Every year – like clockwork – counties around the country
celebrate their agriculture-based living through county fairs. These fairs usually make the news not because
of the rides, carnival games, or midway shows, but because of the variety of
unhealthy foods that can be had at these venues.
One culinary shocker that caught my attention was the fried
butter. Yes, you read that right: fried
butter.
How these sticks of modified heavy cream became a big
success is wildly unknown, as is the way such temperature-sensitive bars of fat
do not melt in deep fryers. But, I
digress.
When gastronomic delicacies, such as fried butter, are
mentioned in the news reports, the reporters usually smile with a wink and a
nod that they are surprisingly tasty. Of
course they are – they are butter!
Before you stop reading and move on to another website, try
to work with me on this one.
If you have ever had an ear of corn, you slather it with
butter and salt. After all, corn really
has no taste, so you are ingesting butter and salt.
The same is true for steamed clams, lobsters, and king crab
legs.
Last night, my sainted wife enjoyed a dinner at a neighbor’s
home which featured artichokes. It’s not
as though she had never had an artichoke before but, someone eyed her
dissecting it as if it were a frog in a biology class. Carefully tearing off leaf after leaf, using
a knife to surgically remove strategic portions, she eventually reached the
much-loved heart of the ‘choke.
Fellow diners were awestruck at her deftness in the use of
simple table utensils to reach the center prize of her spiny, steamed
vegetable.
She was questioned about the succulent leaves she discarded
in lieu of reaching the much-desired core.
“They’re way too much work for too little to bother,” she explained.
All eyes immediately bulged, which eventually turned to
scowls.
It seems as though my sainted wife doesn’t scrape the
artichoke leaf ‘meat’ off because she doesn’t like stuff stuck in her
teeth. She doesn’t balk at eating corn-on-the-cob,
though. But that is why they invented
dental floss and fingernails.
Once again, she passed on a golden opportunity to use those
leaves as a vehicle to ingest butter.
For artichoke novices, they, too, have no taste but, it is the melted
butter through which they are dredged that induces the flavor.
Coming full circle, deep fried butter my not be so bad
because it appears as though butter is the ultimate goal in epicurean
adventures. It may not be good for your
heart or its related blood vessels.
Paula Deen made a career of cooking and baking with copious
amounts of fattening butter, and now you know why she was so successful. Butter is better.
