Margarine

[ceptimus]

Margarine was invented in 1869 by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés. In less than 100 years, world production rose to over 2.5 million tonnes annually.

The original recipe was an emulsion of beef suet, skimmed milk, cows' udder and pigs' stomach. Later, the taste and texture were improved, by blending vegetable oils into the mix.

[livius drusus]

It never tasted like a dairy product to me at all, so I'm surprised to hear there's actual milk in there of any kind. As for the rest of the ingredient list, all I can say is who needs haggis when you've got margarine?

[Ymir's blood]

Growing up in a house where only margarine was offered, butter is a taste I've never acquired. Now I only use fat free butter subsitute, which tastes neither like butter nor margarine but does come in a nice spray bottle.

[Beth]

Margarine was invented in 1869 by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés. In less than 100 years, world production rose to over 2.5 million tonnes annually.

The original recipe was an emulsion of beef suet, skimmed milk, cows' udder and pigs' stomach. Later, the taste and texture were improved, by blending vegetable oils into the mix.
Oh how nasty. How udderly nasty. :P

[viscousmemories]

I don't remember if I grew up on butter or margarine primarily, but I definitely remember a lot of margarine being involved. Most of my adult life I've used Shedd's Spread Country Crock (http://www.countrycrock.com/prod_regular.asp) (not sure what that is). When I started doing a lot of my own cooking 2 years ago, I switched to butter and haven't looked back.

[lisarea]

I grew up with margarine but I didn't like it, so I've used butter all my adult life. Until recently, when my mom was staying here, and she would get that yogurt spread stuff, which has the yogurt to counteract the motor oil thing you get from margarine. It's not as good as butter by a long stretch, but butter is too hard to spread, and yes, I really am that lazy.

I am still afraid of regular margarine. And now I know why: It is made out of guts and zombies or something.

[Beth]

I have no qualm with margerine. I use the kinds that are low in saturated fats and have no trans fats, such as olive oil margerine. It is healthier than butter and I like the taste of olive oil margerine. I prefer making and salting my own butter when I do use it.

[livius drusus]

I'm pretty much an olive oil girl anyway, but if a recipe calls for butter I use butter.

You make your own, Beth? How do you do that? I mean, are we talking churning here?

[LadyShea]

Grew up on margerine, use butter now. Lisa, I leave a cube on the counter in a covered dish, every house I ever was in that used butter did this so it was spreadable. Wonder if I have been poisoning myself or something?

[Beth]

Liv, I use a food processor. I will post a recipe later. Must read to the kiddies now.

[livius drusus]

Cool, Beth. I didn't even know you could make butter in a food processor. Have a nice reading time. :)

[Ex-zombie]

I detest margarine. I blame it on my southern upbringing, which states that it isn't edible unless it is floating in fat and butter. Real butter not that imitation stuff.

I suppose I just have great genes too as my cholesterol is 138.

[wildernesse]

I grew up with margarine. Now I use butter in everything--margarine is such a fake food to me. I probably don't want to know how nowadays they make butter by chemical processing or something.

I love butter.

[RevDahlia]

Yes, I'm the same person who's been getting chippy about picky eaters elsewhere on the old Interweb. I've had some choice words for the picky, as I recall.

I am a big old hypocrite, because I. Hate. Margarine. Always have hated it, always will hate it. My mom says that when I was two my grandmother once gave me some margarine on toast, and I cried inconsolably for about an hour. HATE. It really tastes like petrochemical byproducts to me, and it makes me feel horrible -- I have a reaction to it kinda like lisarea described her reaction to MSG.

Speaking of whom...
It's not as good as butter by a long stretch, but butter is too hard to spread
LadyShea is right. Leave your butter out, in a covered dish, and it will stay nice and spreadable. Just be careful where you put it if you have an overzealous dog, lest your precious butter become contaminated by runaway dog lick.

[Ymir's blood]

mmm, petrochemical byproducts!

If it wasn't for hyper processed foods, I wouldn't eat anything at all. :hungry:

:popcorn: <- Do you think this popcorn is real? Hell no, it was grown in a lab.

[freemonkey]

It's not as good as butter by a long stretch, but butter is too hard to spread, and yes, I really am that lazy.
Try this (http://www.landolakes.com/products/SubCategoryIndex.cfm?SubCategoryID=57)
My husband likes this (http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/oil.jsp) .

