458: Salted Butter
Matthew:
I'm Matthew.
Molly:
And I'm Molly
Matthew:
And this is, Spilled Milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any.
Molly:
Today, we're actually talking about something that actually, hopefully you already maybe have, and you can have some, and that's-
Matthew:
You want to know the embarrassing thing? I don't have any.
Molly:
Oh my God. I do have some, ha-ha.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Okay, we're talking about salted butter, everybody.
Matthew:
Oh, yes.
Molly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew:
Was this a listener request?
Molly:
Well, if it was, listener, I'm so sorry, but I don't think it was. I think that we came up with it.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Isn't that weird?
Matthew:
I think we came up with the concept of salted butter.
Molly:
Thank you us.
Matthew:
Yes. Yeah. I took some butter, I slapped some salt in there, I smooshed it all around, and I called it good. Should we go down memory lane?
Molly:
Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to lead it off this time.
Matthew:
Okay, please do.
Molly:
Because you always... I always have to follow you down memory lane.
Matthew:
That's true.
Molly:
I want you to follow me for once.
Matthew:
That doesn't seem fair. Okay. I'm going to follow you down memory lane. How many paces behind do I have to stay as your valet?
Molly:
I want you to stay at least three paces behind.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Okay. All right. My salted butter memory lane is not long. I think that growing up, I knew there was such a thing as salted butter, the same way I knew that there was leaded gasoline, but you just didn't buy it.
Matthew:
Sure.
Molly:
Like leaded gasoline.
Matthew:
When I was little, we had a car that did take leaded gasoline.
Molly:
You did?
Matthew:
Oh yeah.
Molly:
Wow, man. That is throwing it way back.
Matthew:
Yeah. When we got rid of leaded gas, that's when things really started to go downhill.
Molly:
Wow. Okay. So anyway, I remember there being salted butter in the world when I was a kid, but we never bought it. The butter we always used at home was unsalted. And then I think that I first really came to... I think I first ate salted butter probably out in a restaurant, frankly, either as one of those little butter pats that come with your toast at a diner, or as whipped salted butter on top of a pancake.
Matthew:
Oh yeah. That makes sense. Oh, you know what I learned about whipped butter?
Molly:
What?
Matthew:
When you buy like a tub of commercial whipped butter, I did a bunch of butter research for this episode. So I learned some things that are not specifically about salted butter, and I'm going to throw some of those in. when you buy whipped butter in a tub at the supermarket, it's whipped with nitrogen rather than air so that it doesn't go rancid easily.
Molly:
Whoa. That's cool.
Matthew:
Because oxygen is what makes butter go rancid. So they whip it with nitrogen.
Molly:
Is that because it oxidizes things?
Matthew:
That's right.
Molly:
Okay. Wait, hold on. I'm not done.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
So I think my first encounter with salted butter, in a sense, in a really positive sense, not just neutral, like here's this stuff that showed up on my pancake, in a really positive sense, was get ready Matthew.
Matthew:
I'm ready.
Molly:
In France. In France.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
I put some France stuff on the agenda, although it's coming later.
Molly:
Yeah. Because France, land of dairy fat in the form of cheese, and also incredible butter, specifically from the North of France. I think a lot of people might have heard of Bordier butter.
Matthew:
I'm just going to pretend I've heard of Bordier butter.
Molly:
I first encountered butter with the little salt crystals in it, that could almost see. They were glistening in it, in France. And then coming back to the US, I think I would occasionally buy it, but I was always kind of like, I don't know what I'm going to use this for, because I didn't want to cook with it, and I didn't want to bake with it. I didn't actually start keeping salted butter in the house, which now I do, I always have salted and unsalted, until I got together with Ash, because Ash always had a butter dish sitting out on the counter with salted butter in it.
Matthew:
Okay, that makes sense.
Molly:
So yeah, now we have a butter dish with salted butter in it.
Matthew:
Is it one of those ones where it puts the butter in a layer of water?
Molly:
No.
Matthew:
For some reason-
Molly:
A butter bell.
Matthew:
a butter bell. Yes.
Molly:
Nope, Nope. Nope.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
It's not one of those. No, this is actually... Matthew, you and I were together when I bought this butter dish, I bought it in Tokyo.
Matthew:
Right. At the store that sells lots of white stuff.
Molly:
The store that sells lots of white stuff. And I think the title translates either to kiss me or fuck me, the title of the store.
Matthew:
Yeah, [foreign language 00:04:34].
Molly:
Yeah. It was like [foreign language 00:00:04:36].
