Welcome to Litsy!

#Butter sounded great, and it did make me very hungry. However, I somehow got lost in the middle and my interest dwindled. Also, some sentences were so awkwardly formulated, I don‘t know if that‘s because of the translation or the original?

#review #read

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

My mom found this old book and included it in our Xmas box of goodies this year.

Damn, this was fascinating. There were a few bits where it felt a bit slow but generally, a really enjoyable micro history that made me hungry and desperate to buy higher quality butter (but I‘m delighted that one of the butters she highlights in the book is fairly local to me!)

Book 4 of 15 for #15books15weeks

As I was trucking around, collecting books for my #JulyTBR, EDP said to me “That‘s a lot, even for you.” He‘s not wrong. So many leftovers from a bad June, a couple of #HeyCarrots reads to catch up, my #GirlyBookClub and #FlaviaBuddyRead books for July, the #Potteraday, a bunch of #15Books15Weeks to get me back on track, a couple of #PemberLittens books and one that I added to the stack cause why not?!

Just a couple of books short of some tasty treats.

#fallisbooked

Butter lovers alert! This history of butter will make you want to slather it on even more. From Neolithic times in Ireland to Buddhist butter meditation in Asia, butter-making tools around the world, dietary science squabbles, and finishing off with some tantalizing recipes in which butter is boss.

(Photo: I should know better than to leave the butter dish on the stove when the oven is on. 😬)

I learned about “butter-washed” cocktails in this book, so of course I had to try it. Melted butter is combined with whatever spirit you want—I chose dark rum—and left to sit for a few hours. Then I chilled the mixture so the solidified butter could be skimmed off. It made the rum cloudy but also very tasty. (My cocktail also included honey, fresh lemon juice, a sprig of thyme and sparkling water.)

It‘s a little known fact that US dairy manufacturers are allowed by law to add a colouring agent, such as annatto, to their butter without having to declare it on the label, whereas all other foods have to reveal colouring agents on the label. This special dispensation harks back to those last century battles with margarine.
(Photo: I hosted butter tasting for my friends last weekend.)

In 2013 the FDA finally announced that partially hydrogenated oils are not “generally recognized as safe” for use in food and that eating trans fat raises blood levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, increasing the risk of coronary disease. All those tubs of margarine the public had consumed instead of butter to prevent cardiac disease actually had the opposite effect: Margarine increased the likelihood of a heart attack.

In the early 1980s I was a fresh college graduate with a degree in dietetics, trained by experts to join in the anti-fat battle. Our tactic seemed logical: Don‘t eat fat & you won‘t get fat; avoid cholesterol & you prevent its deposit in your arteries.
If only it were that simple. More than 30 years later heart disease is still the #1 killer & Americans are fatter than they‘ve ever been, despite eating 10% less fat in their meals.