A sign for our times

[katiefoolery]

Even though I wasn't searching for it, I have discovered something that is truly symbolic of the time in which we live. It's not something you'd ordinarily notice, but it sums up everything about our current lifestyle. It silently tells us who we are and how we face life. It reveals personalities and defines character.

It's margarine.

For a while there, I used to claim that I didn't notice the difference between margarine and butter. And it was true - it all tasted like yellow pasty stuff that you spread on bread to stop its being so dry in sandwiches to me. It was always soft and it was inoffensive. In short, it seemed the way to go.

This all changed when my Timothy brought home some "spreadable" butter from the supermarket in order to make garlic bread. The garlic bread was inordinately successful and I afterwards used the leftovers for my sandwiches the next day. When I bit into said sandwiches, I suddenly realised that I could tell the difference between margarine and butter... and I liked butter more. Much, much more.

Accordingly, when the "spreadable" butter ran out, we bought plain old ordinary butter instead of margarine. This morning, as we waited for our crumpets and muffins to toast, my Timothy brought up the issue of the butter's rather solid state and waxed lyrical about margarine's more easy-going, spreadable nature. I, meanwhile, set about scraping off as much butter as possible before the various toasting items were ready.

That's when it struck me: we're a margarine society. We want things quickly and easily and we want them now. We'd rather have a tasteless, yellow mush on our toast because it spreads straight from the fridge. We'd rather have ease than the delightful taste of butter, just because it takes a bit of effort to encourage the butter to make the journey to your muffin in the morning.

I have to admit, I am a bit of a margarine person but as I watched the curls of butter appear on my knife this morning, I realised that I wanted to be a butter person. I want to put a bit of effort in for a greater reward. This is quite unlike me - I'm usually the laziest person around. But now I have the taste for butter and I want more. If a little effort is rewarded with the simple pleasure of butter, I wonder what rewards would await an even greater effort?

All I know is that it's worth it - my muffin tasted much more delicious than it would have with margarine.

Comments

[violetcreme.livejournal.com]

Great post !

I'm a butter girl who thinks she should eat margarine because it's 'healthier' but really probably eats it becuase it's easy and quick. Butter takes thought - if you leave it out so it spreads easily, it goes off quicker and you have to watch the temperature so it doesn't run and then solidify again. However if you leave it in the fridge, you end up hacking at your toast with it in lumps and end up with segments andcrumbs. Butter requires a relationship. It's all about timing but worth the effort in the end.

Margarine is bland, boring, easy and predictable - bit like modern life.

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

:-D good news- recent studies show butter to be healthier!

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

The annoying helper monkey at my old work was always telling us how it's healthier to eat lots of butter than a little bit of sugar. She was a scientist, so I suppose she knew what she was talking about.

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

I do know that a single teaspoon of refined sugar impedes the immune system for 24 hours, so maybe that's what she meant. Raw sugar and fruit sugars are a different story.
So does this make me an honourary annoying helper monkey? ;-P

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Goodness me, no! You'd never be an annoying helper monkey. (Sorry if that disappoints you. :) )

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I used to hate making my school lunches because the combination of cold butter and home-made bread made for a sandwich where the bread was in several pieces and littered with holes. At least with toast you can let it melt a bit, unless you're in a hurry. Which I often am in the mornings. I shall have to experiment and find the coolest place in the house.

[flippyfrog.livejournal.com]

I'm a marge girl, simply because i barely use butter for anything other than cooking.
The trick with butter is not to put it in the fridge, but a cool place. Not always the best thing to do in summer in Australia, but that is what you're supposed to do... i think. Makes it so it's soft when you want to use it. And with toast, you cut off a small bit (like cheese, only smaller) and let it melt over the bread instead of spreading it.

Did you know in the US the marge is white? It's got so much fat in it that the stuff is white. I was watching a few American ads and i thought they were talking about something completely different when they were spreading muffins with this white stuff. then my mother pointed out it was that way their marge is. Spreadable fat. *shudders*

[funaga.livejournal.com]

RE: US marge. Eeew.

I'm a butter girl, though when I lived at home I was a marge girl. We get the spreadable western star butter (not the super spreadable, which I think is half butter half marge), and it's all in how you spread it ;) The taste difference really is noticeable, though, isn't it?

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how different it tastes! I'd never really tasted butter until that sandwich a week or so ago, which sounds silly - but it's true.

[tangledtale.livejournal.com]

Technically, margarine comes out grey when it's made. They add in colourings so that it will resemble butter and thus look more palatable.

I've always been a butter girl myself, although I wasn't really fussy until year 11 Chemistry when our science teacher told us that margarine was just fat/oils with Hydrogen bubbled through to solidify it. That put me off a bit. And unless the margarine container proudly proclaims a lack of trans-fatty acids then I'm not touching it.

Also, like you said, it tastes blah.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

That blah taste is quite obvious to me now, although I didn't notice it before. I started going off the stuff a bit when the Sonia told me the same thing you mentioned here about margarine having to be coloured before it turned yellow. It's a bit off-putting if you think about it.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

White margarine? That's just bizarre. I'm going to be looking out for American ads involving butter now, just to see this white stuff.

[miska-maz.livejournal.com]

lol well uve jsut put the biggest smile on my face hun! and i think im a bit of both. melted butter maybe :P highly unuseful :P but u no :)

good observation none the less :)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I gave you a smile, good Miska. I think you need as many smiles as possible with all the stuff you're doing at the moment.

