Butter is serious business

A good example why nationalism and pride about it makes no sense. Most people had no choice in where they are from, and had no influence on something like this. Having pride in something you did not influence and had no choice in is really weird and kind of narcissistic.

This is why it gets toxic and dangerous easily. We see similar issues with fans of sports teams, even though the fan has literally nothing to do with the team.

its just an ancient tribal instinct. oh, you're from the squirrel bones tribe? pssh, your berry bushes are shit. rat skull tribe have best berry bushes, and we have stream. squirrel bones tribe have no stream and bad berry bushes
- Your sportsball team is shit. WE smashed you!
  We!?! Really bob? Pretty sure you passed out and pissed yourself that night...
Lemmy users attempt to not steer conversations back to their 19th century failed politics challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]
reminds me of JP Sartre: by disparaging the jews, the anti-semite instantly puts himself into a superior group without having to actually do anything.
Nationalism works the same way. "I belong to THIS socially constructed group! We do such great things!" as if they built the community from the ground up and weren't just thrown into a world with systems already in place independent of them that helped produce the things they're proud of...
Like sure community is a thing but at a certain point doesn't it get quite arbitrary what you take credit for? and doesn't that also mean we have to take credit for all the bad things too? every Palestinian would become Hamas and every American a drone pilot. those are precisely the reasons I am not patriotic and i dont find "shut up, frog" jokes funny. "just" tribalism? "just" a wee cheeky bit o fash in the mornin?
This is about butter, not nations. The nations are merely places in which the butter resides.
- Literally about a nation. Literally says national pride.
speciesism >> nationalism
Also in this case it's kind of a great example of how positive nationalism and pride quickly turns negative. The US has more dairy farmland than any other country, im sure there is plenty of fancy boutique butter. It's a pretty weak premise, almost certainly drawn completely from negative stereotypes.
Having pride in something you did not influence and had no choice in is really weird and kind of narcissistic.
what
When someone says "I've been sober for a year" and a commenter says "I'm proud of you, OP", is that narcissistic? Pride in this sense is a sense of community accomplishment. As a social species, we share in the achievements of others as necessarily related to our own - it's a form of creating bonds and encouraging behavior. Whether you dislike the idea of nations or not, having pride in something you didn't influence and had no choice in is perfectly normal and not at all narcissistic.
- Not the same. A more apt version using your comparison would be someone saying ‘I’ve been sober for a year!’ and the other person (who still drinks, but perhaps cheered them on now and again from the sidelines) says either ‘You mean we’ve been sober for a year!’ or ‘Yes, and it’s all thanks to me!’ - never mind they didn’t actively step in to help, or try to go dry themselves.
  What the complaint you quoted was objecting to are people claiming full part of something they had no control over and no (or not much) involvement in, just to make themselves feel more important.
  Yes we as a social species like to share in accomplishments, and that’s fine! But there is a line, that unfortunately gets crossed quite a lot, where people start to feel that they themselves were involved in the accomplishments of others, and that’s not so good. To paraphrase an above poster, we didn’t win the Super Bowl.
  And also, some things people take ‘group pride’ in aren’t accomplishments at all. Being born in a specific place, for instance, or having a specific skin color. Or even just trying to share credit with every inventor/creator/whatever of the same gender. It does all tie back to our instinctive tribalism, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.
- When someone says “I’ve been sober for a year” and a commenter says “I’m proud of you, OP”, is that narcissistic?
  No, it's an instance where what people say is not what they feel: The second doesn't comment on their own pride, but is expressing something like admiration. At the most, pride in being friends with such a fine chap who would manage to be sober for a year.
  Mostly, though, it's just a fixed phrase of encouragement and praise, unrelated to the actual words used. The fixed phrase could be "cowabunga!" and it'd mean the same.

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 choose to believe it's their mutual hatred of England that makes their butter taste good.
I shall be adopting "like triffids" into my everyday vernacular from now on.
- what on earth is a triffid?!

Kerrygold 🥰

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?
- I recommend making Hollandaise sauce to really emphasize the butter!
I definitely recommend going to the Butter Museum in Cork which is essentially a Kerrygold museum.
How the fuck do you spread it?
- 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.
- Do not put it in the fridge.... keep it a room temperature.
- 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.
- I think with most butter you're supposed to mash it with the side of the knife to get it smooth and squishy so it spreads well.
Yep. If you know, you know.

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.
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.
- I think a more accurate conclusion then, would be "the average American is too poor to afford good food"
- 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.
- FYI, US ranks 3d globally for quality and safety
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Why are you being downvoted? Your comment is true, accurate, and unbiased. 🤷🏽
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.
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%.

That French guy was just trying to butter them up.

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.