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, unsalted butter lives in the fridge. We use it for cooking and baking. Salted butter lives on the counter, and it gets used for toast.
Matthew:
This is probably like a thing that's been done.
Molly:
This is the beginning of my new children's book. Where does salted butter live?
Matthew:
Where does... Oh, would there be flaps?
Molly:
There would be flaps.
Matthew:
Oh yes. There would be a butter bell that you pull out, like a pat the bunny type of thing.
Molly:
Yes. And you can lift the lid on the butter dish and you can see that somebody has gotten crumbs in the butter.
Matthew:
Right. And the book would somehow have a genuine wet and, or greasy texture, depending upon which change.
Molly:
Yes.
Matthew:
Yeah. There's not enough of greasiness in children's books.
Molly:
Or wetness.
Matthew:
Yeah. Okay. Can I do a little memory lane? Because I really only have a little.
Molly:
Yeah. And I should say, my memory lane pretty much covered our whole agenda. So the show is going to be over when you finish your memory lane.
Matthew:
Well, I don't know. Did you look at this agenda?
Molly:
I did. I was messing with you, man.
Matthew:
Wouldn't it be great if the... You said that the butter dish you got had writing on it that could be translated as, kiss me or fuck me. What if it just said that in English?
Molly:
No, no, no. That's the name of the store.
Matthew:
Oh, the name of the store. Okay.
Molly:
The name of the store was, kiss me, or possibly, fuck me.
Matthew:
Yeah. Okay. So if that was the name of the store in English, kiss me, or possibly, fuck me.
Molly:
Yeah.
Matthew:
We'll see how it goes.
Molly:
I wish that were written on the butter dish, but it's not.
Matthew:
You probably have a Sharpie in the house.
Molly:
I do.
Matthew:
Okay. So I think we had mostly unsalted butter when I was growing up. I think salted versus unsalted butter is a real signifier in American culture.
Molly:
Yes, I agree.
Matthew:
In the sense that first of all, salted butter is much more popular in America than unsalted butter. It's about three to one. If you're an unsalted butter house, you're either food people, or health nuts, or both, I think.
Molly:
Oh. I never thought about the health nuts. I figured that they just had like... I don't know.
Matthew:
I guess if you're a health nut, you're going to have some kind of butter substitute, probably. So maybe just food people.
Molly:
Yeah.
Matthew:
Like people into baking.
Molly:
This is so interesting. Yeah. I think I didn't realize that salted butter was that much more popular in the US. I feel so much like unsalted butter is the default, because that's what I grew up with.
Matthew:
Yeah. No, me too. I did not know what the stats were until I started researching for this episode. So my first real, a couple encounters with salted butter. When Laurie and I lived in New York, when she was going to grad school in 1998-99, we would shop at Fairway Market, Uptown, which had this big walk-in refrigerator. They had several brands of butter available, but Plugra was the one that had the best price for some reason. It was cheaper than the Land O'Lakes, or whatever. So we were by Plugra this one pound block, and it was this very rich, European style salted butter.
Molly:
Wait a minute. I've always figured that the name of it was a combination of the words [foreign language 00:07:50] and [foreign language 00:07:52], which would be, more fat, right?
Matthew:
You're absolutely right. Yeah.
Molly:
Oh, okay. Cool.
Matthew:
And that stuff is great. I associate that butter, that the taste and texture of that butter with living in New York and discovering all kinds of new foods and becoming a food person.
Molly:
Wow. That's so cool. I just took a bite of English muffin. Whoops.
Matthew:
Okay. I'll go on.
Molly:
I was hoping you would talk for a while.
Matthew:
Yeah, and do you remember, back in the eGullet days, when we both participated in this online food forum in the early 2000s, that everyone got really excited about Vermont butter and cheese companies' salted cultured butter for a while?
Molly:
I don't know if I remember that.
Matthew:
Well, it was a huge event. Everybody was talking about it. Maybe you were absent that day. No, I remember people recommending this butter eGullet Eagle and we found it at some semi fancy store, and it's really good. It comes in a log, I think actually the packaging has changed, and actually the name of the company has changed too now, it's called Vermont Creamery, but it's their salted European style cultured butter, and it's a very good butter with a nice saltiness to it.
Molly:
And it has crystals of sea salt in it, right?
Matthew:
Yes, that's right.
Molly:
I do wonder if it was one of the first in the US to sell butter that had visible crystals in it.
Matthew:
I think probably so.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
Okay. So can I just dive into what I learned?
Molly:
Please.
Matthew:
And you can interrupt at will.
Molly:
What did you learn?
