American butter is shit tbf
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Kerrygold 🥰
Yep. If you know, you know.
How the fuck do you spread it?
Slice off a pad and pop it on a plate, then microwave it a little.
I don’t know if that’s how you’re supposed to do it, but it sure as hell works.
What kind of high class bs … lol
I recommend a butter keeper / butter pot to on the counter. They’re designed to use water to seal the air out. Butter will keep for a week or two without any quality issues if you exchange the water in the butter pot daily.
Though these are an inverted system, so if your living space is consistently warm enough to melt the butter, it may not be a great solution.
Contrary to popular belief in the US, butter does not require refrigeration. Just needs a covered dish.
Only salted butter, as far as I know. The salt keeps it preserved. Unsalted needs to be either used promptly or refrigerated I’m pretty sure?
What’s the hottest it gets where you live in the summer?
'Murica, land of air conditioning (regular 90f+ weather).
I don’t personally keep butter out like that as I do not own a toaster. Or a dining table. Or air conditioning to adequately handle hotter than 90f (cheap landlord at apartment complex plus upper floor apartment).
Huh … til
I definitely recommend going to the Butter Museum in Cork which is essentially a Kerrygold museum.
You don’t think it’s gonna make a difference, but once you eat a stick of it, you’ll know.
You eat it by the stick?
My aunt in Yorkshire always used to say “butter makes everything better, including margarine”
I mean, butter is nice, but eating it by the stick? I scrape some onto bread, or cut off a small slice to fry something in, or maybe mix it into a cake.
But eating a stick of butter?
Well you have to deep fry it first.
This guy acting like he doesn’t butter snack
Please stop. Us Americans are fat enough…
If you want to make Homer’s patented out of this world moon waffles you do.
I recommend making Hollandaise sauce to really emphasize the butter!
Trying to figure out if this is a bit or truly worth the hype. I was about to go shopping tomorrow. Gonna make scones, so I need butter.
It’s worth it. Make sure you have everything you need, including tools, utensils, and dishes, before you start though. It comes together very fast and you will not have a spare second to go grab something.
Add a dash of cayenne if the recipe doesn’t include it, otherwise I find the creaminess coats the palate too much and makes it taste too samey.
they’re making scones, not hollandaise sauce
Correct. Lol
Others already replied - but it’s not a bit. Kerrygold butter is of a noticeably higher quality. I can’t go back.
(I’m not sure I would put Hollandaise on (sweet) scones, so I’m hoping I didn’t misread and you were just asking whether Kerrygold was worth it haha)
It’s truth. Expensive truth, but worth it when you have the money
That French guy was just trying to butter them up.
The secret is the west coasts.
The french guy was talking about butter from Bretagne. West coast Irish butter is amazing. West coast Scottish butter is amazing.
Know why? Because it absolutely pisses down with rain almost every fucking day in west coast Atlantic areas, the grass grows like triffids and the cows eat themselves silly
Quite simple
I shall be adopting “like triffids” into my everyday vernacular from now on.
what on earth is a triffid?!
Day of the Triffids a well known book.
(Heavy influence on 28 days later)
It’s a fictional plant that grows fast
I choose to believe it’s their mutual hatred of England that makes their butter taste good.
There is excellent butter in the United States. Even some of the most sought after butter in the world by top chefs. Animal Farm Creamery butter to name only one.
If you’re buying crap butter from the grocery store, you’re going to get what you pay for. That is true almost everywhere.
Animal Farm Creamery butter
Equal to French butter. Maybe even more equal.
If the guide who was saying that about butter was not wearing a scarf around his neck and smoking a Gauloises, he needs to lose his French license.
Why are Americans so into Irish butter? It’s ok, but just about the same as British butter. French and danish butter though are completely different. It’s fermented.
It certainly isn’t. I have no idea what gave you that idea.
I see Irish butter in nearly every US grocery store; I’ve never seen French or Danish butter but I’ll keep an eye out for it, sounds interesting.
