Butter for a long time was maligned, looked down upon, and seen as unhealthy, but it is great to see that it has comeback and its cooking place has been firmly re-established. In the October Bon Appetit, they pose the question “Is butter better?” They make the point that butter has less fat than olive oil and about 20 percent fewer calories, and the article mentions that lard and duck fat also have redeeming nutritional value. You can read the article here.
Of course to be a truly healthy food, one must consider the bad saturated fats versus the healthful monounsaturated fats, and butter does have fewer of these healthy fats and more of the bad stuff than lard, duck fat, and olive oil. But there is no denying that there is some value in butter too; you just have to moderate intake a bit more.
I personally love butter. While living in France, I would become giddy just walking down the dairy isle and looking at the great selection of butter (and yogurts). And tasting them changed me for life; there was no going back. European butter had more flavor and it was creamier.
The reason European butters generally taste better is due to the culturing and fermenting of the cream before making it into butter. In Europe this culturing process is standard practice but it isn’t in the US — though you can find more and more European-style butters being sold in the US now — both domestically made and imported.
The butter shown above is a premium hand-made one from France. Gourmet wrote in 2007 about how Jean-Yves Bordier, a boutique butter maker, was selling his product to many of the best chefs and restaurants in Paris. It is called Beurre Bordier, and though the English portion of the website wasn’t working when I visited it, you can still browse the site in French and see some wonderful butter.
Bordier hand churns his butter in Brittany, and he offers plain cultured, salted, smoke-salted, and seaweed butter. Bordier uses slightly soured cream from cows that graze on organic farms in Normandy and Brittany, and utilizes a wooden device that grinds the churned butterfat particles at a very slow speed to yield an exceptionally smooth butter. Salt and seaweed are added by hand. This article in Saveur talks about his process in more detail, but if you want to buy it you will have to go to France.
That butter sounds great, and one reason it also tastes better is that European butters have more fat. Taste in many cases equals fat, and domestic butter generally has a lower amount (80% fat) and European butters have 81-86% fat. That is one to six percent more flavor on top of production differences that make the butter creamer and more flavorful.
Cook’s Illustrated did a taste test of premium unsalted butters in November 2008, and even if you don’t live in Paris, you can still find good butter here. The tasters preferred Danish Lurpak but also recommended Vermont Butter and Cheese Company Unsalted Butter, Isigny Ste. Mère Beurre de Baratte, and Beurre de Chimay. Land O’Lakes Unsalted Butter was recommended too, though it was clearly plain compared to the flavor of the other varieties.
The San Fransisco Chronicle did a butter taste challenge for European-style butters, and Lurpak also did well, coming in second place. The butter of choice though was Challenge European Style, but it is only sold in western states. Plugra came in third, and you can find this widely throughout the US, including at Target stores. When tasting on itself, this butter outperformed Lurpak, which performed better for baking. In a different challenge, Food & Wine editors tried 20 butters and they chose Organic Valley’s Cultured Unsalted Sweet Cream as their winner.
Regardless of which brand you use, just remember to take butter out the fridge to let it soften and develop its flavors before using. Also it is best to keep your butter in a storage container in the fridge or wrap it tightly as it will absorb odors. It will also develop a rancid taste over time so try use it up within a month’s time, and if you won’t immediately be using it, keep it in a zip lock bag in the freezer. Butter keeps for about 4-6 months.
For storage, I personally use the Butter Bell Crock
If you want to browse 30 good butters, Saveur has pictures and descriptions here. Many of the varieties may not be available in the US, but several of the brands are sold at stores and online. There is also an interesting article at saveur.com about making your own butter and they also have a good summary of types of butter.
For online ordering check out:
iGourmet
Zingerman’s
Marky’s
Vermont Butter & Cheese Company
Gourmet Library
Gourmet Food Store
Oh yeah, and as for me personally, I use Land O’Lakes for cooking, Lurpak on its own, and I am also trying right now an Italian butter from Delitia, which is made from the same cows from which parmegiano reggiano cheese is made. If you can’t find it locally, you can order it from Gourmet Library.
Some other suggestions if you want to try something new are Amish-style roll butter and goat-milk butter. Goat-milk butter is offered by several online retailers.
