My dad refuses to eat margarine, or any other spread like it, and won’t allow my mother to buy it. Which explains why I don’t think I’d ever had any until last week when I was at a friends house and his mother melted some and poured it over our popcorn. Blech! Here I thought the general was being a dick all those years, turns out he was right! Why do all the t.v. commercials insist this greasy shit taste like butter? It doesen’t taste anything like butter. Do those people know what honest to goodness real butter taste like? Just because it looks a little like butter doesn’t mean it taste like butter!
I grew up eating real butter, my mother even churned it herself. Heaven was a piece of fresh baked bread, still warm out of the oven, and a generous helping of fresh made butter. I insisted on butter even after getting married to my current wife.
Then one evening in November 1995, after a rather spicy Mexican dinner, I began to have problems breathing. Then a sharp pain started in my armpit region and spread down my left arm and into my chest. Drove myself to local hospital and checked into the emergency room. I was hooked up to a couple of machines and had half my blood supply taken (or so it seemed), I was told I was suffering from aortic angina due to arterial plaque. In other words, I almost had a heart attack. The cause, too much red meat and my beloved butter. A balloon angeoplasty later, I am still alive.
Since then I have learned to eat the low fat, imitation stuff. You learn to like it. I compensate for the lack of flavor by using seasonings other than salt. The cheese stuff from a cheap box of macaroni and cheese tastes great on popcorn, a little bit goes a long way, the fake spread and paprika on corn on the cob is very good, and I have at least 50 ways to prepare boneless, skinless chicken. I do buy one pound of butter a year though, and it is for the Thanksgiving turkey.
Many years ago my wife started buying margarine to save money. We didn’t have a lot of money then. We decided that on Thanksgiving Day we would treat ourselves to “real butter.”
We didn’t like it as well as we did the margarine. That’s why they make ice cream in all those different flavors, I guess.
I can’t agree more. I wondered it myself. I live in Britain (I assume you live in America) and the situation is the same here. “I can’t believe it’s not butter” [Ican VERY MUCH believe it’s not butter!] and “Utterly Butterly” are the market leaders, and they are both steaming shite. Especailly on toast (my favourite place for butter) Butter makes toast juicy and leaves some crispiness in it. margerine and fake-butter products make it soggy and crap.
There is one noteable exception in the UK. It is not butter (I think) it’s called Clover. I could swear it’s margerine but it is actually quite good.
I don’t know how this question can have a purely factual answer. I can say that a large number of people I know seem to think that ICBINB tastes better than butter, but not the same as it does. And in all honesty, having had a lot of butter in my life, I have to agree.
I don’t know that the taste of butter should be all that hard to duplicate, yet something about it seems to make it so for most brands of margarine.
Just so the butter-lovers don’t think they’re in the majority, you should all be informed that butter and margarine are disgusting, and anyone who puts either of these greasy, nasty substances on their food in high enough concentrations to be tasted is seriously disturbed.
Why anyone would want to claim that their product emulates the taste of butter is beyond me.
I always ask for sandwiches with “no butter.” This is because nine times out of ten the “butter” used by cafes/delis etc is a large tub of margarine.
I do not understand how people can eat margarine, to me it tastes vile. The strength of the flavour particularly appals me. It is so strong it tastes through tuna, through anchovy, through chilli. I remember at school having to scrape thick, greasy mounds of it off the pre-made salad rolls.
Butter by contrast is much milder, especially the unsalted varieties. But I don’t really buy it either or use it at all much these days. I hate the taste of butter mixed with jam, I don’t like buttered toast, so generally I have my bread plain. Unless I’m in a nice restaurant and there is a pat of olive butter, or garlic butter, etc.
As far as I’m concerned, margarine is evil and has no place in Chez Robin. I love the taste of butter, and use it wherever possible.
A small amount of butter enhances the flavor of what it’s used on. It should be used sparingly, or else the food is sitting in an unattractive puddle of grease.
Well, I prefer butter, but you can’t make garlic bread with it. My dad will buy a huge tub of margarine, and mix in ground garlic, and use it as a spread before toasting garlic bread. You really can’t taste the margarine after it’s cooked-just the garlic.
It wouldn’t work with butter, and it would probably go rancid before you used it.
I prefer margarine to butter. I don’t really care about the taste…most margarine tastes good, and the same with most butter. The thing I like best is that you can actually spread margerine easily, while butter usually rips the bread apart unless you stick it in the microwave for a bit.
Well, in my opinion, those who can’t believe it’s not butter don’t have the sense of taste that God gave to a sea anemone. I can almost understand the perversion(:p) of preferring it, but this not being able to tell the difference is pure marketing malarkey.
I guess I’m odd in that I greatly prefer margarine in almost all cases. Once, I accidentally melted some butter and poured it on my popcorn–YUCK! To me, even fresh butter tastes a mote rancid. However, this could be because I grew up with margarine being used in the day-to-day context (on toast, on bread, on popcorn (well, not that often), basically).
Oh, and racer, if you’re interested, Kraft makes cheese dust specifically for popcorn. . .when I get home from school, I could probably send you some or something. Another one of those nifty things I grew up with :).
Dude, I’m with you. I’m sitting here eating my favorite Passover-season treat–matzo with butter. Yum yum. I can’t imagine eating matzo with artificially-flavored hydrogenated vegetable fat.
I don’t use much butter either. I don’t eat much toast or bread & butter. I mostly use it in recipes–it is one of the best flavor enhancers out there. And on the rare occasions when I do use it as a spread (like right now), I want the best flavor that I can get.
Maybe it does depend on what you grew up with. We never ever used margarine when I was growing up.
[list=1]
[li]I like butter on corn.[/li][li]I cook with butter when substitutions won’t work at all.[/li][/list=1]
For those who are interested in decent tasting butter substitutes (for health reasons or whatever), I think that Benecol is pretty good. But it costs an arm and a leg. I also hear that Bummel and Brown is a good substitue spread for bread / toast.
I do not care for margarine. I can taste it no matter how it’s been used - as a spread, in cooking, in baked goods. It has a distinctly oily taste and mouthfeel. I can tolerate it. But you will never find margarine in my fridge. I’ll complain about how expensive butter is, but I’d rather spend the $4 a pound and use less of it than use a lot of much-cheaper margarine.
I’ve never tried any of the yogurt-based spreads, like Brummel & Brown. I’m guess that because they are actual dairy product, as opposed to a simulated “creamy” vegetable-oil product, that the flavor and texture would be preferable to margarine.
In fact, that goes for all fake/low-fat-dairy products - Cool Whip (gross!), low-fat sour cream (gelatinous and flavorless), low-fat cheese (rubbery), ice milk (just. plain. wrong.) In every case I’d rather moderate my consumption of the real thing than settle for lots of the fake stuff.