3/7/11

The Evil European Butter Conspiracy

Butter, at the Borough Market, London, 2006.Image via WikipediaWell, my friends, it's bad enough to have discovered that the English are slobs like the rest of us, and that "Downton Abbey" and all those Jane Austen movies are shams--shams!--to make Americans feel bad about themselves and their nasally accents. But now I find out that the Germans are hoarding all the good butter.

That's right! Last week my husband came home from this high-end speciality grocery store with a gold-foiled block of German butter. I'm all, "German butter? What's the carbon footprint on that baby?" But then I tried the German butter. Oh. My. God. It was like no butter I'd ever tasted. It was like someone took a cloud and sprinkled it with little baby angel smiles. I was simultaneously exhilarated and ashamed. Yes, ashamed! All these years I thought I understood butter; I thought I had a special connection with butter, and now the whole thing seems so cheap. I didn't even know what good butter was. I was eating a sad facsimile of butter. I was eating stressed-out cow butter, because, really, what else would make our butter so inferior? Clearly, it's the over-worked cows who are literally squeezed for all their worth when all they really want is a humane work schedule and five weeks of guaranteed vacation.

For me, it's the Greek yogurt debacle all over! (Yeah! That was a pretty traumatic discovery too.) Now I'm stuck with American butter. Obviously, I can't afford to eat German butter all the time. It's expensive and addictively, dangerously delicious. Yet, while deprived of it myself, I now know that in Europe people are probably so awash in good butter that they're using the unsalted kind as Chapstick. And they're enjoying it too. They are feasting on it everyday, feasting and laughing, and resolute in the knowledge that while they eat good butter, we're the ones who get obese.
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23 comments:

Susan Campisi said...

Ha! Hilarious! Where can I get this German butter? No, wait. Don't tell me. I just bought a house. I can't afford it.

Maybe I should rent out my house and move to Germany. That might solve my mid-career crisis as well.

Tony Van Helsing said...

I'm eating English buter and now i don't know if it is like american or German butter. I have now got to find examples of both to find out. I shall send you the bill.

Joanne said...

Did Tony say you're footing the bill for this amazing German butter for all of us? I'm on it, right away, and will have them forward the charges ...

Petrea Burchard said...

What do you mean, "the English are slobs like the rest of us"? Can you document that? What's your evidence? I'm shocked. Shocked!

I laughed at every line of this, Margaret. I still want evidence, though.

Tony, maybe you shouldn't bother with the American butter.

Pasadena Adjacent said...

their beer is good to

Cafe Pasadena said...

In this case it's best I not tell you about the Salt controversy.

Tony Van Helsing said...

I'd better not receive any butter bills. Lokks like I've dropped myself in it.

Olga said...

Life can be so unfair. Well, maybe not, because isn't it part of our U.S. culture to want quantity over quality? And deep down we know that we get what we pay for.

Curly said...

I didn't know there was a difference. Here we eat both German and Italian (we're on the boarder to Austria)... how is it different from yours?
I mean... creamier, tastier? :-)
Sorry but I am really curious now! :-)
Have a splendid day dear Margaret!

Stephen said...

As Homer Simpson might say ... Ooohh G-e-r-m-a-n B-u-t-t-e-r

Margaret said...

Susan: I used to think everything had to be better in England, but now, apparently, it's Germany. I say go!

Tony and Joanne: Your butter bills are your own! I can barely afford my own. I also hear Irish butter is very good.

Petrea: I know! It's shocking and disappointing. Rumor has, my own dear Colin really sounds like he's from Brooklyn! How can I live with that?

PA and Pup: Beer and salt too! Why aren't people talking about this?

Olga: Always so wise, but I bet that's just because people in Vermont have happy cow butter.

Daisy: It's creamier, richer, and just tastes better. Think cream versus non-fat milk.

Stephen: Truer words were never spoken.

Kathy H said...

Please bring some to the picnic! Butter, bitte!!

Karen said...

Sounds like the difference between American chocolate (think Hersheys) and the really good, dark chocolate (think Valrhona) from Europe.

A big difference!

Anonymous said...

I prefer olive oil.

Bec said...

I want to try it!!! Now you've done it and my butter seems inferior.

Writings on the whole said...

Thanks! Never thought a story about butter would make me lol, and not just the lol people use to indicate something's a bit funny, I mean I actually lol'd at this. And will definitely have to look into finding some of this "cloud sprinkled with baby angel smiles".

Vanda said...

Have you ever tried mangalitsa bacon???

http://www.countrycuredhams.com/mangalitsa-bacon-4.php

Margaret said...

Oh Vanda, don't you remember Litsa? My mangalitsa pet pig?

Unknown said...

What?!?! There's a whole world of butter out there I never knew existed! I feel cheated, betrayed! I must investigate this!

Najma Velshi said...

Very funny! Unfortunately I cannot resurrect my grandmother to compare her home churned butter from the foothills of Kilimanjaro to anything available now.

Jean Spitzer said...

You omit a crucial datum: how does the German butter compare with the Irish butter?

Watson said...

I think I know what you mean Margaret! One of the local farmers was making her own butter for awhile. I still long for it! It is so ... real. She became ill and creating butter was hard work for her so I no longer have a local supply. Your post is making me drooooollll.!
Daisy's Barbara

Desiree said...

I have visions of a butter/olive oil smackdown. Now, what wine to drink?