Président is in Walmart near me, beats that green and silver Irish butter imho
Président for french. Lurpak for danish. At least those are the brands that we get in the UK.
President is from the atrocious Lactalis megacorp (it might be the world’s largest milk corporation). You generally want to avoid their products.
Na, it’s too good to avoid.
Is there really such a thing as bad butter, though?
If they don’t take out enough of the water it makes soggy toast, but still not truly bad
Betty Botta bought some butter;
“But,” said she, “this butter’s bitter!
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter.
But a bit o’ better butter
Will but make my batter better.”
Then she bought a bit o’ butter
Better than the bitter butter,
Made her bitter batter better.
So ’twas better Betty Botta
Bought a bit o’ better butter.
i think i haven’t heard that in 30 years or something. totally forgot about it! my brain has a funny feeling now
Same. I don’t even remember where I read it, but when I saw “bad butter,” it came back to me. And I looked it up, of course.
Huh, that’s a lot longer that the version I knew growing up:
"Betty bought some butter, but the butter Betty bought was bitter
So Betty bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter Betty bought before"
Yes, there is butter that is like a bland grease block. Then there is stuff like Irish butter that has noticeable, variable, taste. The emulsion from high quality butter is silky smooth, creamy, and surprising light on the tongue, as opposed to leaving a greasy coating on it. The emulsion holds better as the butter melts, with better butter. The way it softens differs in ways that make it nice to cook, and bake, with. It spreads much more nicely. There really is a major difference between industrial production butter, and butter from a real creamery.
I highly suggest you get some huge corp butter, from a big box grocer, and a block of butter from a quality creamery, and then compare them. You will instantly notice the difference. Melt some of each, cook with some of each, spread some of each on some good bread, have toast with each, etc. It will be the whole experience that has improved, not just the taste.
Oh, you misunderstand.
I definitely think there’s ‘less good’ butter.
But ‘bad’ butter?
Absurd.
US citizen here.
I recall making butter from scratch in grade school and it was significantly better than what we get from the supermarket.
Kind of sad that some grade schoolers can do better than a large corporation.
…come to think of it. That could have been what started my obsession with whole foods from quality sources.
Being an American I would implore other Americans to make their own butter at home at least once to know just how much better it is. Then imagine that being done with quality milk. That’s what these folks are talking about.
The US has built its empire on convenience. There’s plenty of solid brands out there, but the biggest and well known are the companies that cut corners and quantity so they can keep prices low. And us US citizens just eat that shit up.
Amish style butter is some of the best butter I’ve ever had. You can find it all over the place in the Midwest and Amish heavy states.
Love me my Amish butter log. I put that baby in the freezer and carve out little chunks for use during the week.
Kind of sad that some grade schoolers can do better than a large corporation.
Better at what metric?
The cynical take is that the corporations did optimize for the best butter, only that their definition of “best” is different from yours.
Hah definitely! Perhaps the better take is that the priorities don’t align.
It is most likely because you didn’t have the additives, and machines, to get a significantly lower fat butter to fully emulsify.
I have been making more butter myself, and working on cheese now. There are a bunch of farms, in every state, that will sell raw milk “for animal use”. I have bought this, and the ultra pasteurized stuff, as I learn how to make cheese. The raw milk makes a noticeable difference in flavor when everything else was identical.
Irish butter is good in the summer. The Irish butter they sell in winter usually has been frozen stuff from the summer production.
Butter from tropical South Pacific countries is high in salt. It help with replenishing minerals your body loses due to sweating.
It would keep better with the heat too
So is butter from Brittany.
Lemmy should celebrate French-Irish butter day. What do yo say? Your community or ours?
Dude, it’s just butter, wtf.
Swiss butter FTW!
There are excellent American-made butters done traditionally. I hate that they’re making me defend the US but they have no monopoly on shitty food. It’s kinda just another form of exceptionalism.
There’s no secret to good butter. Grass fed cows, fermented milk, and high fat content. It’s just expensive.