Matthew:
What have we learned? Well, what have we learned?
Molly:
Oh, this is going to be our cookie monster show.
Matthew:
Yes. As soon as I said that, I'm like cookie monster, I can hear cookie monster knocking at the edges of my brain.
Molly:
Wait, wait, wait-
Matthew:
What have me learned?
Molly:
Do the next little part in cookie monster voice.
Matthew:
I can only do it when I'm not trying to think about it too hard. Salt is added to butter, it's both a flavoring agent and preservative. How was that?
Molly:
I loved it.
Matthew:
Thank you.
Molly:
10 stars.
Matthew:
Okay. So salt is added to butter as both a flavoring agent and a preservative. I have to read this from the Wikipedia butter article, even though it kind of has nothing to do with salted butter.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
Okay. "The ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to have considered butter a food fit more for the Northern barbarians, a play by the Greek comic poet, Anaxandrides, refers to Thracians as boutyrophagoi, butter eaters. In his natural history Pliny the Elder calls butter "The most delicate of food among barbarous nations."
Molly:
What?
Matthew:
And goes on to describe its medicinal properties. Later, the physician Galen also described butter as a medicinal agent only.
Molly:
Wow. This is fascinating. Huh. Fit for Northern barbarians.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
Food of barbarous nations.
Matthew:
I don't really know what they meant. Did they mean like Sweden?
Molly:
I do. I think they meant Sweden.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
No, but I kind of picture... Where these barbarous nations, where they like walking around with sort of Flintstones attire on? Maybe gnawing on meat and were they these course-
Matthew:
Course sea salt?
Molly:
Course, herding people, so they used butter for their fat because they had cows?
Matthew:
I think so. Yeah. They were CHPs, course hurting people. Yeah. I think they probably like rubbed butter just on everything. They used it as a medicinal agent, apparently.
Molly:
I think that seems right.
Matthew:
So maybe they were injecting it, or just sticking it up places.
Molly:
Sure.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
So that's what I got for ancient history. I learned, which I sort of knew, but didn't realize it was a standard in the industry that the printing on unsalted butter wrappers is typically red, while that for salted butter is typically blue, the wrappers of the actual sticks. And the amount of butterfat in butter is tightly regulated. It has to be a minimum of 80% and the rest is mostly water, but the amount of salt in salted butter is not. So if you call your butter unsalted, it can't have any added salt. But if you call your butter salted, as long as it has some amount of added salt, that's fine. It could be any amount.
Molly:
That's interesting.
Matthew:
So the National Dairy Council found that commercial salted butter generally contains about 1.6 to 1.7% salt, but it's really up to each brand, and it can vary quite a bit. The saltiest brands have almost twice as much salt as the least salty salted butter brands.
Molly:
Hm. Wow. Okay. So what does that work out to in terms of a teaspoon of salt per stick? What is that?
Matthew:
I'm so glad you asked. A stick of butter is a quarter pound or half a cup. Is that right? Half a cup? Yeah.
Molly:
Yep. That's right.
Matthew:
And a 1.7% salt is two grams per stick. And two grams of salt is about a third, a quarter to a third teaspoon of table salt.
Molly:
Huh. Okay.
Matthew:
So not a huge amount.
Molly:
Yeah. That's not a huge amount. When I think about, for instance, how much salt I use in cooking or in a batch of pesto or something.
Matthew:
Yeah. Like in a batch of pesto, that's the first thing that came to mind?
Molly:
Well, I was thinking a batch of pesto, like my usual batch size of pesto uses a half cup of oil. So I was thinking half cup of fat.
Matthew:
And your usual batch size of pesto is five gallons. It's an oil drum of 40... How much is an oil drum? Like 55 gallons?
Molly:
I don't know.
Matthew:
That's what came to mind. We're supposed to know these things.
Molly:
Oh God. Okay. Well, anyway, Matthew, when do you choose salted... Well, do you tend to have both?
Matthew:
I tend to have unsalted butter, although in the early days of the pandemic, unsalted butter was in short supply for a time and we were getting salted butter, and it didn't seem to make much difference, which I will get to in great detail. So I started Googling around for like, when should you choose unsalted versus salted butter? Because I like to be told what to do. And I found on the Land O'Lakes site, here's what they say, both salted and unsalted butters are made of the very same grade AA quality butter, but salted butter has salt added to it. That's it.
Molly:
Whoa.
Matthew:
Both salted butter and unsalted butter can be used interchangeably in any recipe. But if the recipe calls specifically for unsalted butter, it's probably because the recipe has been tested with it, and it's the preferred butter for that particular recipe. So I learned a whole lot from that webpage.
