Butter. It’s one of those simple things that make life worth living. Along with its kinfolk — milk, cream, eggs and cheese — it’s been one of the foundations of farming life in the Dunvegan area almost since the day the Crown started handing out parcels of land. While labour intensive, the process is so simple one can make butter at home. Put fresh whole cream in a jar, pop on a lid and slosh it about until the fat globules coalesce.
Ken McEwen, who grew up on the 7th of Kenyon south of Dunvegan, remembers when, during the war, his older brother fashioned a churn from a half-gallon jar. (Butter was rationed at the time.) Ken admitted that, because this was done during the winter months when the cows weren’t on grass, the end product was not butter coloured. “But, with a little salt added, it was fine,” Ken told me in an email.
It’s true that health officials have, at times, vilified butter as artery-clogging demon. However, I knew that if I waited long enough, this golden spread would once again reign supreme. You can imagine my delight when I came across a 2019 Bloomberg Businessweek interview with a butter expert from the University of Wisconsin. Professor Robert Bradley told the Bloomberg reporter that anytime a cow eats fresh grass, it creates cream high in conjugated linoleic acid, a heart-healthy unsaturated fat that’s liquid at room temperature. He cautions though that “in cream from animals fed grain… saturated fats dominate, which makes for a stiffer, more brittle butter.” Which brings me to the focus of this item.
Have you noticed degradation in the quality of butter in recent years? Many home bakers say they have, my wife Terry included. Her favourite cookie is a thin, crisp, lace-like concoction featuring butter, sugar, rolled oats and coconut that my mother used to bake for her. Mom died a number of years ago, but Terry has continued to use my mother’s recipe. Lately though, the end product is inconsistent and greasy.
Former Dunveganite Bonnie Laing has had similar results. For fifty-odd years, she has faithfully followed her mother’s recipe for shortbread cookies. To her dismay, for the past few holiday seasons, the shortbreads she took such pride in have been greasy and crumbled as she tried to get them off the baking sheet. “The first time, I just threw the mess out,” Bonnie confided to me. “The second time, I added more flour and although some of them held together, the rest fell apart.” In Bonnie’s opinion, the culprit is palm oil. She told me she had come across a news report that cited this as the root of many consumer complaints.
It didn’t take long to track down the source of her suspicions: a February 23, 2021 edition of As It Happens on CBC Radio. During the interview, Sylvain Charlebois, a food researcher at Dalhousie University talked about how some producers are using palm oil in livestock feed as a quick way to increase the level of butterfat in milk. He went on to explain that palmitic acid increases the level of saturated fat in the milk, which in turn, raises the melting point of butter.
In response to this consumer concern, Daniel Lefebvre, COO of Lactanet, explained in an interview on the RealAgriculture web site that the main type of butterfat in milk is made up of palmitic acid. Mr. Lefebvre went on to say that, “cows put palmitic acid into their milk without ever being fed palm oil. Palmitic acid is a long-chain fatty acid containing a 16-carbon chain and is the dominant fatty acid in Canadian milk.”
Lefebvre did admit that including a bypass fat, such as palm oil, will increase the level of palmitic acid in milk, but stressed that palmitic acid will be there regardless. If you’re wondering, ‘bypass’ fats have a high melting point and travel through the cow’s rumen without melting and causing problems. Instead, they are processed in the cow’s intestines and, from there, enter the blood stream and end up in the milk. My research suggests that instead of using palm oil (a very expensive way of adding palmitic acid), producers can opt for palm kernel expeller, the stuff that’s left over after most of the oil has been extracted.
It’s interesting to note that “Buttergate” as some news outlets dubbed this issue was a tempest in a butter dish. In February and March of 2021, it sparked comments across Canada and around the world. However, since then, nary a peep has been heard. However, the dairy industry has no doubt attended to the concerns of consumers and is hard at work resolving the problem.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for butter like your grandmother used to use (or great grandmother, if you’re a millennial), you can always turn to Amazon.ca. There you’ll find Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter… only $72.86 for an eight-ounce brick. (The word “gold” in the product’s name is especially apt.) But beware of Amazon’s Boy Butter offering that popped up when I just used just the word “butter” as my search term. To quote from the site, water-soluble Boy Butter is “an oil-based lubricant consisting of two powerful yet gentle ingredients: coconut oil and an organic silicone blend.” I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
Vroom survey delayed
If you’re like me, you’re anxiously awaiting the results of the SD&G 2021 Traffic Survey. Has there been a marked increase (or decrease) in the volume of traffic on County Road 24 since it was resurfaced? If there has been a change, does it apply across the board? Or have certain classes of vehicles (cars, motorcycles, etc.) been affected more than others? Has there been a statistically significant increase (or decrease) in the average speed of traffic on County Road 24 since it was resurfaced? And what about peak speeds? What was the record on County Road 24 during the survey period?
The reason behind my last question is that there’s an idiot on a noisy motorcycle that likes to scream down Dunvegan Road very early in the morning at what I estimate is about 150 to 160 kph. I wondered if the sensors recorded this fearless individual… or if the whole thing was in my imagination.
I had hoped the survey tabulation would be completed last fall. But it’s a big project and the Roads Department ran out of time before winter rolled in. Our good friend Benjamin de Haan, Director of Transportation and Planning with the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry tells me that the survey number crunching, “is on the list for this spring, once the snowplows are parked for the season.” He suggested I circle back in June.
Scissors & paste day
To be honest, St. Valentine’s Day has never been one of my favourite celebrations. This probably stems from the social pressure kids (or at least the ones attending Hampstead Public) experienced growing up in the 50s. Valentine’s Day in grade school was a straight-up popularity contest. And just like money and big boy toys are the way we keep score as adults, the number of gaudy postcard expressions of friendship one received on Valentine’s Day established your social rank for one and all to see.
The process began with the purchase (from Woolworth’s in my case) of a book of classroom-sized valentines, complete with envelopes. The only catch was that you had cut out each card before writing the name of the intended recipient, along with yours as the sender. My memory is fuzzy, but I also recall having to cut out an additional piece of paper that, when folded and glued, approximated an envelope. But not every valentine warranted an envelope. They were reserved for when you wanted to reach out to someone special.
If you aren’t familiar with this cardboard and paper torture device, check out eBay. I found a pristine example of one from the 1950s with a buy-it-now price of only $49.99 USD (originally 15¢). The vintage Artcraft make-your-own valentine book contained twenty valentine postcards and envelopes. The scam was that the books never contained enough cards for a whole class, so you always had to buy two. Unless, of course, you were studiously selective when it came to your “mailing” list.
As I was doing this research, I wondered if something similar to the valentine books of my childhood were still available on store shelves. But I was unable to find one when I went to town last Saturday. To be fair though, my search was not exhaustive. I was also curious if the practice of classroom valentine distribution still existed. Given the potential of harming budding feelings of self-worth, I very much doubted it would still be part of the education playbook.
But I was mistaken. I checked with my daughter who is a grade school teacher and reading specialist with the Toronto District School Board. She told me that, before Covid, they would do a school-wide “post office.” The cards would be sorted and delivered to each class on the big day. She said that controls were in place to ensure each child received at least one card. But she admitted, “there are always popular kids with lots.”
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