Yeah, when people discuss american food they automatically think of off-the-shelf walmart stuff, mcdonalds, etc. When there are tons of artisanal food producers here, like a lot of them.
“American cheese isn’t even cheese”. I mean ‘american cheese’ is very processed. But go to Wisconsin and tell me we don’t have good cheese.
There’s plenty of good quality stuff in America. We just can’t fucking afford it.
There is even american cheese that is simply the blend of the two cheeses. No extra emulsifiers, no preservatives, no plastic like qualities. It is fairly soft, and quite mild, but it is nothing like the kraft sheets. It is just two cheeses blended together.
In fact, if it can be labeled as cheese, that’s exactly what it is. Kraft Singles cannot be sold with a cheese label.
American Cheese is also really good for melting into things. Like on burgers. If you look at how smash burgers are made, it’s basically a bunch of D-tier ingredients and cooking methods, including cheap American Cheese, that come together to be delicious.
I was a big American cheese hater until I had land o’ lakes American cheese. Shits actually pretty good
Time to share this nugget from the crusty vaults of my memory. At Kroger, the price tag on the shelf for their Land o’ Lakes White American Cheese read: “LOL White American”
It’s stuck with me for years.
It’s mostly that the percentage of water aloud in butter in America is higher than most
It’s true, but not as much as people seem to believe. US regulations require a minimum of 80% butterfat, and EU regulations require 82%.
Yep, some store brands are better than others. A quick Google with Best X brand will usually weed out the terrible ones. After that flavor is king.
In average American food is terrible.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t great American food, it just means that the stuff that’s sold the most is horridly heavily processed, thoroughly artificial and/or intensively farmed/raised crap.
It’s not a lack of knowledge or capable people in that domain, it’s that the system pushes cheap crap that whilst it own’t kill you outright it will shorten your Life Expectation by almost two decades compared to most Europeans.
The US has lower rates of food contamination from e.g. Salmonella or E coli, which I think is what that study is measuring. However, I think food in the EU generally has superior, better tasting, ingredients. There are two reasons I believe this to be the case. The first one probably has a smaller impact than the second.
The first reason that in the US an ingredient must be proven to be harmful before the FDA is allowed to ban it. In the EU an ingredient must be proven to be safe before it is allowed in commercial products.
The second reason is that while both the US and EU have farming subsidies, the way these subsidies are structured means that in the US they tend to incentivize the use of high fructose corn syrup and the production of highly processed foods while in the EU highly processed foods tend to be more expensive and “whole foods” tend to be cheaper.
As a result people in the EU tend to eat less processed food as a percentage of their caloric intake:
The second reason is that while both the US and EU have farming subsidies, the way these subsidies are structured means that in the US they tend to incentivize the use of high fructose corn syrup
Yes, but that is actually not solely subsidies- but also overregulation. Sugar imports are taxed. Though, it would be better for people’s health to try to transition away from caloric sugars to substitutes like aspartame.
the production of highly processed foods
Source?
highly processed foods tend to be more expensive and “whole foods” tend to be cheaper.
This is just the blog of a guy selling a book.
As a result people in the EU tend to eat less processed food as a percentage of their caloric intake:
So we were talking about supply, not consumption. But regardless, yes americans choose to eat processed foods more on average. So? The predominant cheap form of calories/proteins in Europe are cereals and tubers, those aren’t exactly lacking in the US. (Btw, its just because they’re cheap everywhere,
Though its not like either Americans or Europeans are significantly different in food group consumption for the most part The other differences being a much higher preference for meat in the US, also supported by the US actually getting majority of its protein from meat sources
Americans can afford raw potatoes too, they choose not to buy it. In fact, despite buying meat something supposedly 25% of Europeans cannot afford to eat every second day(though I don’t believe that statistic to be honest)- Americans spend significantly less of their budget on food.
And to preempt a possible argument, American antiobiotic use in livestock is on par with some of Europe and much lower than some of Europe
the production of highly processed foods
Source?
