Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Is Butter Better or Is Oleo OK?

I doubt that I ever ate real butter when I was growing up. My mother used margarine...though we called it butter: it was yellow, spreadable and went with sugar on our lunch sandwiches (as opposed to lard which I hear some folks got). It was not an issue that caused me great concern until I moved to Wisconsin, a state in which margarine was undoubtedly the concoction of some demonic force in an attempt to bankrupt the dairy industry...or something.
Anyway, it became apparent to me that butter had a very strong following here in the Dairy State, and I never questioned its use in anything. But then, food never really stays in my mouth long enough to have me called an epicure. Thus, I ate what I was served and asked very few questions about the origin of the ingredients. But there are those with more discerning palates, it seems.
Our children ate a lot of macaroni and cheese as kids, but only the Kraft boxed kind. When we attempted to make the REAL thing, they balked at eating it. It would seem that preservatives and powdered ingredients were more tasty. Was there real butter in it? Probably. Maybe that was the problem, one that has affected others lately as well.
It seems siblings in Waterville, WAshington, had a spat about this very thing...and it ended up in court. The unnamed 21-year old male asked his sister, 17, whether the recipe she was using called for butter or margarine. Emotions churned, and the argument culminated in the woman attacking her brother with the serrated edge of a spatula. He called the police, and she was charged with fourth-degree assault...over mac and cheese.
But seriously, a serrated spatula? What kind of wuss would be threatened by that?
Besides, mac and cheese comes in a box, and had she taken that shortcut, the other cut might not have been necessary.
So, the argument still rages in Washington, at least, America's new dairyland.

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