Buy real food

I've started buying butter. It's because of the ingredients list on the package: cream, salt. Have you ever worked your way through the list of ingredients on margarine? Oh sure, it has zero cholesterol, but what's that other stuff? How do we know it isn't going to gum up the works down the road a few generations. The latest thing I saw at the market was "spreadable butter by Olivio" which was more expensive than butter but had about 1/3 the cholesterol. In recent years one of the problems with margarine was increasingly the fat content was reduced--that's done by adding water and that affects cooking and baking. I've seen margarine with a fat content as low as 35%.

My grandmother's butter churn, Superior, 1910 . It could make 5 lbs of butter, and that would last about a week. Grandma didn't care much for meat, but obviously liked rich cream sauces, soups, and baked goods. Although the farm house had no rural electricity, they had a generator, and that wheel on the side, although it could be hand cranked, had a belt to attach to the generator.

I remember when Mom started buying margarine. There was a huge advertising campaign for it, and it was cheap--and white. Yes, I think it was against the law (dairy lobby) to make it look like butter. So you got this white blob and added a little packet of color. It was the job of the youngest daughters of America to stir that mess up and then it was scooped into a dish. It had no flavor as I recall--just greasy. Then there was a big improvement. The white stuff came in a bag with the yellow dye inside. Squishy, squishy twist and shout. This was also a kid's job. Eventually, margarine came in blocks like butter, then tubs and somehow it was made to taste better. I still prefer butter, and since it actually tastes good, I think you use less.