Molly:
Wow. Thanks a lot, Land O'Lakes.
Matthew:
Yeah. So to summarize, salted butter has salt added to it and it can be used interchangeably with unsalted butter, except when it can't. So baking recipes tend to call for unsalted butter. I started wondering like, how bad is it if you just use salted butter in place of unsalted butter in a baking recipe? Have you ever gone down this road?
Molly:
I have not, actually. I have baked things that called for salted butter, and I've used salted butter there, but in general, I feel like it's... So here's what I'm thinking, sometimes when, okay, when Ash is making pancakes, they just grease the pan with the butter in the butter dish.
Matthew:
Sure.
Molly:
Which is salted butter. I always open up the fridge, get out some unsalted butter, shave a bit off and grease the pan with that.
Matthew:
You're a butter shaver.
Molly:
And I think that you can... I don't like the taste of a pancake cooked in salted butter. It's, I don't know, it's not what I'm looking for.
Matthew:
That's interesting.
Molly:
I really, I don't want that. if I'm going to have salted butter near my pancake, I want it on top of it. I don't want it anywhere unintentional.
Matthew:
So I cook pancakes in oil, which now as I say that, I feel like that makes me a Northern barbarian of some kind.
Molly:
I used to cook my pancakes in oil and... Well, the truth is, I cook my pancakes in a nonstick skillet. So I put butter in for the first pancake and then that's it.
Matthew:
Yeah, I'm afraid the butter is going to get burned.
Molly:
It does sometimes a little bit, but not really.
Matthew:
Okay. So I started looking around for what happens if you just use salted butter for everything. And I found this fiery rant of a blog post from the Chopping Block blog, which we'll link to in the show notes, that says, everyone should use salted butter. And the author is Chef Max Hall. And his argument is that since salted butter already tastes well seasoned by itself, you're not going to make anything too salty by using it in a recipe. And that includes baking recipes.
Molly:
Wait a minute, that argument doesn't make any sense.
Matthew:
Doesn't make sense. We'll get there.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
But the only baking recipes he tried were a buttercream frosting recipe and a chocolate cake. So then I went to Good Housekeeping, and they had a 2013 article, Salted Butter Versus Unsalted Butter, Does it Matter? And they did a double blind tasting of cupcakes, made three ways, with unsalted butter and added salt, with salted butter and added salt, and with salted butter and no added salt. And the results were conclusive. The vast majority of tasters preferred either the unsalted butter plus salt or the salted butter plus no added salt cupcakes, the salted butter plus salt were too salty.
Molly:
I believe that. Yeah.
Matthew:
Yep. On the other hand, they still liked all the cupcakes. And the more I read about this, the more I was like, okay, if you use salted butter in a recipe that calls for unsalted butter, it's not going to ruin it. It might just come out a little bit different from the original intention.
Molly:
I would also say that, so you might have heard of Alison Roman's cookie recipe that took the world by storm a couple years ago.
Matthew:
Yes, the salted butter chocolate short...
Molly:
Chunk shortbread.
Matthew:
Shortbread. Yeah.
Molly:
Yeah. So I've made those a number of times. It's as good as they say. And she calls for, of course, salted butter, but she also says in a little side note that you can use unsalted butter and add X amount of kosher salt, if you don't have salted butter. I have done both and I could taste a difference, I preferred it with the salted butter.
Matthew:
Interesting.
Molly:
So I do think that there is, I don't know if it's just that even though she gave me a salt quantity to add to the unsalted butter, there was just probably that much variance between that amount and what was in the salted butter that I otherwise would have used.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
And I don't know if it's just that I'm used to the taste of those cookies with that salted butter, but I could really taste the difference.
Matthew:
Yeah. I think what it is, is that baking is all about consistency. So bakers are not going to write a recipe where one of the ingredients can vary up to like a hundred percent in how much salt it contains.
Molly:
Yeah.
Matthew:
It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with salted butter for baking. It's just like, you lose that little edge of control.
Molly:
Yeah. You lose that precision because there's this uncontrolled variable that is the brand of salted butter, et cetera.
Matthew:
Okay. So what about butter as a condiment? This is something I think you're much more comfortable with than I am.
Molly:
Oh yes.
Matthew:
As you know, I grew up thoroughly condiment phobic, and I've still a little bit skeeved out by the idea of spreading solid or room temperature, butter on something and eating it. I love melted butter in any context, medical or culinary.
Molly:
This is fascinating to me, Matt.
Matthew:
I know, it's so weird.
