is a great big Land O' Lakes plant here on the outskirts of town. However, if the other local brand, Sumner's, is on card special, I'll get it instead.

Butter is one of my most favorite things, ever.

My great-grandmother on my father's side always called the other stuff "CG," for "Colored Grease." She died in her late 80s, in the late 1940s. She took the rationing of butter during World War II as a personal insult.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[philr]

<blockquote>
<a name="start_40710.602237">My great-grandmother on my father's side always called the other stuff "CG," for "Colored Grease."</a>

</blockquote>
A friend of mine calls margarine "Corps Gras" which means "greasy substance"...

 

 

[arbilab]

Colored grease

However they have made it healthier. There's a store brand butter flavor margarine with no cholesterol and no transfat. Whey is the only dairy component. VERY competitively priced. A few years ago that product was "premium" and expensive.

I had been using "butter blend", softened with canola. Gotta admit, fridge butter tears up toast unless you set it out a half hour early. I like the flavor of the margarine better, though I (preliminarily) think the butter/canola is less glomming to the digestion. Last time I put the oil/whey on a big plate of rice, it tasted great but was rather "filling".

 

[toploader55]

Restaurant...

Recently, I have been having trouble with Cabot's Unsalted.

I've been in the restaurant biz for 40 years. It (Cabots) has been very difficult to Clarify. I had to Boil it for 45 minutes to get it to seperate. I think producers are adding water or more solids for weight. I recently tonight did a yield test on Snow Crab Meat. 10 lbs of crab after the water was squeezed out of it , yielded 4.5 lbs of water. Everybody screwing everybody.

I'm looking into buying "Clarified Butter" from Land'O'Lakes. Why should I bother throwing away the solids and labor time when this gives me 100% yield ?

Also with Cabot's ... Buerre Blancs lately have been Bright Yellow. Let's see... the last time I checked... Buerre in French is butter. Blanc... is White . So... Buerre Blanc means White Butter and now they're Yellow ???

 

[xraytech]

around here it is mostly margarine, though I always call it Oleo as that is what my grandmothers always call it.

We used to always use Blue Bonnet, but have switched to Imperial after Blue Bonnet reduced its oil content.

 

On occasion I'll buy real butter, typically if company is coming for dinner or for making certain cookies, at that time I will either buy Walnut Creek salted stick butter(it is made in Walnut Creek, Ohio in Amish Country), or I'll buy Amish roll butter

 

[alr2903]

Laura Ingalls Wilder,  wrote of her mothers efforts to create  more golden/yellow butter, by shredding a carrott and letting it set in warm milk that was then strained  and added to the butter churn.  Both of my grandmothers called margarine, oleo 

http://hoover.archives.gov/LIW/pioneering/pioneering_pepin-chores.html

 

[whirlaway]

Butter is Best

I personally like real butter.My friend I worked with said during the war she got to mix the oleo with a red tablet that came with it to give it color,I think it was Nucola Margerine,does that sound right.To me its tasteless.I buy irish butter at the fresh market.Its so rich and taste great.

 

[foraloysius]

I use grass fed butter only. Grass fed butter is made from milk from cows that have eaten grass only. The butter is softer, a bit more yellow, the taste is great and it's healthier than other butters because it contains more CLA, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and omega-3 fatty acids than butter from cows raised in factory farms.

 

[polkanut]

What Tom wrote is very true.  In WI, it was illegal to sell but not possess yellow margarine until 1967.  There are still laws on the books on how it can be served in hospitals, restaurants, etc.  Starting in the mid 1950's, my uncle and grandparents used to bootleg margarine back from MI & IL.  Blue Bonnet was their preferred brand. 

 

[dirtybuck]

Has Anyone Else Heard "The Myth"?

A few years ago, my brother-in-laws sister sent me and others an email stating margarine was one molecule from being plastic. After I read it, I immediately switched to butter and haven't used margarine since.

However, in reading the comments some of you have made about margarine, I found the following article...

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2004-01/1074274923.Ch.r.html

 

[westie2]

Thanks for the link about margarine

 

[petek]

Similar dairy laws were in Ontario as well back in the day. We always had real butter at home but my aunt used to buy the white margarine that came in the plastic bag and you could put in a tablet that would color it by squishing it around until it mixed thoroughly. It was actually more orangey than yellow and I wouldn't eat it. Eggs are something else where what the chickens eat determines how yellow the yolks are. The eggs we had in Alberta had the palest yellow yolks I've ever seen

 

[arbilab]

But it is one molecule.......

.....plus some water, away from diesel fuel.

 

[strongenough78]

I love real butter. I find if funny now that they're saying margarine is worse for you than real butter and to avoid it. Yet they said the same about real butter years ago. Ah, well. When used in moderation, butter isn't going to instantly clog your arteries and kill you. I would rather die early of a heart attack from eating food I love than to spend a lifetime constantly watching what I eat and not getting to enjoy it.

 

[cuffs054]

StrongEnough,
Well said, Sir! It was good enough for Julia, the two Fat Ladies and Ina, ergo, it's good enough for my fat butt!

 

[bajaespuma]

Eddie

Have you tried Cabot 83% unsalted butter solids? I love the stuff and we get it for a good price at Restaurant Depot. The time you'll save waiting for the milk solids to boil off of the regular stuff is worth the small premium you'll pay for it. Also Plugra is equally good; we buy one or the other according to price.

 

I have a friend from the Midwest who is knowledgeable about Dairy Farming who taught me that even with the well-known brands of butter, there will be some significant variation in the water/milk content of butters according to the seasons. When the moo-ladies eat fresher grasses their cream isn't as concentrated, according to her. 

 

Margarine trivia: Invented by a French chemist to address stomach upsets experienced by French soldats during Napoleon's attempt to defeat the Russians. Apparently the boys brought butter with them as part of their rations and it was going rancid during the long sieges. This chemist invented a process that would later be refined as hydrogenation by treating sunflower seed oil with strong acids causing the liquid oils to solidify. Because the fat globules looked like tiny pears under the microscope, he called his invention "Margarine" (Fr., Marguery = Pearl, as in English, Margaret=Pearl {as in "Pearly-Mae"}). Anyway, I hate the stuff and never use it. My philosophy will continue to be, "If I'm going to eat fat, it had damn well better taste delicious". Over and out.

 

[cuffs054]

Baja.
I have tried Plugra. It really is good. I served it one night with homemade french bread and a friggin pasta recipe I worked on for hours. Next day reviews: "Oh there was pasta"?

 

[sudsmaster]

Many years ago I remember watching Julia Child rant on her program about margarine. She said it was no good and that one should only use butter and never margarine. And this was long before all the information about the very harmful effects of trans fats became widely known.

I tried a few of the "healthy" margarines for a while, but finally decided that real butter was the only way to go if I had to have a butter flavor. Most of the time however I used extra virgin organic olive oil in my cooking. If it's a higher heat or stir fry, a good quality peanut oil.

I think the idea that since margarine doesn't have cholesterol it's healthier is kind of bunk. Cholesterol is essential for life - it's a building block in nerve tissue and cell walls. Trans fats are much worse for the heart, IMHO.

And don't get me going about statins...

PS-I agree about unsalted butter. Regular butter doesn't have all that much and I happen to LIKE salty foods. I also never had a problem using salted butter in baking recipes, esp those where you're supposed to add some salt anyway.

Now, when talking about butter, there is the sweet cream variety that most stores stock. It isn't from aged cream and hence has a milder taste. But for a real kick get some butter made the traditional way, from milk that has been allowed to sour overnight. TASTY

 

[mixfinder]

Little Known Fact

Unsalted butter has a slightly higher fat ratio due to it's lower moisture content which makes it better for baking because it is more short.  Personally I use Darigold prints (one pound block, no cubes) for all cooking.  Margerines contain water and it throughs off the fat ratios recipes are written for.  In the old days I used to add a teaspoon of water to cookie dough so the cookies would steam and then collapse during baking to make a crackled top.

Margerines are formulated with transfatty acids which are not digestable and store in the blood vessels contributing to arterial plaque.

The cost of groceries are spiraling so high, so quickly it is frightening to guess what the year ahead holds.

 

[arbilab]

Trans fat is the current devil. Even margarines are eliminating them. They're illegal in New York fast foods.

According to Roseanna Roseannadanna:

Listen my children, I'll tell you why
All food you eat will make you die.

If the meat is red it's full of fat
It's bad for your heart and you don't want that.

If the meat is white your veins will thicken
Considering the things they inject in a chicken.

Daddy I said, why all the fuss?
If the food doesn't kill me I'll get hit by a bus.

We're all gonna die
From one thing or all things
Like my daddy used to say,
It's always something.

 

[sudsmaster]

While we're on the subject... does lard have an expiration date? I've read it lasts forever, but I wonder...

 

[tomturbomatic]

Ken, Moo Ladies--too funny. Interesting about the word "pearl" in French. In Hebrew, it is margalit or marganit. The surname Margolis relates to pearls. Maybe with the Jewish gem trade, the word crossed into French with slight modification, much like Saturday, in Spanish, is Sabado, the sabbath, from perhaps the Moorish age.

Those French scientists were pretty smart. They also invented pressure canning for the military. I guess we will always be indebted to Napoleon's chef for Chicken Marengo, an easy dish at Passover served with a potato kugel.

Obviously know nothing about lard, but honey and true love are two things that are supposed to last forever.

 

[toploader55]

Ken...

The butter I was complaining about is Cabot's. Been using it for years. Maybe it was a bad batch run.

I have coming in today from US Foods Pre Clarified butter. I want to see what this is all about.

Love Plugra... I used to keep some on my Nightstand years ago back in the day !!!
(Just Kidding) LOL

The nearest Restaurant Depot from the Cape is in Chelsea... not quite the trip to the General Store. But Thanks.

 

[bajaespuma]

Not quite dead languages

Tom, thanks for that interesting bit of etymology. I guess it's from French, via Latin, via Hebrew. The same thing is true for our word "Cider".

 

Have any of you people who, like me, are interested in food read or watched Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire"? One of the best works on food/plant history ever.

 

 

...and Arbilab, thanks for the Roseanne Roseannadanna poem. It made my morning! I loved that woman. I still giggle at the image of those two pathetic barrettes in her hair, purportedly trying to keep all that frizz down. Brilliant.

 

[hunter]

Dairy protein allergy

I have an allergy to whey - dairy protein.

I LOVE butter, but, alas, cannot have it any longer.

There are two - two! - margarines that I have been able to find; Fleishman's UNSALTED margarine and Nucoa.

Everything else has whey in it.

 

[stan]

Sudsmaster

Good question
Store bought Lard contain an antioxidant, and some citric acid = (long shelf life) Store bought Lard, has been hydrogenated, at least partially, It contains 0 trans fat, and 0 cholesterol.
Organic Leaf Lards shelf life may be different ?

if you check out www.foodandwine.com, there is some interesting info, article titled " Lard The New Health Food"