About 25 years ago I lived for a few months in Haiti. Couldn't get any fresh milk or many other items I was used to, but butter from Normandy was available. (I suppose it was because there was a weekly round trip flight from Port-au-Prince to Paris, and the market could import it just as easily from France as it could from any other country.) It was exquisite.

According to Wikipedia, in Europe they make butter from cream that is pasteurized then fermented with special lactobacilli; in the US, butter is made from pasteurized non-fermented butter. That probably accounts for some of the difference in flavor.

Here is a link that might be useful: butter

Try making your own!

Here is a link that might be useful: make your own!

The American equivalent is probably sour cream butter instead of the typical store butter which is made from sweet cream.

In the old days the milk and cream was simply left to sour a bit before it was churned.

It has a very rich and complex taste that store butter just doesn't have.

I gather, from what you all are saying, is that it should be used for buttering bread, rather than used in baking - correct? If it has a slightly different butterfat ratio and different taste, it could change the cookie recipe, right?

Donna

Thanks, Tricia and Linda, I had forgotten I asked a question on this thread.

I don't know the answer to your question, Donna, but Tricia pointed out that the higher fat content in the Plugra made for flakey pastries and better sauces. I don't know what it would do to cookies, but I'd guess it'd make them better. I've been told that the Kerrygold is great for slathering on toast because it tastes so good you want to taste it.

Sally

I'm new here and wanted to get my feet wet. I love Plugra butter. The name comes from the french plus gras, meaning more fat. More fat always tasts good:-)

I know I am late to the game but I grew up in rural Illinois and we made butter from milk right out of the cow. Now that was good butter.

My father had dairy cows when I was a child, and we had to churn our own butter too, and it was terrible. A lot of it depends on what the cows have been eating, and our cows were allowed to eat nasty weeds, which gave the milk and butter an off taste.

I don't eat much butter, but I tasted some Presidente brand (I hope the spelling is correct) on some bread on an Air France flight back from France. It, and Plugra, are made from slightly cultured cream that gives it a special tang. Delicious.

Hmmmm... it is basically cultured butter.... The kind that, despite the fact that might have higher fat content, has also cultures that are good for your gut and overall for your digestion. It is the tasty, old fashion butter. It is the kind that you pay an arm and a leg for to buy it at the store. I make it home and reminds me my childhood. It is easy to make and I cannot stand the regular cheap butter you buy at the store. Delicious and works just fine even if it is not salted. Another gain: no salt. I use regular butter only in baking as I don't like to waste the good butter on something that will have a lot of other flavors anyhow.

I too am wondering if there is a difference between Irish and American butter, or if it is just that Kerrygold choose to advertise itself as Irish butter.

I specifically bought it because it comes from cows that eat grass - or it says it does. It also appears to be a family run operation of some sort, which increases the chances that the cows actually mostly eat grass. If cows eat grass their meat and milk contain omega 3 fatty acids, which are entirely missing from products from animals that are fed grain and protein substitutes. The same is true of chickens and their eggs.

Butter from pasture fed cows is also richer in vitamin K, I think.

My DH loves Kerrygold, but IMHO it's because KG is highly salted. He loves salt a lot more than I do.

Cultured butter has a richer flavor but also that fermented "tang". Since my DH grew up in Hong Kong, he intensely dislikes fermented dairy; when he was growing up that was the sign of 'spoiled milk'. After four decades with me he can now tolerate cream cheese and very lightly fermented dairy (butter, creme fraiche, yoghurt, crema) but anything strong, such as sour cream, is verboten.

A couple of local chefs are big into heavily cultured butter and he literally cannot even bring himself to eat anything they make. The smell alone makes him feel sick.

If you want to get beyond the corporate line of Kerrygold, you might try this web posting. Please note I am NOT endorsing this writer's beliefs, just posting it FYI as she seems to have done quite a bit of research on different butters. This is from around 2013; note that at least one of the links in the column no longer works.

http://hopecentric.com/why-i-stopped-buying-kerrygold-butter/

The Anchor butter she refers to is imported from New Zealand.

I'm not sure why hopecentric doesn't buy Strauss if she's in CA. Strauss is a premium organic non-GMO dairy producer. Their products are excellent; my DH likes this cultured butter (meaning it's mild).

Note that Strauss butter is 85% butterfat: there are some recipes that may need modification due to less moisture in the butter.

http://strausfamilycreamery.com/products/organic-butter

The butter I usually get at the food coop is made in America, from milk from pasture fed cattle, and it's cultured. But what would cultured mean when it comes to butter? It's hard to get lactobacilli to grow in fat!

I thought all butter was 100% fat! It has the same fat content as vegetable oil and shortening of any type.

This web site explains a lot.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/Butter.html

But the Kerrygold Irish butter I've got says it's sweet cream butter, which is specifically butter from cream that wasn't cultured. Perhaps one has to be careful which Kerrygold Irish butter one gets.