Molly:
I think few things are more satisfying to me than taking a piece of like great bread that I've toasted, straight out of the toaster, it's nice and hot, and I watch butter melt on the top of it, like smear butter across and watch it melt. Love that.
Matthew:
Yeah, listeners, you're with me, right? That's gross. Can we all agree on this? Molly is weird.
Molly:
Okay. Anyway, but all this to say, I was only converted to using salted butter in condiment situations four years ago. But my butter intake has increased a lot since then, because it's so delicious.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Yeah. If I am toasting an English muffin, well, I am having an English muffin actually right now, but it has peanut butter on it. But if I'm toasting an English muffin, if I'm toasting any kind of bread, the butter that I'm going to reach for is salted butter, usually at room temperature, although worse comes to worse, I love shaving off a little curl of cold butter and watching that melt.
Matthew:
We already established this. You're a butter shaver.
Molly:
I'm a butter shaver. I'm part of the Northern tribe of butter shavers.
Matthew:
Yes.
Molly:
Anyway, also salted-
Matthew:
They use butter as currency as well. You could shave off any amount you needed for a purchase.
Molly:
Salted butter also, here's an iconic use for it, with radishes. I know I'm bringing back the Francophile side of me.
Matthew:
Yes.
Molly:
But radishes with salted butter, it doesn't get better than that really.
Matthew:
Like sliced and on bread?
Molly:
So people have many different ways of doing this. What I tend to like is to take a slice of baguette or a hunk of bread, spread some salted butter on it, actually and this is an instance where I think cold butter is really nice, like where you leave tooth marks in it when you bite it.
Matthew:
Yeah, I just can't do it.
Molly:
And then thinly shaved radish, and then even a little bit more salt on top of the radish, but you definitely need salted butter here. Or if not salted butter, sometimes when I've been presented with this at a restaurant or maybe somebody else's home or something, they will have a little dish of butter that they've let sit out at room temp, and sprinkled a bunch of crunchy salt onto. And then you when you take a little bit of it, you get some of the salt flakes.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
But anyway, okay. So yeah, butter and radishes, that's got to be salted butter all the way.
Matthew:
Yeah. I totally get that. If I were going to eat that, which I think in the right context, I would. I would definitely want it to be salted butter. What brand, do you have a brand that you're loyal to or brands that you look for when you buy salted butter?
Molly:
Here's the thing, we tend to use salted butter in stick form, because that's what fits the best in our butter dish.
Matthew:
Yeah. That makes sense.
Molly:
Although actually, now that I think about it, one of those more square blocks, like a Plugra type thing would also fit. So I don't even know what I'm talking about.
Matthew:
Like the whole pound?
Molly:
Yeah. I think we could fit the whole pound in this butter dish.
Matthew:
That's a lot of butter to be sweating on your counter.
Molly:
I also think that the reason we get sticks is that that is about the maximum amount that I want to leave out at room temp at any given time.
Matthew:
Right.
Molly:
So we tend to buy Tillamook brand butter, both salted and unsalted.
Matthew:
Yeah, we often buy that too.
Molly:
Yeah, I like that. It is regional, made in Oregon, right?
Matthew:
Yeah. I've been to the Tillamook factory. Have you?
Molly:
I think I've driven past it.
Matthew:
Yeah. Laurie and I both went there as kids, not together. It really made an impression on me. You see them like making the cheddar and curdling the milk and kneading it into loaves and stuff. It was super cool.
Molly:
Wow. I must not have gone in, I do remember driving past it, doing a road trip down the coast to California. By the way, I really love, this month actually, actually last month when this thing airs, September marks my 18th year in Seattle.
Matthew:
Congratulations, I think.
Molly:
I know for you it's six years more than that. So you're 24.
Matthew:
That's right. Yes.
Molly:
But anyway, I love-
Matthew:
Happy day after your birthday, by the way.
Molly:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I love that I've been here long enough that something that is a real regional, Northwest thing, like Tillamook cheddar or Tillamook butter, just feels normal to me. Like of course the brand of cheddar I buy is Tillamook.
Matthew:
Oh yeah.
Molly:
Anyway.
Matthew:
Tillamook cheddar is such a good product.
Molly:
It's a really good product.
Matthew:
As far as industrial food products go, it's basically the best.
Molly:
It's really, really good. Anyway, I'm not done, Matthew.
Matthew:
Okay, sorry.
Molly:
Okay. So yeah, we buy Tillamook salted and unsalted butter in the half cup sticks. But I do occasionally, God, if I stopped by Trader Joe's and they've got Kerrygold. Oh my God, it's ridiculously cheap at Trader Joe's. So I love Kerrygold salted butter. I think that truthfully, that may be my favorite readily available grocery store salted butter, is Kerrygold.