[MonCapitan2002]

I can't stand margarine. I much prefer butter. I've always disliked it and I always will.

[Shaguar]

It has to be butter, I have never seen any classic recipe start with the lines, "Melt some margarine" euugh.

[lel]

I just worry about the contents of margarine. What about all the trans fats that are going to kill me sooner than I'm already slated to die? Ack! :P

[TomJoe]

Nothing beats a salted bagel lathered with unsalted butter.

[livius drusus]

Except maybe a salted bagel rubbed with a garlic clove before lathering.

[Beth]

http://sidedish.allrecipes.com/az/HmmdBttr.asp
NGREDIENTS:

* 2 cups heavy cream
* 1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pour cream into a food processor or blender. Process for 10 minutes, or until the butter separates. Strain off the liquid. Season to taste with salt if you like. Press butter into a small bowl with the back of a spoon to further remove liquid.

This is if I want to make sweet cream butter. Sometimes I will cook the cream a little and then let cool if I want a more sour taste for a savory butter. I also use a cheese cloth to squeeze the liquid out really well. The fresh buttermilk is wonderful for biscuits.

[wei yau]

Except maybe a salted bagel rubbed with a garlic clove before lathering.


Ooh, that reminds me of "40 Cloves and a Chicken (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_16200,00.html) ", the garlic cloves from that recipe made great spreads.

I love garlic. I love olive oil. I love Alton Brown.

[lisarea]

Yes, I'm the same person who's been getting chippy about picky eaters elsewhere on the old Interweb. I've had some choice words for the picky, as I recall.

I am a big old hypocrite, because I. Hate. Margarine. Always have hated it, always will hate it. My mom says that when I was two my grandmother once gave me some margarine on toast, and I cried inconsolably for about an hour. HATE. It really tastes like petrochemical byproducts to me, and it makes me feel horrible -- I have a reaction to it kinda like lisarea described her reaction to MSG.

I call an exemption on processed foods, though. Because I hate almost anything that comes outen a box, flavorings and all.

I figure it's always worthwhile to try hindsight justification before copping to outright hypocrisy.


LadyShea is right. Leave your butter out, in a covered dish, and it will stay nice and spreadable. Just be careful where you put it if you have an overzealous dog, lest your precious butter become contaminated by runaway dog lick.

The dog's not too big a problem, unless I leave it on the coffee table or the floor. It's the cats and the ODB, who is secretly like some kind of Felix Unger, following me around all the live long day and cleaning up the junk I leave in my wake. All the time, I'm like, "HEY! What happened to my pile of refuse?!?!? It was RIGHT HERE!"

I'll have to do that, though. Maybe if I tell him it's one of my experiments. I grow things in the kitchen on purpose sometimes.

[RevDahlia]

The dog's not too big a problem, unless I leave it on the coffee table or the floor. It's the cats and the ODB, who is secretly like some kind of Felix Unger, following me around all the live long day and cleaning up the junk I leave in my wake. All the time, I'm like, "HEY! What happened to my pile of refuse?!?!? It was RIGHT HERE!"
Why not acquire a dedicated butter dish? This one (http://www.crateandbarrel.com/itemgroups/13217_0.asp?query=butter%20dish&DIMID=&Page=1&fromLocation=Search) has neat-freak appeal, IMO. There are also some pretty groovy ones on eBay, though tragically none are shaped like geese with pink bows around their necks.

[TomJoe]

Except maybe a salted bagel rubbed with a garlic clove before lathering.

That's a given. :)

Everything goes good with garlic.

[livius drusus]

There are also some pretty groovy ones on eBay, though tragically none are shaped like geese with pink bows around their necks.

That's cool. I'm sure lisarea's sister would be more than willing to afix some severed doll heads or razor wire to it or something.

[lisarea]

Why not acquire a dedicated butter dish? This one has neat-freak appeal, IMO.

Actually, I have one. It looks just like that, except it's clear glass.

I think it's somewhere in the basement, along with at least one of pretty much everything else in the world. But I should really go find it because I've been on a bread baking binge, and I feel like some kind of slut putting that stuff on my lovingly handcrafted breads.

(Also, I should probably clarify that the ODB is not really a neat freak if you compare him to anyone else but me. Neat freak means he folds his laundry and sometimes picks up stuff and brings it to other places preordained by The Man or something. He is such a sheep I can hardly even believe it.)