The US congressional research service thinks EU subsidies are more spread out among all types of crops, including fruits and vegetables, whereas US policy focuses more on grains, sugars, dairy, and oil seeds: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46811
That’s not a direct subsidy of food processin of course, but the crops the US chooses to support ends up incentivizing it.
And this paper also makes it sound like subsidized crops in the US end up in processed foods: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2530901
So we were talking about supply, not consumption. But regardless, yes americans choose to eat processed foods more on average. So?
Cultural factors are a thing but I think they’re used far too often to explain away trends at the population level and the effects of public policy.
Overall score is 13th.
Why are you being downvoted? Your comment is true, accurate, and unbiased. 🤷🏽
accurate, and unbiased.
Lol
US ranks 3rd in “food quality and safety”, beat only by Denmark and Canada
As somebody else pointed out in the other place you quoted that metric, that metric is about the likelihood of food contamination, not about the food’s nutritional value and certainly not about how healthy it is in the long term.
That’s not true, you can click on a country… It has 4 components, safety is 1 of them
There is not a single thing in there about food additives, under nutrients micronutrient coverage is ridiculously narrow (only one kind of vitamin and two minerals), fat and fat quality are absent (and the other health-related macronutrient present - sugar - shows very below average scoring), the protein quality criteria seems designed to reward meat-heavy diets (which would’ve been penalized on any fat criteria but, surprise, surprise, that’s not included in that metric) and most of that entry is about “standards” (i.e. talk, not action) - “we know how to do things right” is not the same as “we do things right” when it comes to policy (that whole section is especially hilarious given that none of the best food practices in the World as show by actual life expectancy, such as the Mediterranean Diet, are at all the result of having a good “national nutrition plan” - you really got to be taking the piss or designing your model to yield specific conclusions if you’re measuring “food quality” on the quality of the “national nutrition plan”).
Oh, and there’s nothing there about long term outcomes, such as obesity rates and life expectation.
This being The Economist I’m not surprised at the model design: they seem to have gone for “measuring only that which is easy to measure” in order to get Worldwide coverage, plus quite some results-oriented model design - which is a common practice of theirs - which would explain things like their weird choice of micro nutrients, excluding fat (of all things!) or looking at national nutrition standards instead of looking at food related health outcomes (such as obesity or cardivascular diseases).
I think a more accurate conclusion then, would be “the average American is too poor to afford good food”
Sort of, it goes both ways its not just on the consumer.
Yeah, I too think it’s a mix.
You see some kinds of shit food also being pushed in Europe, and then you see different outcomes per country, depending on local food culture and also legislation - people expect some thing and won’t settle for less plus certain things are simply not allowed by Law to be sold as food or be branded in some ways (for example, there UK has very strict demands of what can go into what can be called a “sausage”, which is why the shit stuff is called “bangers”).
Also in Europe vs the US you see a major difference in where farming subsidies go to - if more traditional farming is subsidized instead of corn raising and hormone-filled cattle breeding, the better quality stuff is what’s cheaper not the crap stuff.
I know you said hormones but I couldn’t find data for that before I decided its time to go to sleep.
The average US company is too greedy to make good food.
No it’s not it’s specifically that companies can sell Americans the same food they sell in other countries but in those countries, the same food is made with much better ingredients.
Look at the difference between the ingredient list in a Heinz ketchup bottle in the EU vs in America.
The CAP in Europe subsidizes more traditional farming and farming produce, not corn + hormone beef.
Also there are all sorts of local legislation that limit the extent to which crap food can be passed as real food: a lot of what can be sold as “cheese” in America can’t be sold as “fromage” in France and similarly a “sausage” in Britain has a very strict definition of what can go into it (the crap stuff is called a “banger” since BY LAW it can’t be called a “sausage”).
A lot of the bad practices would be just as cost-saving to do in Europe as in the US, it’s just that the legislation is way tighter and to some level (depending on the country) consumers are much more demanding (plus also due to the legislation, producers can’t just name the fake stuff the same as the real stuff).
