In Search of Better Butter

That's interesting, what Old Dog said about clarified butter. I always thought it was just something that fancy chefs used so they could charge more for their meals. Truth be known, though, we have never used real butter in our house. Although we call it "butter" out of habit, we used soft margarine until a few years ago. I liked it because it was easier to spread than real butter, and we have both come to prefer the taste. Then they changed it, something about "trans fat", which the PC people decided wasn't good for you. I think they took the trans fat out and substituted some chemical for it. I didn't notice any difference, but my hypothetical wife didn't like it, so she went searching for something else that we both could live with. We finally settled on Blue Bonnet 46% vegetable oil spread. It's okay I guess, but I liked the old margarine better. This stuff doesn't have as much flavor, so I make up for that by just using more of it.

When I first started making bread, my hypothetical wife taught me to use Crisco in place of the lard that her mother had used. She said that lard tastes better in pie crust but, for bread, it didn't matter. She also taught me to use margarine to grease the mixing bowl, the baking pans, and the loaves themselves. I read the labels and came to the conclusion that margarine was basically just Crisco with yellow food coloring added, so I dispensed with the Crisco and used margarine for everything. I found this Blue Bonnet stuff a little harder to work with than margarine, but the bread doesn't taste any different, so it's no big deal.

We were introduced to Lawry's by my parents a long time ago. It can be used for other things, but we mostly use it on meat, no matter how we cook it. Sprinkle the stuff all over the meat before you cook it. If it comes out tasting too salty, just use less next time. I understand that Lawry makes a pepper too, but I don't like pepper on anything.My hypothetical wife does, so she keeps some regular pepper, which she puts on her own food after cooking.