Here’s how it happened—our train of thought, as it were:
-Hear snippet of BTS song called “Butter”
-Decide BTS stands for “Bro, This Sucks!”
-Think about what we really know about butter, the food
-Realize it’s ultimately very little
-Think about telling Fork readers BTS joke, but fear angering tech whiz who helps with Fork/loves BTS
-Decide they’re not petty like that; joke slaps, anyway
-Remember 2011 Alicia Silverstone/Rob Corddry indie movie Butter
-Watch 2011 Alicia Silverstone/Rob Corddry indie movie Butter
-Make toast w/butter
-Get down to writing Fork about butter
Yeah, we’ve had butter on the mind for whatever reason, not least of which because the 2011 Alicia Silverstone/Rob Corddry indie movie Butter about adoption, family weirdness and a butter sculpting competition was inspired by very real butter sculpting competitions. (Here’s some more on that). But we’ve also been thinking about butter because it’s great on French toast, makes pasta sing, turns boring popcorn into a whole thing and...well, just ask the French and the Italians and the—look, ask anyone but the vegans and they’ll tell you butter is amazing. Still, as we say, we ultimately know very little about its provenance, its story, its je ne sais quois. So let’s learn together, friends, in this latest edition of A VERY REAL AND COMPLETELY ACCURATE AND IN NO WAY JOKEY LESSON ON BUTTER!
In her 2016 book, Butter: A Rich History, writer Elaine Khosrova follows the trail of butter back to ancient Africa, circa 8000 BC, where a shepherd of some kind discovered that the warm sheep’s milk in his, uh, milk holder had been all shook up from travel, and the resultant curdled-ish thing inside tasted great!
But it wasn’t cow butter making the rounds in ancient times, ya buncha butter nerds. Instead, and this is likely obvious, most butter came from yaks and sheep and goats and such for the longest time. It sounds pretty obvious now that we’ve told you that, right?
Ancient Sumerians found something downright alchemical about the making of butter, so they’d use it as offerings to their gods. The ancient Romans, who were really more about oil than butter when it came to eating, used the stuff medicinally or in their cosmetics. The Fork’s dad likes to put it on literally everything, including croissants that already have so much butter in them it’s crazy.
The Great Butter Rebellion of 1766 might be one of the earliest examples of American protest. Seems a young Harvard student was served a particularly rancid pat of butter in the dining hall, leading to a more widespread student revolt. This is interesting both historically and as an example of those Harvard dweebs being so out of touch with the rest of us that imperfect butter seemed revolt-worthy.
The butter churn might have been around as early as the 6th century (that’s AD, buds), but it didn’t become super commonplace until the 1700s and 1800s. By the 1900s, most people were pretty much familiar with churns, but as manufacturing became more of a happening-not-at-home kind of thing, the churn went out of style. It’s just as well, because we churned butter once at one of those bullshit “step back in time!” towns, and it sucked so bad. Still, there were lots of churns to choose from, including the plunge churn (that’s the one you likely know), the paddle churn, the barrel churn and the hand churn. We’ve said churn so many times, the word’s lost all meaning. Try doing that with the word “among.” Just say “among” a bunch of times and it starts to sound so weird.
‘Twas a French chemist who invented margarine in 1869 after Emperor Napoleon put out the call for a butter substitute to help replace dwindling butter supplies. Tell that to your grandma the next time she tries to pass off margarine las real butter, but say it like, “I know this is fake, and I’m furious about it, but did you know...?”
Meanwhile, today-ish, it’s estimated that Americans ate something like 2.1 billion pounds of butter in 2020 (being the last year from which we could find data). A billion pounds of that was consumed by our dad, who also used to drink a pint glass full of half-and-half like it was nothing.
While we’re not about to suggest that you go around eating butter nonstop like you’re our dad, we will say that butter has notable amounts of vitamin A, as well as smaller amounts of Vitamins D and E. If you eat, like, normal amounts of it (normal being you eat it sometimes on toast or whatever), you’ll probably be OK. That said, we are absolutely NOT a doctor, and this should not be taken as medical advice. We can, however, give you life advice if you want. We’re good at life. Don’t believe us? They’re paying us to tell you about butter, so we’re clearly doing something right.
It’s not for us, but feel great if it’s for you!
Also
-If you miss Cuba Fe (which was a short-lived but excellent Cuban restaurant in Santa Fe a few years back), you might be pumped to know it’s returning this Saturday, April 23 in pop-up form to CHOMP Food Hall from 3:30-7 pm. There will be Cuban sandwiches and flan slices and even whole flans. Follow this link for more info and to pre-order. You MUST pre-order if you want in.
-You should also know that local nonprofit Kitchen Angels has partnered with a staggering 31 local eateries for the 2022 version of Angels Dine Out on Thursday, April 21 (that’s the same day The Fork came out this week, so you’ll have to hurry). Basically, a whole mess of local restaurants will donate a percentage of their income from the day to Kitchen Angels, which delivers meals to folks in need all across Santa Fe. Find a full list of participating restaurants here and remember that you can also pretty much donate to Kitchen Angels anytime. Oh, and if you think you might wanna volunteer, here’s a link to do that, too.
-Since there will apparently never ever ever ever EVER be enough pizza in Santa Fe, Bosque Brewing in the Railyard is set to transform into Restoration Pizza. Cool?
-Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, local small farmers are pretty upset that Bernalillo County Commissioner Steven Michael Quezada (who was in Breaking Bad in case you forgot) said “Farmers [in the middle Rio Grande] tend to be the biggest wasters of water,” during a meeting of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. Said farmers got together for a news conference on Wednesday this week at ABQ’s Civic Plaza (that’s where the civics stuff happens). Look, we don’t know much, but you never want to trash farmers, Gomey. We know this thing already happened, but here’s a Facebook page about it that might provide extra context.
We’re unsure why we love older commercials so much, but we do and you’re just going to have to deal with that, America.
More Tidbits
-The food folks over at USA Today want you to know that if you’re only using mustard as a condiment, you’re a stupid idiot who really needs to get it together, and that it’s probable your parents never loved you and were just pretending to do so out of some weird, misguided attempt at building the nuclear family dream they were pressured into embracing by their own horrible parents. OK, we admit that’s a slight exaggeration, but apparently you can put mustard on all kinds of things that aren’t hot dogs, and it’s great for cooking, too. Who knew? Not your parents, that’s for sure. Maybe your dad, but he wasn’t talking. He’d just be like, “What does your mother say?” And you’d be like, “UGH! Forget it!” But then you aged, and the guilt trips started coming, totally mustard-free. Oh, yeah, mom, we totally want to go over to your house all the time to watch you watch the news. Know what, mom? We won’t join you in living death, no! Nor shall we join you in the great beyond! We will stay. We will stay here. WE WILL STAY HERE AND WE WILL FIGHT UNTIL OUR BLOOD TURNS BROWN ON THE ROCKS OF GLORY!!!! Also, some mustards are brown. Crazy, right?
-Eater-dot-com seems to be getting into the sandwich game all hard with numerous pieces on sandwiches dominating their homepage this week. Our favorite? Tips on how to make a crazy sandwich that doesn’t wind up soggy. Sadly, most of the best sandwiches are meat-forward, and when it comes to vegetarian sammies, soggy’s just kind of the name of the game.
-Over at Epicurious-dot-com, writer Clarissa Wei wades back into the discussion over authenticity, this time as it pertains to Chinese food’s ever-evolving particulars. It’s a good read and a good reminder that we could really go for some sesame tofu right about now.
-We can’t imagine anyone caring that much, but it’s apparently very big news that Taco Bell will put its long-missing Mexican Pizza item back on the menu next month. Everything at Taco Bell is just a combo of the same six ingredients, though, so maybe just relax?
-Lastly this week in non-local news, Ali Francis over at Bon Appétit-dot-com goes looking for info on the health of fake meats. Now, we here at The Fork are generally fans, but our tastes have changed. It has to be very specific fake meat cooked in a very specific way. Regardless, the speed at which folks eat meat in this country means we might all have to turn to fake meat one of these days, so you should start learning now.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
This week’s print edition of SFR will tell you all about how you need to get over to La Tour Experience. It’s incredible.
Number of Letters Received
28
*Some nice Easter missives from the Fork Frenz.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“Do you know words that aren’t ‘shit?’”
*Many of them, which we feel like we’ve been proving for years now. Like, YEARZ!
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
“There’s something like the banana refrigerator tip for avocados. As soon as they’re ripe, or even almost, wrap them individually in aluminum foil and stick ‘em in the fridge. A friend told us years ago. I was properly skeptical because why foil instead of plastic or anything else? But it works. I pulled an avocado out a month later and it was perfect. A Ziploc does not work the same way.”
*Jeff D. coming in clutch with that sweet, sweet avocado tip!
Smooth like gravel,
The Fork