Here's the kind that I bought last. It doesn't say if it is cultured or sweet cream but the process appears to be identical to Kerrygold. I don't find the nutritional breakdown. It is harder and greasier than Kerrygold so may be higher in fat. It doesn't have a whole lot of flavor, tasting weakly buttery. I bought unsalted by mistake. It is slow churned, like Kerrygold.

Kerrygold, Vital Farms and Land o Lakes butter all have exactly the same nutritional content - 11 grams of fat per tablespoon, 7 grams of which is saturated fat. Kerrygold has a little more salt in it - and it isn't salty enough.

Kerry Gold has 10% of hte RDA of vitamin A, compared to 8% for both Land o Lakes and Vital Farms.

At the Whole Foods near me they sell "Celles sur Belle" (though they don't always have it), and it is wonderful. It has France's AOC designation so that it can only be made in a specific small region of France.

I do not use it for cooking; just for spreading. I also buy a much less expensive organic brand at Whole Foods (whatever is on sale) for cooking.

There have been a couple mentions of salty butter in this thread. Kerrygold and the other brands mentioned all come in unsalted versions. You can always sprinkle a little salt yourself on the butter if you want to; that way you can control the amount of salt.

The kind of butter I usually buy is this one.

http://www.organicvalley.coop/products/butter/salted-butter/pasture-butter-salted-8-oz-2-quarters/

It is 12 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 8 % RDA of vitamin A, and "lightly salted" means it has less than half the salt that butter normally has. That butter is cultured, and the cows are pasture fed. It says it is 84% butterfat, "prized for baking", and none of the others said what is the percentage of butterfat.

I have always liked it.

They also sell salted sweet cream butter. Also from grass fed cows but not cultured.

I'm not seeing the advantages to Irish or European butter here.

The benefits of grass-fed over "regular" butter isn't necessarily in the flavor, fat content, and paying more doesn't make it "better" - BUT- both grass-fed butter (and ghee) contain more vitamin K2 (menaquinone) which helps to keep calcium out of your arteries. It also helps reduce risk of osteoporosis and heart disease, and there are studies to support this. Other sources for K2 are egg yolks, goose liver, and natto (fermented soy), so these food sources are somewhat limited for most of us. I wonder if osteoporosis and heart disease went up when people switched to margarine and shortening, and we were told to limit whole eggs during the cholesterol revolt of the 80's, and the increase in egg white only use? Literally FOOD for thought ;-).

Grass-fed butter is also rich in Butyrate, which is beneficial for digestive health, especially for people with gut issues. "Butyrate is "fuel" for large intestinal cells". These are things you can't detect, but are reasons (at least for me) to choose one over the other.

As a spread we use Kerrygold, and I also use Pure Indian Foods 100% Organic Grass-fed Ghee for the nutritional profile it offers as well. If I'm doing a lot of baking that requires butter, I'll buy it on sale at Aldi as a cost consideration, and use a blend of Aldi butter AND coconut oil for the beneficial lauric acid.

Fascinating. I didn't know about cultured butter, etc. I've been buying Marie's of Maine, because it is from grass-fed cows, and Pure Indian Foods ghee, for its health benefits. I never use margarine.

I'll simply have to try Irish/European butter sometime!

While I usually like Irish butter a little bit more than sweet cream, I have a way that makes both taste much better. I have a butter dish that I leave outside the refrigerator. I never wash it although I do wipe it out with a paper towel occasionally. When the butter in it is starting to get low, I take a new stick out of the refrigerator and add it to the dish. The new stick picks up the aroma from the residual butter. While it is not Irish butter, it starts to take on similar characteristics. I am not sure how healthy it is and what bacteria might be involved but it sure does taste good....

Irish butter is for sure it is from cows that ate grass and not corn which is good for the cows which then is good for us and any other butter from US will most likely to be corn fed but not sure so to be sure just get butter from Irish because over in ireland cannot grow corn. Animal fat is good for us and please watch “the magic pill” to see why

While I love cultured butter, AFAIK both Kerrygold and President are just sweet cream butter. I prefer President, myself, but they are fairly similar. Organic Valley Pasture Butter is an example of cultured butter.

Irish butter is for sure it is from cows that ate grass and not corn
which is good for the cows which then is good for us and any other
butter from US will most likely to be corn fed but not sure so to be
sure just get butter from Irish because over in ireland cannot grow corn

Longest sentence I've seen in quite a while

Of course they grow corn in Ireland!

Butter is milk and salt, so it tastes of what they eat. Same for cheese. Yum.

Sushipup1, i am sure it is a broken English sentence. Sorry English has been the my worst subject and still and will be.

Islay Cornel, i love cheese too. What is your favorite cheese? Also you said that there’s corn grown in Ireland, could you tell me where in Ireland grows corn? I am under an impression of no corn grown there so I am curious where corn can be grown there so I can prove my professor wrong.

Just a tease.... hope it diidn't upset you. I'm sorry.