And you know, melted butter is incredibly helpful. Much easier to spread on bread, for a start. :)

[miska-maz.livejournal.com]

y thank u bun! oh yes it is...and u no wat. it melts into everythin really nicely :) really really nicely :) and cos it melts so well u can chuck a whole stack on and no one will notice :P so much yummie-ness

[naelany.livejournal.com]

There's margarine, and then there's margarine (I've had it in three, nay four different countries lol). I like some of it just fine. Mind you, there's also butter and then there's butter. I've had butter so yucky it tasted more like menure then anything else *shudder*. These days though, I'm mostly a butter girl ^_~
As for your point, I think you're dead on

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

I'm developing a bad habit of commenting on other people's comments in other people's journals- but...
please, please, please may I use that icon? it's the funniest thing I've seen in a good long time and I love it! It also reminds me of a misheard lyric I read on a database once: the song was Simon & Garfunkle's 'America' and the line was "Captain Picard on the New Jersey Turnpike..."
::falls over::

[naelany.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* go ahead lol

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... manure-butter. I'll have to try and stay away from that one. :)

[naelany.livejournal.com]

please do, it's quite disgusting lol

[rigel-7.livejournal.com]

Mmmm Butter how do I love thee, let me count the ways...

My relationship with this wonderfully creamy substance goes back to about grade four in primary school where we were given a glass jar with a lid, to which a generous amount of cream had been added and we had to shake it in turns until butter formed.

I was so fascinated by this process I demanded we give up margarine and we haven't given it up since.

If you ever want to be turned off mass produced food I recommend reading 'Fast Food Nation' by Eric Schlosser - you will never look at margarine or a french fry the same way again!

[rigel-7.livejournal.com]

Looks at the odd grammar in the third paragraph :P

I mean we haven't given up butter since.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Once or twice, my mum made butter. It took so long but it was fun in the end. Did you see the TV series Jamie's School Dinners? In one of the episodes, he showed the kids what chicken nuggets are made from and I haven't eaten a chicken nugget since.

[crazedturkey.livejournal.com]

Butter has saturated fats..

but marge has trans fats which are apparently worse...
I avoid the issue. I go with dry bread. :)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I can't do dry bread. It's just too... dry. I think I like that little something extra and just adds to the taste of the sandwich.

[gravityslave.livejournal.com]

Buneater, there is another alternative- I am a marmalade girl. Sure, it doesn't work on sandwiches, (there isn't room here to discuss the deeper meaning of mayonnaise) but to follow your analogy anyhow, it is possible to take the strange little bits of what is left of a life and turn them into something bizarre and beautiful- and it takes as much effort as does butter-scraping to turn garbage into jam, but as you pointed out, the results make it all worth it.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I can just imagine trying to put marmalade in my ham, lettuce and cheese sandwich! Although, you never know, it might give it a pickly sort of edge. Alas, I'm not much of a fan of marmalade. It's the fruit peel that I can't stand, although I quite like all the other bits of citrus. :)

[rilla06.livejournal.com]

I'm a spreadable butter girl. yay!

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

It's so delicious, isn't it?

[cat-eyes-el.livejournal.com]

I'mnot really into the taste of butter or marge. If it's fresh bread then I like it with either, if it's prepackaged I don't like either. Althoug this could be rather a lot due t the bread. Although I've taken to eating Mum's bread for school lunches which da-da-da-DAH I eat all of and doesn't crap!

Cat

[cat-eyes-el.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Dad, Richard and I eat marge for some heart thing his family hs. Mum has butter. Who knows anymore...

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I can certainly understand people having to eat margarine for health reasons and I feel incredibly sorry for them now.

Huzzah for your mum's bread tasting delicious! Does she use mixes or does she have a secret recipe?

[cat-eyes-el.livejournal.com]

It's not so much Mum's bread as the bread Mum eats. Helga's, or noble Rise. Multigrain in stead of Woderwhite...

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

And here I was, hoping there'd be a recipe forthcoming... :)

[maskedconfessor.livejournal.com]

The obvious solution to this dilemma is a spreadable butter/dairy blend kind of thing. My sister and I have "Dairy Soft", it's a Devondale product, I think. It's far better than margarine because it really tastes like butter, but it's easier to spread (though not the same oily slime as margarine). Also, it's apparently healthier than margarine, but I usually don't bother with that stuff, heh.
My parents still eat margarine but that's more for health reasons than anything else. I think if my mother wasn't worried about the health thing she would eat butter instead, but then she grew up on a dairy farm, so what do you expect.
..sorry, I'm ranting. Too tired.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

It raises a bit of a dilemma, doesn't it? Some people eat margarine, because it's not full of the fats in butter. Others eat butter, because it's not full of these trans-fats and yellow dye. It's starting to look as though spreadable butter is the only way to go, really.

Feel free to rant whenever you like. :)

[snarkymonkey.livejournal.com]

That is probably one of the best allegories I've yet to run across, Katie. The society we live in is so fast-paced I fear we're outrunning ourselves. There are so many hi-tech gadgets for events and tasks that really only require a minute or two of time yet that extra thirty seconds has become so coveted that we willingly invest dollars to gain such thirty seconds only to spend it on something not nearly as important.

I think I'm also a butter gal, my dear. And quite frankly, a cranberry-walnut roll just doesn't taste the same without it. =3

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I think I could almost apply the analogy to tea-bags as well. Every now and then, I try to make an effort and I get out the old teapot and make proper tea. It just tastes better, but all the preparation takes more time and I find myself turning back to the tea-bag once more. Well, if I'm going to be a butter girl, I might as well be a teapot girl with it.

That cranberry-walnut roll sounds plendiferous.