The impression I have from talking to Americans is that to eat good food in the US you need to really make an effort, whilst in Europe for most things comparativelly higher quality ingredients are widespread (often the default), easy to find it and there are quite a lot of restrictions on what producers can put in it (or how it’s farmed or raised).
The impression I have from talking to Americans is that to eat good food in the US you need to really make an effort,
I promise, not anymore than the US. Actually, I’d argue especially in less urban areas getting fresh ingredients is more convenient from the prevalence of driving. The problem is if you can’t drive you’re screwed.
I’m always surprised how homogeneous American food is. There are regional differences but only as rare exceptions. Supermarkets sell exactly the same thing everywhere.
You’re just talking about the pre made shit you get at the grocery store in the frozen foods isle.
The US has the most varied and some of the best foods in the world, because there’s no other nation on earth that has such a merltings pot worth of cultures, heritages, and people. Our BBQ and smoked meats are the best. Chicago’s take on pizza is better that traditional Italian pizza. Our “chinese food” isn’t really Chinese cuisine. It’s a hybrid version and mainly was created in the US. Hamburgers are American creations. Key lime pie. Jambalaya! I mean, we made chocolate chip cookies. The Reuben sandwich that everyone assumes came from like Germany? Nope. USA. American made Chili is also great.
You can have your handful of French cuisine. The US has everyone’s menu.
You’re confusing eating out with what people normally eat in their day to day.
In my experience every large city in a prosperous enough nation has restaurants from the best culinary traditions, and that was also my experience when visiting the US.
However what’s available for people to prepare food at home and what people normally eat, is a whole different story.
You’re confusing cheap chain restaurants with American culinary?
Which part of
restaurants from the best culinary traditions, and that was also my experience when visiting the US.
has led you to believe I was talking about chain restaurants?
In average American food is terrible.
No, not really compared to most of the rest of the world. I live in Europe, every time I go to the US there is a lot of food I enjoy. My partner was surprised when I showed him actually good tasting American food. In terms of produce quality, fruits are by far better in most of the US then where I live in Europe(Central Europe). A lot of Europe (Germany, UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, etc) has pretty bland food for the most part.
For starters, you seem to be falling into the trap of comparing the food you eat when you visit a place and go to restaurants with the food you eat at home and have to cook from available ingredients.
Further, having lived in both the UK and Germany I have to disagree on your “blandness” assessment, unless you’re talking about the local culinary tradition alone, in which case that is true for the UK, but then again the US to doesn’t really have a local culinary tradition so a like to like comparison of local cuisine with it wouldn’t exactly put the US on top.
As for the rest, in my experience all large international cities in the West (at least the couple I lived in and the ones I visited) have lots of great and tasty cuisine in restaurants, because they all have available culinary traditions from just about anywhere - unlike what some seem to think, the US doesn’t have a monopoly on receiving immigrants from all over the World. (Even smaller places like Berlin, Amsterdam or Brussels have great variety of food in restaurants).
The point I’m making is about the “average” (hence why I actually used the word “average” in my post), not the way outside the average places which are the main cities and it’s about the food people normally eat, and that doesn’t mean the restaurant trade (unless you’re telling me most Americans eat the majority of their meals at restaurants) which tends to be great pretty much in any large city of the World in any nation rich enough to attract people from all over the place.
For starters, you seem to be falling into the trap of comparing the food you eat when you visit a place and go to restaurants with the food you eat at home and have to cook from available ingredients.
No. I lived in the US for the first 18 years of my life.
unless you’re talking about the local culinary tradition alone
Sort of both, of course metropolises will have a lot of immigrant cuisine, but I’ve found at least in continental Europe(I can’t speak for the UK) that immigrants often tone down stronger flavors in restaurant food- immigrant foods I grew up with are also harder to find in Europe(Czech Republic doesn’t have any Ethiopian restaurants for example, and at least the ones I went to in Vienna were not very good).
the US to doesn’t really have a local culinary tradition
That’s simply untrue. Just because foods had foreign inspiration has nothing to do if its locally american food, from Chinese-American Chinese food, to American Pizza, to more traditionally american foods like chilli and gumbo(and other cajun food), american style bbq and fried chicken- etc. Tempura being based on fried foods brought by Portugese doesn’t make it not Japanese.