It’s just a google search away. I’m not linking to a particular site because I’m not sure what specifically will interest you. A couple things of interest I saw:

- 1/4 of it was grown in Cork in 2010

- “Currently the geographical area south east of a line from Dundalk to Bandon is best suited for maize.”

- recently increasing production by 10% annually

I'm with Hu on this and buy Kerrygold as it's very accessible and is mostly better. It's not 100% grassfed although compared to what I have available in grocery stores, it is the best choice. I also lean towards anything European is better as they have stronger laws about food and chemicals then the USA.

For those who don't know, President comes from France. It makes me laugh because it's the most common butter there, and on a trip a few years ago my friends just couldn't get enough of it. OnceI told them you can buy it in Publix, their estimation of it went down.

Lindac, very interesting. Thank you for that information.

As for Presidents butter which I've never seen in my area but there is Presidents Swiss cheese. Would that be the same company? Presidents Swiss in my area is the most pricey and has the rep of being the best Swiss found in the deli.

Sushipup1

when i read your comment i was laughing so it gave me a good laugh.

No worries

now there’s something to think about and giggle randomly where people will think i am weird.

Foodonastump

it is a google away but i dont fully trust online information. The most accurate information would be my irish professor which said Ireland has lots of grass and no corn.

also thank you for doing the research.

Well if you’re going to trust your professor over the Irish government’s own web sites then I don’t suppose I stand a chance at convincing you. :)

Plus, you can buy US produced 100% grass fed butter if you want to pay the price for warm climate butter. :)

President is big industrial production so no, not the best by any means either for butter or cheese. The best here is local, farm produced. I doubt you'd get a sniff in the US.

Wow, my knowledge of all things butter has definitely expanded and that's a good thing!

I was thinking driving to work.....you must have some wonderful local butter producers, don't you? You have so much of your country that is so lush and fabulous......and buying local has to be better for us all and the planet.

Haha Islay, in some places, yes, I'm sure. But not in my area ever!

you must have some wonderful local butter producers, don't you?

You are joking, right?

ETA In my area I can't even buy locally-grown organic produce, although tons of it is produced here. Everything like that is grown specifically for the fancy restaurant trade in the Miami-Palm Beach metro corridor and none is available locally. Well, there is a place about an hour and forty minutes drive from here that would sell me goat butter if I make a commitment to buy way more butter than I ever use at least once a month for a year and go pick it up myself. (I would have to commit to buying as much butter a month as I use in a year.)

But I've never had goat butter, and it seems easier to buy a European brand at the grocery store.

I just returned from the lake district of Chile, a big dairy production area. While there I bought what was called Country Butter. It looked like it was commercially packaged and the locals said it was made from cow's milk. To me, it had that funky flavor which I associate with goats. Has anyone come across similar tasting butter, or know anything about how that flavor came to be?

It's sad that you can't get good stuff in your supermarkets. I think you'd enjoy shopping over here!

Oh, for sure, I know people who move to France just for the groceries. Americans are very price resistant. Some of the supermarkets near me, where there are a lot of foodies who are willing to spend more on great products, do have small maker products. That's where I recently found the 100% grass fed. It's good butter, but I generally prefer cultured butter. The easiest to get one (in state, but not strictly "local") is mostly but not 100% grass fed, and is sold at Whole Foods, which isn't exactly a supermarket--it's what we'd call a specialty market--but is now owned by Amazon who are chipping away at its soul. Local produce is sometimes available at farmers' markets, but the quality is variable. There are parts of the country where there isn't really any local dairy produce, which is sad.

Plllog - I was just reading NYT instrux for cultured butter the other day. I remember reading about it years ago and planning to make it. Doesn’t sound hard to make but I’m wondering if I can just buy it somewhere rather than procrastinate for another few years. Think I should be able to find it?

Yep. You should be able to buy it if you have any kind of high end market, food craft shop, or similar. My very favorite is from Vermont Creamery (nee Vermont Butter an d Cheese Co.). They make a log, which is regular cultured butter, and a ball wrapped in blue plaid waxed paper sold in a little wood slat basket which has sea salt, and is saltier. The latter is excellent for bread and butter or toast, but a waste and too salty for anything where the butter isn't the point. The regular log is good for any kind of table use. I use regular sweet cream butter for cooking and baking.

Organic Valley makes cultured butter with wider distribution. I can usually find it, whereas the Vermont is hit and miss. Organic Valley also make pasture butter. I'm sure there are plenty of other makers as well.

Other than for the experience, I can't imagine it being worthwhile culturing your own butter if you can buy it easily. :)

Can you get Organic Vally Pasture Butter year-round, plllog? Around here it's only available for a few months in the summer.

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that. Organic Valley cultured butter year round. Organic Valley cultured pasture butter in warmer months. Organic Valley sweet cream butter and any other sweet cream butter year round. Local sweet cream pasture butter year round, at least some of them, but harder to find. Vermont Creamery cultured butter, whenever one finds it. Vermont Creamery creme fraiche and mascarpone usually available and excellent.

Thanks plllog, checked VC’s web site and I have a few local options. Looking forward to trying it!