That's cool. I'm sure lisarea's sister would be more than willing to afix some severed doll heads or razor wire to it or something.

Yeah, I figure the next time she comes to visit, she'll probably just do it without being asked, anyway. Then, my brother will hide something scary in it. Poor me.

[RevDahlia]

(Also, I should probably clarify that the ODB is not really a neat freak if you compare him to anyone else but me. Neat freak means he folds his laundry and sometimes picks up stuff and brings it to other places preordained by The Man or something. He is such a sheep I can hardly even believe it.)
I wonder if this is preferable to my situation. I suspect it might be. I'm married to a person who generates even more rubble than I do. If we're not careful we're going to wind up on the evening news, crushed to death by tumbling heaps of dirty dishes, laundry in an ambiguous state of cleanness, wads of cat hair, guitar picks, and back issues of the New Yorker.

I must say that it's kind of nice not being The Messy One in the relationship. It's a new one on me, that's for sure. (And it's a relief not having to be The Sane One for once, as well.)
There is a kind of real butter on the market that's blended with canola oil, so it stays soft even when it's cold. You should tell your Internet people to check it out.
Okay, O Mighty Sane One.

[ApostateAbe]

The advantage of margarine is that it doesn't separate after you melt it, so it goes better on popcorn, for example. If you didn't know that it is artificial, you would probably prefer it over butter. The disadvantage is that it is completely fake and filled with artificial "trans" fats. I never eat it. Sometimes I eat butter, but I generally avoid them both, because they are both unnatural and unhealthy.

[RevDahlia]

The advantage of margarine is that it doesn't separate after you melt it, so it goes better on popcorn, for example. If you didn't know that it is artificial, you would probably prefer it over butter.
I disagree. Butter actually has a pretty bland flavor, but it vastly improves the texture and mouthfeel of everything it comes in contact with. It also has a way of prolonging the flavors it accompanies. It is not true of margarine, which only makes things taste like margarine -- a harsh parody of the naturally mild butter flavor. Tastewise it's like the difference between Log Cabin pancake syrup and real maple syrup.

In cooking, there is no comparison. You can't make a piecrust with margarine. In French cooking, most sauces are finished with a big glob of butter, in order to impart the properties I just described. One cannot monter au margarine. You can't substitute margarine for butter in any application except maybe smearing it on toast or dumping it on your popcorn, on account of the huge chemical differences between the two substances.

As for the melting issue, I'm reminded of an ad campaign for Velveeta a couple years ago, which claimed Velveeta is preferable to Cheddar because it "melts better". Suave melting capacity, IMO, doen't matter one bit when the substance in question tastes like butane.

[freemonkey]

There is a kind of real butter on the market that's blended with canola oil, so it stays soft even when it's cold. You should tell your Internet people to check it out.

Yes, this stuff. By Land O Lakes. Tasty. (http://www.landolakes.com/products/ViewProduct.cfm?ProductID=15127)

[lisarea]

As for the melting issue, I'm reminded of an ad campaign for Velveeta a couple years ago, which claimed Velveeta is preferable to Cheddar because it "melts better". Suave melting capacity, IMO, doen't matter one bit when the substance in question tastes like butane.

Yes, I remember that one well. From seeing it LAST NIGHT. That one where they put a jar of salsa in with chunks of Velveeta and do some dance about it.

Velveeta is basically just solidified cheese sauce*, so of course melts more evenly.

As to butter, yes, I know it separates a little when it's melted, but not so much that it's even marginally inconvenient. Worst case scenario, you might have to stir it up a little. Margarine tastes entirely different from butter, and not in a way that some people like. Butter is a dairy product, and it has a dairy flavor to it. Margarine is made out of oil, so it tastes like oil, which is not always bad, even. I like oil as much as the next guy and all, and I even use that yogurt spread stuff in its own context, but I don't really think of it as butter. For butter purposes, I, too, prefer real butter.

* Or cheese-flavored sauce. I'm not sure if there's cheese in it.

[Shake]

I used to love mocking Fabio on the commercials, but apparently, I do a half-decent Fabio impression, "I can't believe it's not buttah (http://www.tasteyoulove.com/products.asp?section=products/light)!"

My mom is involved with Weight Watchers and has been for years, and I remember one time she tried to use a no-fat product to make a grilled cheese or something. When she put a glop of it in the hot pan on the stove, it didn't melt, it just sat there. My wife also did something similar once, all the bread just got this weird white coating on it.