Matthew:
Yeah. I put it on the shopping list even knowing that we weren't going to be getting to the store before this episode. I just want some of that Kerrygold salted butter around.
Molly:
It's so good. I vastly prefer it over Plugra, sorry. And I think over Lurpak too, which is another one that we often find here.
Matthew:
Lurpak is the most fun to say of any of them though, is that Danish?
Molly:
I think it is. Lurpak, I don't have any strong feelings about either way. I think it's tasty. Plugra, I have baked a little bit with Plugra unsalted, and my baked goods, I was making a shortbread, and my shortbread came out with this weird butter flavor, flavor. It was gross.
Matthew:
Yeah. It could be they're adding butter flavor to their butter. I think you're allowed to do that.
Molly:
Well anyway, I noticed that in Plugra and I have to say, I've never bought it since.
Matthew:
Yeah. I still, I just have fond memories of it. I don't think I've bought it in a while either.
Molly:
Yeah. But anyway, yeah, Kerrygold all the way, but I don't buy it often. Honestly, we go through a pretty high amount of butter around here, because we do a lot of baking. So I like that Tillamook is also reasonably priced.
Matthew:
Yeah, me too. Okay. I have a couple more things about salted butter, but we owe the listeners a check-in about your dinner with Tony Negroni. How was your dinner with Tony Negroni and did you ask her what her summer beverage was?
Molly:
Oh my god, I forgot to call her Tony Negroni.
Matthew:
Oh wow, okay.
Molly:
Oh my God. I also forgot to ask her about her summer beverage.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Oh my God.
Matthew:
So listeners, we apologize.
Molly:
Oh my God.
Matthew:
We prostrate ourselves before you, and you'll see her again sometime, right?
Molly:
Probably.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Probably.
Matthew:
So next time you need to call her and Tony Negroni and ask what her summer cocktail was.
Molly:
By the time we went over to her house, it was like 7:00 PM. And seriously, I walked into the house and then sat down in the most comfortable chair in her living room and then proceeded to slide down it until I was almost lying in it.
Matthew:
Oh, I hear you.
Molly:
And I just stayed there until dinner was served.
Matthew:
Your name is Tony Negroni.
Molly:
By 7:00 PM on a Monday, this is the best I can do, lying in a chair using it like a bed.
Matthew:
Oh yeah, no, yesterday I was destroyed by 7:00 PM.
Molly:
Yeah.
Matthew:
Okay. So we'll get back to you on that, listeners. I found a great article by Charlotte. Druckman in the Washington Post in 2018 about the return of salted butter. And now why people are using it for everything, including baking and savory dishes and whatever.
Molly:
What did she say?
Matthew:
Well, it's just, she talked to a lot of like chefs and food writers about why they grew up with unsalted butter and that was considered the culinary choice and now good salted butter seems to be everywhere.
Molly:
Yeah. And I think it really, I think it has everything to do, I haven't read this article, but I think it has everything to do with the idea of butter as a condiment. It's really made a comeback after the fat phobic years of the '80s and '90s.
Matthew:
Yeah. And if you're going to have a condiment, you want the conduit to be well-seasoned.
Molly:
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Matthew:
Okay. Are you ready to go to France?
Molly:
I am.
Matthew:
Because I learned some things about... I'm ready to fucking go anywhere, frankly.
Molly:
Oh my God. Please. You could, I don't know, put me in a dumpster and just wheel me around town. That would be pretty cool.
Matthew:
Yeah. That sounds great. Could it be a self-driving dumpster that we just both get in and just pop our heads out periodically?
Molly:
Do you remember-
Matthew:
And wave at the public?
Molly:
Do you remember at the beginning of the never-ending story, when Bastian is being chased through the city by these three bullies and he jumps into, or maybe they put him in a dumpster.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
But do you remember that?
Matthew:
Yes.
Molly:
Maybe we could get Falcor on board for this.
Matthew:
Maybe we could get Falcor onboard.
Molly:
We could hook up the Falcor.
Matthew:
We could put one of those little bumper stickers on our dumpster that says, Falcor onboard, and has a little silhouette of a dragon.
Molly:
I think that we should attach the dumpster, with ropes to Falcor's back legs, and then when he flies around town, he drags the dumpster with him.
Matthew:
Wait, okay. Is the dumpster fly... Does he fly with such vigor that the dumpster is being pulled through the air behind him? Or is the dumpster still on the ground and his tail is kind of drooping because dumpsters are so heavy.