As for the rest, in my experience all large international cities in the West
What does the west mean to you? But yeah I would agree large international cities all have immigrants, though I would argue the US has much better coverage of a variety of foods in smaller/medium sized cities. But that’s also not exactly relevant. I didn’t say the US as a whole is not terrible compared to large international western cities, I said compared to the rest of the world- then mentioned specifically countries(or regions) that I believe to have blander food than the US(on average).
(Even smaller places like Berlin, Amsterdam or Brussels have great variety of food in restaurants).
… Smaller places are not capital cities of major countries for the most part. And those are actually bigger than many European capital cities, and Berlin is very large.
The point I’m making is about the “average” (hence why I actually used the word “average” in my post),
You’re talking about the average but listing above average cities. Compare Louisville, KY, a very average american city in terms of food, size, and income, to Prague, CZ, a capital city twice the size- there is far more variety of food available in Louisville, the only thing keeping Prague alive in terms of options is the Vietnamese immigrant community.
not the way outside the average places which are the main cities and it’s about the food people normally eat, and that doesn’t mean the restaurant trade
Again, I have found more variety and quality of produce in stores in the US- stores that I tend to go to in the US also tend to have more variety in general. But that’s mostly because in the US its common to drive to larger stores, rather than going to smaller local stores- and big stores in Europe also of course have a lot of options. (Something very weird though, I was cooking chilli for my partner and I- and we could only find ground beef mixed with pork in our local grocers and not purely ground beef- but that’s just a weird quirk of our area.)
which tends to be great pretty much in any large city of the World in any nation rich enough to attract people from all over the place.
From restaurants that tend to be affordable? No, I don’t agree. I keep mentioning Ethiopian food just because its something important to me that would be impractical for me to cook myself, but all of Poland didn’t have an Ethiopian restaurant until about a year ago. (Granted the one that opened in Warsaw now is very good.)
I think we’re going out on a tangent.
The point I was making was about what people normally eat - so mainly at home - and the nutritional value and healthiness of food not how tasty and varied (in its culinary traditions) it is, so your post, whilst interesting and informative, doesn’t really cover it.
Mostly due to legislation on farming, husbandry and food safety (in everything from hormones in beef and allowed pesticides and herbicides to how the EU uses the Precautionary Principle in approving food additives whilst the US does not) the quality of the average ingredients in Europe is superior to the US and the prices of fresh produce are lower (because Farming Subsidies are aimed at maintaining more traditional farming, so they’ll end up in things like apples, lettuce and olive oil, not intensivelly reared beef and corn).
Absolutelly, you can find good quality ingredients in the US - that’s the point of places like Whole Foods - but what’s available in abundance and for the average person to affordably make their own meals is not as good.
i will skullfuck you, american food is literally the only thing we do well because our cuisine is so fucking diverse holy shit are you completely and totally wrong. You just generalized an entire country full of diverse palates and tastes.
Absolutely just some posh dude’s fanfiction
I went to a house party once that was a lot of different nationalities of Europeans. Two French guys got increasingly drunk and belligerent about the aesthetic quality of French churches versus Irish churches. To the point they had to he asked to leave because they were close to starting a fight. I’ve met several frenfh people over the years and theres always some spontaneous comparison between something in france vs here. OPs story is not so far fetched.
frenfh
Honestly the only thing more cringe than French people talking about France is Texans talking about Texas
TIL the french make butter.
? Every country makes butter?
Of course they do but I’ve never thought about french butter but I’m sure they think its the best there is just like everything else french.
Wat doo yoo sink we put on ze baguette?
Ham and a nice triple crème.