Oh, I love movie theater popcorn butter (which I know really isn't), and even the microwave popcorn with the pour-over packets! Yummy!!

[Beth]

I use an organic product that uses soy and olive oil. But I am out of it currently so I don't know the product name. It tastes fine, may have butter in it, but tastes nothing at all like Parkay and does not have the sat fat content that butter does.

[RevDahlia]

I use an organic product that uses soy and olive oil. But I am out of it currently so I don't know the product name. It tastes fine, may have butter in it, but tastes nothing at all like Parkay and does not have the sat fat content that butter does.
At least soy and olive oil are real food.

[TomJoe]

Heaping spoonfuls of margarine are yummy. Sort of like mayonaisse, right vm*?

*egads, just thinking about that post* still makes my stomach queasy.

*and now I can't find the sonofabitch.

[lisarea]

Heaping spoonfuls of margarine are yummy. Sort of like mayonaisse, right vm*?

*egads, just thinking about that post* still makes my stomach queasy.

You mispelet 'sexy.'


*and now I can't find the sonofabitch.

What sonofabitch? (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36152&postcount=24)

[wei yau]

:giggle:















where's liv? :couch:

[Ensign Steve]

I like sandwiches made with white bread, margarine, and sugar. You can mix the sugar in with the margarine at about a 50/50 ratio, and then spread it thick on the bread. Yum yum! Dorian about shit when I told him I do that because his mom does the exact same thing.

[Dlanod]

Until 1967 margarine was illegal in Wisconsin (The Dairy State). Many people, including my parents, smuggled it in from other states, usually Illinois. There was also quite a black market in the yellow colored version so that it looked more like butter. Here (http://www.worldnewsstand.net/2002/article/3-18.htm) is a great story about those wonderful days of yore.

There are still some weird oleo laws on the books here. It is illegal for a restaurant to serve margarine to a customer unless they specifically ask for it.

- Donald

[livius drusus]

Sounds like a wise law to me. :)

[Skep]

Until 1967 margarine was illegal in Wisconsin (The Dairy State). Many people, including my parents, smuggled it in from other states, usually Illinois. There was also quite a black market in the yellow colored version so that it looked more like butter. Here (http://www.worldnewsstand.net/2002/article/3-18.htm) is a great story about those wonderful days of yore.

There are still some weird oleo laws on the books here. It is illegal for a restaurant to serve margarine to a customer unless they specifically ask for it.

- Donald
It was colored margarine that was illegal in Wisconsin until 1967. My dad worked in Illinois and would smuggle oleo for family and friends quite often. Here's an excellent article (PDF format) on the history of margarine in Wisconsin -- The "Oleo Wars": Wisconsin's Fight over the Demon Spread (http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/pdf/wmh_autumn01_strey.pdf).

[ceptimus]

Many a tale is told of the daring margarine smugglers of the early sixties: the customs enforcement officers were at a disadvantage - fattened on quality butter, they were unable to give chase for long; the margarine runners were lean and mean - they obviously had no incentive to actually eat the stuff, after all, they knew what went into it.

The smugglers transported their wares in V8 Fords. They spent the summer months in Florida, frittering away their ill gotten gains. They couldn't run the smuggling operation during the months of July and August anyway - air-con systems were less developed then, and the margarine would melt.

Greasy Joe Gordon tried to economise on the use of the Fords, by making the final run downhill from the border with the margarine packed on sledges. Some margarine was wasted in greasing the sledge runners, but this loss was compensated by the saving in gasoline. Unfortunately, the slimy trail left by the sledges rendered many acres of crop fields barren, and the rancid smell of the decaying margarine made it easy for the customs officers' dogs to track the margarine to the receiving warehouse.

The gradual decriminalisation of margarine eating in recent years (margarine is still not legal, but it is tolerated) has led to the gangsters having to trade in less profitable wares - crack cocaine and the like. The official story is that the stuff being smuggled now is more harmful even than margarine, but the old-time enforcement officers, and those few margarine gangsters that remain, know better - margarine now may be some wishy-washy petrochemical by-product - but the stuff of the early sixties, now that was really something...

[Skep]

cep,

:lmao:

[Beth]

This is such a freaking halarious thread! Gosh!... to hear of *gasp* margarine smuggling. :hysteric: I lurve you guys! :girl: