“Kent,” some of you have asked, “What’s so good about this better butter?” as you stare at me with judgement and disdain. “Why do you spend long hours staring into the dark recesses of supermarket fridges looking at solid byproducts of cow juice?” This post will hopefully answer at least one of these questions. Also, none of you have actually asked me the last question. But it’s a good paraphrase.

I’ve had a bit of a challenge answering these questions, mostly because I don’t have a very refined palate. To illustrate said point, here is a story based on true events.

Once upon a time, a jaded software developer went to a very expensive restaurant to which no good Mennonite would ever take their family. This restaurant was a sushi restaurant. The jaded software developer and his friends ordered a ten course meal plus drinks for a staggering sum. The courses began to arrive. As his friends oohed and aah’ed over, say “the amazing blend of the garlic and the ginger on this wagyu tataki” or the “tenderness of this hamachi” or “this butter sauce on this lobster is extremely tasty” he took bites—very expensive ones I might add—and chewed and swallowed. He thought to himself, yeah that was pretty good. After the meal was all done, he went back to the Airbnb, dug through his backpack, got out a candy bar, and ate it. He enjoyed the candy bar immensely.

What’s the moral of this story? The moral of the story is that jaded developer does not differentiate well between flavors. With this rather expensive experience out of the way, let’s move on to some other observations about butter. One such observation is that every package of butter that I buy seems to have ‘1 First Quality 1’ written on the side. So the question I’ve asked myself is “What exactly is First Quality butter?”

To answer that question, let’s first talk about USDA butter grading regulations. The USDA has three butter grades: AA, A, and B. This grading started in 1955, according to this historical document: https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1953&context=extension_circ Among other things, this document informs us that “butter that is labeled undergrade is usually made from old sour cream.” Yum.

These regulations are based off a scoring system that starts at 100. This scoring system measures “flavor intensity and characteristics”, “body”, and “salt”. Points are deducted for negative characteristics. The document from the USDA detailing what is allowed in the different butter grades, along with definitions of the different characteristics of the butter can be found here: https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Butter_Standard[1].pdf

Some interesting points in that article are the definitions of the various flavors, such as Feed, Cooked, Musty, Weed, and Utensil. There are three levels of flavor intensity: Slight, Definite, and Pronounced. To go into all of these would take too much blog space, but the one I find interesting is “Musty” butter. The USDA states that a musty flavor is “attributable to cream from cows grazing on slough grass, eating musty or moldy feed (hay and silage) or drinking stagnant water.” The good news is that only Grade B butter is allowed to have a slight flavor of “musty” or for that matter, most of the other negative flavors. The cooked flavor seems to be the only flavor classification that is positive.

Ok that’s enough about USDA grades. Where does First Quality butter enter into this whole complicated mess? Well, for some unknown reason, California has its own butter grades: First Quality, and Second Quality. You can only buy those two levels of butter in small quantities in California. Lesser quality butters are restricted to bulk packaging of thirty pounds or greater, and must be labeled “for cooking or baking purposes only.” I have a funny feeling that restaurants buy these special bulk packages of butter to serve on top of their pre-mixed pancakes alongside fake syrup. But I digress.

If you are interested in the particular regulations governing CA labeling of butter, here is a link for you: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2009/fac/37131-37134.html

I also decided to see if I could find some Second Quality butter (USDA Grade B). After searching, I uncovered Alibaba. On Alibaba, you can buy literal tons of butter. I would also assume that said butter would be of dubious quality. There are many varied options for buying butter on Alibaba, but among the options was an option to buy ten tons of butter for $80 a ton. Since I’m not going to buy the equivalent of eighty thousand sticks of butter, we’ll just have to assume that the butter is of rather poor quality.

Back to the actual question at hand. “What’s so good about this butter you bought from wherever it was?” One of my shallow obsessions is the difference in taste between cultured and uncultured butter. Most of my experiences with butter involve me slathering it on a slice of bread, or a pancake. No one would ever admit to eating slices of butter publicly on a blog. That’s too shameful an act.

The latest—as of December 9, 2023 at midnight—butter I’ve purchased is some hand-churned number from Rodolphe Le Meunier. I’ve read that cultured butter has a sharp taste, almost like a cheese. After my last tasting of the butter, I would have to concur with that statement. It seems that there are varying levels of sharpness in butter. I think the Rodolphe Le Meunier butter is much sharper than, say Président (another French butter), or Plugrá (a Dairy Farmers of America creation).

This brings me to one of the many yawning chasms in my knowledge. Much like how different wines pair with different cheeses—or so I’m told—so too it would seem that different butters are better for different things. Maybe Rodolphe Le Meunier butter is best for baking croissants. Maybe it’s a baguette butter. Maybe it would pair really well with a pancake. So far, I’ve been consuming it on sourdough, which almost feels like it’s not good enough. So, maybe Kerrygold is the best butter for sourdough? Who knows? I don’t.

In the end, as with most things in life, you hit the law of diminishing returns. Is a twelve-dollar package of butter from Rudolph twice as good as a five-dollar package of butter from DFA? For some reason, I really doubt it. For example, real maple syrup is about six times more expensive than the fake concoctions. But it’s about ten times more delicious. Therefore, the cost-benefit analysis says that you would be criminally insane NOT to buy the maple syrup instead of the fake. But is a butter that is twice as expensive as the Plugrá brand twice as good? To me, it isn’t. I might buy more of the butter in the future. I might buy other expensive butters to try, but I won’t be buying it on a weekly or even monthly basis.

The truly deplorable fact after all this, is that there are probably manufacturers that use USDA Grade B butters because they are cheaper. That is the kind of thing that really fries my biscuit, so to speak. Why are people so focused on the bottom line that they choose to compromise quality to such an extreme degree?

So why do I care about better butter? My conclusion is that I don’t care about just “better butter”, but better food ingredients in general. So, please just give me maple syrup, and USDA Grade AA butter. I will be content with that.

Addendum 1

If you know who you are happens to read this, I did enjoy the omakase. I will not forget it soon. In fact I would probably eat it again if given the chance.

Addendum 2

The Rodolphe Le Meunier butter I purchased was not an actual stick of butter. It was 8oz of butter, but it was a beautifully shaped round puck of butter with a cow imprinted on the top. I’m told by the packaging that it is “Hand Molded”.