Funny enough, I also grew up on super processed chocolate, and I thought I just didn't like chocolate that much, until I got some real chocolate when I was a teen.
God, Hershey's tastes like pain and sadness.
- In an upper middle class european family I often ate swiss chocolate and once my dad went to the us and bought some hersheys for us to taste. / It was like 2 girls one cup in my mouth for my refined european taste buds /s
- It's got that vomit aftertaste
- I think you meant wax. Hersheys tastes like wax.
- That's the rat faeces!
- ok this conversation was about butter if you fucking come at Hershey's imma throw hands (I dont like cadburry's but I dont try to make people feel bad about it!!) lindt is pretty dope. for a second I thought I liked ritter sport but realized nope. I understand hershey's isnt for everyone and if you dont grow up with it you may not think much of it. however, because I detect you are a gentleman and are wise of the ways of the world: I implore you to try Hershey's nuggets w/ almonds, hershey's w/ almonds or even a Mr. Goodbar (which is just hershey's w/ peanuts).
Chocolate is a big one.
I'm talking specifically big brands, not chocolatiers, but something like Hershey's is absurd.
American chocolate is way too crumbly and oil-without-flavor with some weird mustiness; pretty much every country has better chocolate than the US.
American to international chocolate is like ketchup on a tortilla compared to a gourmet pizza.
The difference isn't even really noticeable in most dishes.
If you are doing something where butter is a main component you can use it to finish off your dish for some extra texture mostly. It's just more creamy out of the box.
For anything pan fried or where "tasting butter" is a component the vast majority of folks couldn't pass a blind taste test reliably at all.
Also, regular dark chocolate is garbage and more of this smugness. If you want 98% dark chocolate bitter shit, fine. But don't let smug redditors and lemmy lounge lizards bully you into liking sweet chocolate. Same with American beer, we have some of the worlds best. It's all gatekeeping smugness.
- The American chocolate thing isn't about chocolate %. An American came up with a process to help preserve the dairy, however this creates an amount of butyric acid as a bi-product. Completely fine health wise, but the only time a normal person would otherwise encounter butyric acid is when vomiting. Its largely responsible for the iconic taste and smell associated with vomit. So for people that didn't grow up eating American chocolate, American chocolate literally tastes like vomit.
- As a cooking ingredient, maybe, but if you're using butter on toast, bread, etc. then Irish/French/British butter is clearly better.
  Also, the superiority of European chocolate isn't to do with the cocoa content or the sweetness - it's just creamier and has a smoother texture.
  I'll agree with you on the beer, though.
- Given the number of Americans who have had their tastebuds destroyed by covid, I can understand your palate.
- American beer, we have some of the worlds best
  Such as? I'm not at all a beer gourmet and don't particularly dislike American beer (not even the light variants) but I've been to multiple states and never got a beer I considered top notch.
  For example I've been to Florida just recently and apparently IPA is the shit nowadays. Didn't like a single one of them, they all tasted artificial.
  Edit: Also, I hope your bar for European beer isn't stuff like Heineken or Beck's. They are not bad but pretty basic stuff sold worldwide. Nobody in Europe considers those particularly great.

Irish butter is good in the summer. The Irish butter they sell in winter usually has been frozen stuff from the summer production.

Is there really such a thing as bad butter, though?

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.
- 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.
- Oh, you misunderstand.
  I definitely think there's 'less good' butter.
  But 'bad' butter?
  Absurd.
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
- 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"
If they don't take out enough of the water it makes soggy toast, but still not truly bad

Sure it's fair to have differing opinions of where the best butter comes from but Ireland likely has the oldest.

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.
- Honestly the only thing more cringe than French people talking about France is Texans talking about Texas
- frenfh

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.

Butter from tropical South Pacific countries is high in salt. It help with replenishing minerals your body loses due to sweating.

So is butter from Brittany.
It would keep better with the heat too
- Very true. It does take a while to become accustomed to the taste.

Butter from Normandy in particular.

I was just about to say, IMHO of course, that French butter, in general, is not as good as Irish. However regional productions, like the highest quality creameries from Normandy are ever bit as good as the best Irish butter.
With salt! The "demi-sel" makes any toast even better.

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.

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 for french. Lurpak for danish. At least those are the brands that we get in the UK.
- Président is in Walmart near me, beats that green and silver Irish butter imho
It certainly isn't. I have no idea what gave you that idea.

Swiss butter FTW!

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.

Are people possibly confusing what people call butter here - margarine - and butter? Store bought butter tastes the same as fresh churned farm butter...

...no, it doesn't.

Dude, it's just butter, wtf.

LOL I love the avalanche of firebird with literally zero context. Y'all are friggin weird.

Too long didn't read

you didn't miss anything, just someone sharing their made up story