Molly:
I think that actually he flies with such vigor that the dumpster leaves the ground.
Matthew:
Okay, yes. That is now my dream too, to get in a dumpster with my best friend and be pulled through the sky by a friendly dragon. I think someday, I know we can't do this now, but someday we're going to make this happen.
Molly:
Okay. Wait, hold on. Can I tell you one other thing about large flying animals that are mythical?
Matthew:
Yes, please.
Molly:
So June has recently been really taken with this show called Avatar on Netflix.
Matthew:
Oh, Iris has been watching it too. I hear it's great.
Molly:
It's really, really good. You should watch it now. We're all really into it. But anyway, Ang, who is the avatar, his mode of transportation is a flying bison.
Matthew:
Flying bison? I love it.
Molly:
It's so cool. And this bison looks like it could be like a cousin of Totaro, it's got this very sort of grouchy, but lovable, huge oversized face, huge oversized mouth. But what I love most is, it also has six legs, kind of like the cat bus.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
The cat bus has what? Like eight legs or 10 legs. Right?
Matthew:
A lot, yeah.
Molly:
Okay. The flying bison, whose name is Appa has three legs on either side. And then this big wide tail that's kind of like a platypus tail. But anyway, when he flies through the sky, he seriously just, I love that the animators made this decision. There's no part of him that looks vigorous. He just sort of like-
Matthew:
People say that about me a lot too.
Molly:
The way that he looks standing on the ground is the same way that he looks flying through the air.
Matthew:
Is he kind of droopy?
Molly:
Yes. He droops through the air, and it delights me. Like the cat bus' legs move as it running and whatever.
Matthew:
Yeah, right.
Molly:
No, no, no, this guy-
Matthew:
Oh, I'm looking at pictures now, this is adorable.
Molly:
Isn't it adorable? But he seriously droops through the air.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
Oh my God. Anyway, 10 stars for avatar. I give it the same rating as Matthew's cookie monster impression.
Matthew:
Thank you. So could we hook our dumpster to a variety of flying animals and see which one gives the best ride?
Molly:
Yeah. I'm here to say that Appa seems a little bit, it seems like Appa has something going on with him. For a while he couldn't even fly, he just had to kind of swim. So I don't know if Appa is going to be our best choice, but he's way up there in cuteness.
Matthew:
Well, I think being pulled through the water by a swimming beast could also be great and kind of like a water skiing, like trash water skiing, like trash water skiing sort of way.
Molly:
Yes. Okay, so we would be in the-
Matthew:
We'd be pressed up against the front of the dumpster looking over the edge as we careen through the water at high speed, or low speed, depending.
Molly:
Yes. This sounds great, I bet he would have an effect like a motorboat does when it gets going really fast and the front sort of tilts up and there's a lot of slapping of the water. I think that the dumpster would probably do that.
Matthew:
Oh yeah. I love motorboating. And I also like being out on the water.
Molly:
God, Matthew.
Matthew:
So dumb.
Molly:
That was so dumb. All right, let's go to France.
Matthew:
Let's go to France. Okay. So in Brittany [foreign language 00:32:57] is a local treasure and it is very salty.
Molly:
[foreign language 00:33:03]. Wow. It's been a long time since I've spoken French. That was rough.
Matthew:
That was good. In Brittany there are three types of butter that are widely available. There's doux, demi-sel and salé. And the demi-sel is anywhere from about 0.5% to 3% salt. And salé over 3%. So that means the salé starts at as about twice as salty as American salted butter and can go up from there.
Molly:
That's a lot of salt. I think that what I have often, so Beurre Bordier, B-O-R-D-I-E-R, is made by some, I think it's like Eve Bordier, or something like that. I'm probably getting this all wrong. Ignore me. Anyway, it's a person's name, but you can buy it now in places in Paris and elsewhere. I'm sure there are even places in the US that carry it and sell it for a fucking fortune. But anyway, it's wrapped in parchment and printed in this really sort of old style kind of way. But I think what I've always had from there is demi-sel, because it seems to me that the salé would be memorably over the top.
Matthew:
Yeah. The thing, I didn't really get a good sense of what all the salé butter is used for, except for [inaudible 00:34:20] crepes.
Molly:
[foreign language 00:34:21].
Matthew:
Yeah. And caramel.
Molly:
You know what is a wonderful use of really good French butter? So when you're eating oysters in France, generally they will bring you a basket of bread or a baguette, or sometimes kind of a more dense bread, not quite like a German seeded bread, but pointing in that direction, and a little pot of salted butter. So the accompaniment to your oysters on the half shell is bread and delicious salted butter. And that is so good.
