:smack:
Yes that’s right we eat the dishes in this household too. Waste not want not.
When I lived in New York I kept it in a covered dish on the counter for spreadability. When I moved to Mississippi and then to Texas I discovered quickly that this would not work, as it melts all nastily. My choices were to keep it in the fridge so it would never be spreadable again, or to suck it up and buy it in a tub for everyday and just buy sticks for baking. Which sucks because the tub margarine doesn’t taste the same - it has more vegetable oil in it - but at least it’s not melted.
There was an earlier, interesting thread on this which I read 6 weeks ago:
I’ve never liked refrigerated butter but had always assumed it was an absolute necessity. After reading that thread I made a test of keeping a stick of butter out on my kitchen island (away from direct sunlight) and in a covered dish. I ate a small sample each day for 3 weeks and it was good right through to the end. I keep my airconditioning set at around 70-72 degrees.
Southern California, and see Post #13. 
My mother bought margarine, and left the stick that was in use out on the countertop/in the cupboard. Both she and my father came from farming families, and we lived in Wisconsin. I put it in the fridge once I lived on my own; it just seemed kind of nasty to leave it unrefrigerated. Plus I didn’t use as much as my family did when I was growing up.
These days, I leave margarine and one stick of butter in the fridge, plus unsalted butter in the freezer. My husband and I only rarely use either in general cooking/eating unless I happen to be baking something, and any butter left out would definitely go rancid before I used it all. If I know I’m going to need butter soft for spreading, I take it out ahead of time and let it warm up a bit. I was considering buying a smallish butter bell and not filling it all the way up, though.
I grew up in Southern Ontario, and my mom had a covered butter dish for immediate use, that lived in the cupboard. The rest of the butter was in the fridge. I hate sticks of butter. It’s dumb, I know, but they just bother me, so we buy 1-pound blocks, just like when I was a kid.
I’m in Florida now, but we have air conditioning, and the soft butter stays on the counter, covered, and the unopened butter is in the fridge. I’ve never encountered butter that went bad from being left out. But I have had peanut butter toast made with butter that sat in the fridge next to a cut onion. Now that was gross!
Butter bells are cool. I live on campus, so I don’t have butter of my own. My parents tend to leave a stick of butter and a stick of magirine on the counter, in a covered dish, but not always, generally due to forgetfulness. And we still defrost meat on the counter top and occassionally leave left overs out for awhile and none of us have gotten food poisoning in almost a decade and that was from something that was refrigderated perfectly well. All bacteria that exist at atmospheric pressure are killed at 100 and most are killed far below it, around 60-65 (140ish F). I have that argument with my mother often enough (no, the pork is fine if it’s only at 147). To get back on topic, hard butter = torn baked goods = unhappy genghisfloyd.
We use A/C sparingly. There are so many places in our lives that are over air-conned that we like to keep our home cooled to more realistic level with fans and strategically opened windows.
I’m down the road from TeaElle (south Westchester Co) but originally from California. Growing up, just in the fridge, but never butter - always some awful tasting spread.
Now, we keep our supply in the fridge, but I move it - about a 1/2 stick at a time - to a covered, majolica butter dish. Gets used pretty fast when I am sauteing mushrooms or making pancakes…
We only use real butter.
It is kept in a covered ceramic butter dish on the counter. The rest is kept in the butter keeper of the refrigerator. If we come across a sale, all but one pound goes into the freezer.
In the summer, we have the AC on enough that it doesn’t go bad or melt. We usually leave it set around 84 degrees. In Sacramento, it get pretty hot in the summer. With dogs at cats at home we have to leave the AC on.
Fifty posts, most referring to stick butter. Hmm. Up until a few years ago, I had no idea butter even came in sticks. I was raised in a house that only had the whipped butter (not margarine) in the tubs (that were stored in the fridge). The one & only time used stick butter, I thought it was disgusting.
(California) My mother kept the butter in the cooler, which is a full height cupboard that has screens at the bottom and top. This draws cool air from under the house and lets it drift out into the attic, and it’s x degrees cooler than the kitchen.
I keep it in the refrigerator in the “butter” bin in the fridge door. This is supposed to have less insulation that the rest of the fridge, so it’s not quite so cold. It still comes out pretty stiff and breakable.
I store the rest of the pound in the freezer, with any unsalted butter (which goes rancid within days, in my experience).
The butter was always in the cupboard when I was a kid in the Pac NW.
When I got married we lived in Amarillo Tx, in an unair-conditioned house. I was shocked and horrified to find a puddle of butter in the butter dish! It never occured to me (at 18) that butter would be anything but perfectly soft and spreadable from the counter.
My husband was just as shocked and horrified… that it was left out. (sigh)
I’m back in my beloved Seattle, so its back on the counter. It so good to be home.
I hardly ever use real butter. I use the “light” margarines, or the “Zero Calorie” butter flavored sprays instead, which I keep refrigerated.
But when I do want butter, I leave it on the counter, though covered so that it will be nice and soft. Then, until the next time I know I’ll need it, I put it back in the fridge, otherwise, as someone else said, by the time I ate it, it really would be rancid. So basically, if I know I’ll want toast or something with real butter in the morning, I take it out the night before, and then put it back right after I use it.
I was born in Washington state, raised in Anchorage, Alaska.
I use a butter bell when the weather is not too hot. In hot weather, the butter gets too soft to stick to the bell. So, in hot weather I leave it on the counter (but only about two days worth of it). It doesn’t get hot enough here to actually melt butter on the counter.
Fellow butter bell users: maybe you can explain a phenomenon that I’ve noticed. When I store butter in a butter bell, there are always a few minute peaks and ridges on the surface of the butter - I don’t get the surface completely smooth. After a couple of days in the bell, those peaks and ridges take on a subtle, but unmistakeable, blue-green tint. I don’t think it’s mold, because it doesn’t appear to be stuff on the surface of the butter - it’s like the pigment in the butter has changed colour. Also, common sense says that contamination should be less likely when it’s in an enclosed container like a bell that when it’s open on the counter. I never see discoloration in butter that’s left on the counter.
So, what is it? I have been assuming that it’s somehow caused by chlorine in the water (our water is chlorinated here), but that’s just a guess. I imagine it’s probably harmless, but I scrape it off anyway before I use the butter.
I never use actual butter, it’s margarine. Usually in a tub but I’ve recently found a stick version I really like.
And it stays in the refrigerator where it belongs until I’m ready to use it. If I need it softened for some reason, it goes in the microwave for a few seconds.
To me leaving butter out is sorta like leaving the eggs out, or the milk.
The biggest culture shock to me when I’ve traveled out of the country was seeing eggs in the grocery market stored on the shelves by the bread, as opposed to in a cooler. Totally blew my mind.
Same here-well, in a little plastic container, and we live in Pennsylvania.
Of course, when it gets really hot and humid, we try not to leave out too much, but it stays nice and soft.
(If I left it on the counter, the cats would eat all of it).
My cat does that too. His other favorite foods are chicken, ham, tuna and tomato sauce. Much to his complete disgust we insist he eat wet cat food instead.
Kiwi living in Australia. NZ fridges have butter conditioners so that the butter was spreadable even when kept in the fridge. Over here we were buying Mainland butter imported from NZ and it’s been treated in such a way that it is spreadable straight from the fridge (Australian fridges do not have butter conditioners) but it’s suddenly gone off the market.
We’re in a state of flux here with regards to butter and the storage thereof.