Shopping for butter

The expert: Ruth Reichl, Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet and host of Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie, which airs on WNET/Channel 13. This week’s episode: Bovine Rhapsody.

The product: butter. “Why do I love butter so much? I keep thinking about my poor father, whose idea of heaven was a slice of fresh rye bread with cold, sweet butter on top. But he had cholesterol issues and was forced to give up butter for margarine. It seemed like a bad cosmic joke when the pundits discovered that butter was better for you after all. I could have told them that.

What I want: Unsalted. Salt is used as a preservative in butter. It does make it last longer but also changes the flavor.

I must have: High fat because it’s better to bake with. Higher fat content also means that the butter tastes better and melts more evenly. Wrapped in foil—Butter picks up any flavor that it comes in contact with very quickly. I HATE butter that’s been left unopened in the refrigerator. It just tastes disgusting.

Savvy shopper: If you like the taste of salt, buy unsalted butter and sprinkle the salt on yourself. Buy butter in a store with quick turnover. Even the finest, imported handmade butters taste terrible if they’ve been languishing on the shelf. Take it home, wrap whatever you won’t be using in the next day or two in foil and stick it in the freezer. Butter defrosts quickly and you’re better off with frozen butter than off-flavored stuff.

My pick: Plugra, an American butter that has the 82% fat content of European butters. When you open it up the sweet creamy smell just leaps out of the package but you have to buy the more expensive half pound size because the pound size isn’t wrapped in foil and I’ve often found that it has picked up off-flavors (about $3/lb., area supermarkets).

Next best thing: Good old reliable Land o’ Lakes. They’ve stopped wrapping their sweet butter in foil, which is distressing, but it usually turns over so fast that it doesn’t have time to pick up off-flavors (8oz. box, $1.99, area supermarkets).

photo: Andy Ryan

as told to Laurie Squire