Episode 46: Butter

On this week's episode, we reminisce on how we didn't really eat butter growing up (we were raised on margarine), but also the history of butter, the science of butter, and the different types of butter there are out there. There's a lot of butter for everyone! We also help out our Food Fight listener as he enters the dating scene again.

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Let's taco 'bout it!

• Despite Sharon's spring/summer cold, she was able to enjoy a New York strip steak (listen to this episode for cuts of steak) on the grill (mmmm...Maillard reaction) before she lost her taste buds. This week, Winter had Lee's favorite Watermelon Salad with Goat Cheese, Arugula, and Prosciutto. They used the Vermont Creamery goat cheese (it's not too goat-y) and Creminelli Sopressata Salami (not the prosciutto this time). 
• Butter: A Rich History shares all about how butter was first made. Butter likely got its start as as milk being kept in an animal skin bag on the back of a pack animal that got jostled.
• You should check out the podcast, Sawbones, because they talk about medical history, including Pliny the Elder who thought butter was curative.
• Folks in Ireland would put cheese in wooden casks and bury them in the cool bogs. It was thought they were buried for food storage or as an offering to the pagan gods.
• The Butter Rebellion of 1776 at Harvard University was started by Asa Dunbar, the grandfather of Henry David Thoreau.

• How is butter made? It all starts with cream. It's a triglyceride (3 fatty acids + glycerol). This triglyceride doesn't like water (hydrophobic) and is protected by phospholipids. The phospholipids have a head section that is water-loving (hydrophilic) faces outside to the water, and the tails are water-hating (hydrophobic). The create a globule, a safe haven for the triglyceride! You start whisking, the triglycerides start to glom together, since their safe haven has been disturbed. The air, a neutral party, starts to protect the triglycerides. If you continue to whisk longer, you deflate the air, the the triglycerides have really found each other and are butter!
• By the way, this is a great little video on shear forces when it comes to the best motion to whisk your cream.
• What are the different types of butter: Sweet cream butter, unsalted butter, European butter, cultured butter, whipped butter, and compound butters.
• Unsalted butter has two ingredients: Cream and "natural flavors". What are those "natural flavors"? Who knows?!? Just be careful.
• Cultured butter is allowed to fermented or soured by lactococcus bacteria, which will produce lactic acid. The process is a little like Cristiana Crimenelli's episode on Salami Fermentation.
• European butter is higher in fat and lower in water content. Winter mentions Romina Rasmussen who owns the bakery Les Madeleines, taught that she purchases a different type of butter for her pastries, such as her famous kouing aman (featured on the Food Network).
• Whipped butter has nitrogen gas injected in to make it light.
• Compound butters: Have you tried Chef Shamy flavored butters? Winter really loves the garlic butter.

• Dear readers, how do you keep butter? Do you use one of these butter keepers? How does it work for you?
• Clarified butter < ghee < browned butter on how long and high you heat them.
• Browned butter is good in these recipes: Winter's banana bread recipe and Joy the Baker's Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.
• We help out Food Fight listener who is back on the dating scene, figure out how to replace cinnamon.
• We have a listener survey! Fill it out by June 10, 2017 to be entered to win a $20 Amazon gift card.
• Watch out for our Hungry Squared T-shirts that will go on sale June 1, 2017!

Run Time: 45 minutes

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