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Mon 26 Apr, 2004 08:10 am
I'm a Swedish researcher within the food and gastronomic area, currently investigating the butter market. I wonder if anyone can help with the following question: How many types of butter are there in US (or in your State) and what are the called?
When I say butter I mean plain and tradtional butter made of cream from the cow, and with no fat reduction or any addititives such as margarin, soy, etc.)
In Sweden with have three types of butter, and by tradtion they are sorted by their salt content. The butter is called; non salt, normal saltness and extra salt.
I interested to see if butterin different countries are sold by regionality, season or something else
Best regards Richard Stewart
I've lived in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Montana, Colorado and Massachusetts. Stores in all these states offer a choice between "salt" butter and "sweet" butter.
Welcome to A2K.
in Canada; Toronto to be precise, the main forms of butter commonly available to the consumer are salted (most common), unsalted or 'sweet' butter (usually served in better restaurants), and 'cultured' butter (which is sweet butter with a bacterial culture added).
we can get cultured butter here as well.
I forgot to say that I'm also interested in other countries butter "taste" tradition and preferences, round the world.
They market something called "Creamery Butter." I have no idea what that means.
roger wrote:They market something called "Creamery Butter." I have no idea what that means.
"creamery butter" is a relatively meaningless term, attempting to give an nastolgic 'earthyness' to the particular brand as all butter used to be made in the part of a dairy farm where the cream products where separated from the raw milk - the 'creamery'.
I live in California and see sweet (unsalted) and regular (with salt added). I did once get some imported french butter at the italian grocers; if I remember correctly it was unpasteurized. That was particularly delicious, but I've not seen it sold anywhere since and that was at least ten years ago.
on the farm we churned our own butter, salted it and used wooden butter molds, I have never eaten anything that tasted similar since then.
All you really need to make your own butter is plenty of cream, a mixer, and some patience.
Mixer? Here is a very simple mixer:
Put the cream in a round, plastic jar--an empty peanut butter jar is just fine. Find two restless children, plunk them down about thre feet apart on the floor and have them roll the jar back and forth, back and forth....
This is a good opportunity to read to twitchy types.
Eventually, butter comes.
Here in the Bay Area we can get anything. What I have seen - standard sweet cream and salted butter, Plugra and other "euro" brands, boutique butters from local producers, and ghee. Butter is expensive right now, unsure why.
Butter has been pricey ever since the cows formed Moopec.
cjhsa, do you like the "boutique" butters?
The only one I have ever tried was simply bulk butter from a local creamery, Crystal Creamery I believe, and it tasted just like butter.
For the first time in my life, I saw an Irish butter at the supermarket. It is the best butter I've ever tasted.
I agree with Dys that homemade-on-the-farm butter is heavenly--it makes regular butter taste flat.
I'm not so wild about some of the 'real' butters I've had. I don't mind the ones that taste of the herbs the cows have been eating, but some of them have tasted downright grassy
Not nice at all. <shudder>
It is so interesting to hear of all the different types of butter. But I must ask: What is "boutique butter"? It sounds most fashionable. Is there different types of "boutiqe butters"? What makes it a "boutique butter"?
Let me guess before anyone answers that it involves individual dairies that raise their cows in the most thoughtful anti hormone, anti-antibiotic (usually) ways, free range generally. Maybe even the grass doesn't have herbicides...
(I don't know though. Just guessing.) The San Francisco bay area, as cjhsa says, has purveyors who pay attention to having cattle range fed, etc. (aka boutique).
Niman Ranch is nearby, and in my neck of the woods, there is Humboldt Beef Company. Not that they raise dairy cattle, (I doubt it) but they raise beef cattle at least semi-thoughtfully.
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