Matthew:
That sounds great.
Molly:
It's so good. When Renee Erickson opened The Walrus and the Carpenter here in Seattle, of course, she made a nod to France by doing... I just forgot what I was going to say, but anyway, serving oysters on the half shell with salted butter and really good bread.
Matthew:
Nice. Also I was Googling in French, which as you know, it makes me feel like a superhero whenever I'm Googling in a foreign language. I found this map that if I can find it again, I didn't save the link, but I think I can probably find it again, and we'll link to it in the episode description, that it was a map of by province, and for each one, it had the percentage of salted butter sold. So overall France is pretty evenly divided between salted and unsalted butter. But in Brittany, 89% of the butter sold is salted.
Molly:
Hmm. Wow. That's so interesting. That's a huge percentage.
Matthew:
Yeah. I don't know what regional differences exist in the US. I didn't find that map, but in France there really are still really strong regional food traditions. I like it.
Molly:
Yeah. I know, what's-
Matthew:
We should go there via flying dumpster.
Molly:
I think that I was about to say that I feel like every country but the US has regional food traditions.
Matthew:
The US does have regional food traditions.
Molly:
But of course, the US does too. Like food of the South, we could also talk about Creole.
Matthew:
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Molly:
What about hot dishes in the Midwest?
Matthew:
What about hot dishes? I'm not saying these don't... And you're right, I'm probably not paying attention, ignoring the cultural variations, the regional variations in my own country, just because our country is kind of riding in a dumpster.
Molly:
I thought we weren't going to get through a whole episode.
Matthew:
I know, but so it's nice to look across the pod and see, like in Brittany they really like salted butter. That seems wholesome and harmless.
Molly:
That seems wholesome.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
Oh, great. Okay.
Matthew:
Okay. I was going to say one other thing about butter, maybe. I don't know.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
All right. So you can find us online at SpilledMilkPodcast.com and facebook.com/SpilledMilkPodcast, where we'd like to know which kind of butter did you grow up with and what do you do with salted butter today, if indeed you do anything?
Molly:
Yeah. Let us know.
Matthew:
Yeah. Do you do anything? Forget the whole butter thing. If you were going to ride in a dumpster, do any of you live in a quaint village in Northern Sweden where they still use shaved butter is currency? We'd love to hear about that, that thing we made up.
Molly:
Are any of you barbarous?
Matthew:
Well, definitely.
Molly:
Okay. But are any of you-
Matthew:
That just means bearded, right? I'm barbarous.
Molly:
What about Northern barbarians though? I guess you're in Northern barbarian.
Matthew:
Well, I live in the Northern part of the country.
Molly:
Okay. Well, anyway, I would love to know, if you were going to ride in a dumpster that was being pulled by some sort of mythical animal or beast, what mythical animal or beast would it be?
Matthew:
That is a great question. I was thinking the same thing, like a Griffin or a Kymera or a Bigfoot.
Molly:
Maybe Buck Beak.
Matthew:
Maybe Buck Beak. Maybe the Jersey Devil.
Molly:
Maybe Totaro when he's flying around with his umbrella.
Matthew:
Maybe the Chupa Cobre, which would occasionally swoop down to suck a goat and then like take back to the air.
Molly:
Maybe Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Matthew:
Wait, I can't remember. Was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang like an enchanted car?
Molly:
Yes.
Matthew:
Okay. Maybe Herbie the love bug.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
Maybe bed knobs and broomsticks.
Molly:
Oh my God, I loved bed knobs and broomsticks so much. Would it be a flying bed that would be pulling your dumpster.
Matthew:
Right, so you don't get to ride on the bed, the is bed, like, no, forget it. You're gross. You don't get to ride on me, but I will pull you in this dumpster.
Molly:
Okay, great. All right. Oh, maybe it would be Mary Poppins. Maybe she'd be pulling your flying dumpster.
Matthew:
That's true.
Molly:
That sounds so soothing.
Matthew:
Mary Poppins is a flying mythical animal.
Molly:
She is.
Matthew:
You can't argue with that.
Molly:
No.
Matthew:
That'd be great. Yeah, no, she unfurls her umbrella, hitches herself to a dumpster and just takes you to the next play date.
Molly:
I'm Molly Weizenberg.
Matthew:
And I'm Matthew Amster-Burto.
Matthew:
You know what? It's not even worth it. I thought this was funny when the thought popped into my head. And now with some time to reflect, it's not.