Basic Rules For Eating Italian Bread

Italians Love Their Bread, But There Are Rules

You've just been seated at your favorite Italian restaurant. The server has taken your order and the menus have been collected. Moments later – perhaps along with your beverages – the first course arrives: a basket full of delicious, crusty bread. Depending on the eatery, there may be little packets of butter in the basket or, more likely, a shallow dish of olive oil, sometimes containing Italian herbs, accompanies the bread. Or you may have ordered garlic bread: lightly toasted slices of bread slathered with garlic-flavored butter. Of course, you dig in immediately, probably emptying the basket long before the next course comes to the table.

If this scenario sounds familiar, I can assure you of one thing: you are not in an Italian restaurant.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Italians love their bread and it is, indeed, served as a part of every meal. Bread is integral to the Mediterranean diet. Some deeply religious people in the region even consider it to be a sacred food, broken and shared communally at the table. But bread is never – let me back up and run that by again for emphasis – NEVER served as a separate “course” or as a stand alone appetizer prior to other courses. The only exception there would be in the case of some sort of bruschetta – pronounced “broo-SKET-ah” and not “broo-SHET-uh” – which is a preparation unto itself and is usually considered as an antipasto or appetizer. But plain Italian bread with butter or oil or “garlic bread”? Never.

In the first place, “garlic bread” is an American invention non-existent in Italian culture and cuisine. Although it can trace its roots back to the aforementioned bruschetta, “garlic bread,” as served in Italian American restaurants, is strictly an Italian American creation. Early Italian immigrants to the United States often had to adapt their traditional dishes to match the realities of the local ingredients on hand. Olive oil was all but unheard of in America, but there was lots of butter. So, add a little garlic to make it taste more like home and....the birth of “garlic bread,” subsequently introduced to semi-adventurous American palates at those “exotic” Italian restaurants that began springing up by the mid-twentieth century. But back in Italy? Never.

In fact, let's talk about butter for a second. Let's say you're in Italy and have asked your cameriere for a little butter for your bread. He's going to look at you like you've grown a third eye and then he's going to be embarrassed. “Mi dispiace,” he'll say, “ma non abbiamo burro.” Restaurants in the southern parts of Italy are unlikely to even have butter in the building while northern establishments might try to to accommodate your request by slicing chunks off the big blocks of butter kept in the kitchen for use in some dishes. But the cute little foil-wrapped pats you find in Italian American places? Never.

And oil for dipping? Sometimes with balsamic vinegar added? Not generally a thing in Italy, where it would be considered a waste of good olive oil, and why on earth would you want to taint your taste buds with vinegar before the rest of the food arrives? Besides, if you've ever priced real, genuine balsamic vinegar, you'd know that there ain't no way anybody in their right budget-conscious mind would just dump it on a plate and dip cheap bread in it. Except for in touristy places, it just isn't done.

Now, if you were in Tuscany, you might be served fettunta – literally “oily slice” – which is a predecessor of and the base for bruschetta. You take a nice, thick slice of bread and toast it. Not in a toaster but on a grill or a grill pan. You want a nice golden color and maybe some grill marks. While the bread is still hot from grilling, you cut the end off a garlic clove and rub the surface of the bread with the cut clove. Then you drizzle it with a generous amount of good quality olive oil and sprinkle on just a mere touch of coarse salt, like kosher salt. This would be a type of bread that could be served either as an accompaniment or as a course of its own.

And then there's the bread. A lot of Italian American places at least make an attempt at baking their own bread. I know of a number of such places that use the same dough for table bread that they use to make their pizza crust. It's not exactly “authentic” Italian bread, but it's a start. Far too many Italian American eateries serve up “Italian bread” purchased through their commercial food suppliers. The difference is like night and day.

True “Italian” bread – i.e. bread made in Italy or made according to Italian traditions – uses different ingredients and different baking techniques than its American or Italian American counterparts. Real Italian breads are made with different flours – most often grano tenero flours – and are baked at higher temperatures than their commercial cousins. Olive oil is the fat of choice rather than cheaper oils or butter. Slow fermentation processes are used in making Italian bread, no fast-acting yeast. And there are no preservatives in real Italian bread, something that can't be said of the bread-like substances produced in commercial factory bakeries and shipped halfway across the country on trucks. All this results in thick, rustic crusts that you can really sink your teeth into and that contrast beautifully with the soft, airy, chewy yet almost fluffy interiors. Besides flavor and texture, vero pane Italiano is more digestible and has less gluten and a lower glycemic index than your average American bread. Sadly, most store bought “Italian bread” – the stuff your favorite “Italian” place is likely putting in your basket – is pretty much Wonder Bread shaped like an Italian loaf and wrapped in green, white, and red bags. If you ever luck up and find someplace that serves something like pane Toscano or pane di Altamura or some other authentic Italian bread, you'll see what I mean.

So, anyway, back to the restaurant. If they bring out all that delicious-looking and wonderful smelling bread right off the bat, what are you supposed to do with it? Just leave it sitting there in the basket? Yep.

Didn't your Mama ever tell you “don't fill up on bread?” Well, that's also the Italian philosophy. A lot of the more authentic places won't even bring the bread out until the rest of the food is served. The idea is that bread is there to accompany the meal, not to be eaten as an appetizer or as a course unto itself. It is not a pre-meal filler or a snack. And you don't usually eat it with your pasta or risotto as this would be considered eating a starch with a starch. No, bread is typically reserved as something you eat with your soup or salad or meat or vegetable course. The only real exception here is that it is acceptable to break off small pieces of bread to use as sops for any leftover sauce remaining on your pasta plate. The custom is called fare la scarpetta – make a little shoe – and although it's sometimes frowned upon in the high end, high tone places, it's okay pretty much everyplace else. When in doubt, look about. If you see other people doing it, well, when in Rome – or Florence or Milan or Bologna or wherever.....

Whatever you do, don't cut the bread! Big cultural no-no. In Italy, they take the phrase “breaking bread” literally. You break off a piece of bread for your own use from the communal loaf, and then you break that piece into whatever smaller pieces you intend to use for whatever you intend to use them for. Taking a knife to the bread will get you dirty looks at the very least. And so will taking more bread than you can eat. Food waste and leftovers are not Italian things.

Oh, and be aware, while it's not an issue in American Italian places where bread is usually complementary, even in upscale eateries, if you should find yourself in an Italian Italian restaurant, don't be surprised by the coperto. Yes, there's a cover charge for bread in many establishments. Technically, it is a table charge that covers the table setting, the bread and the basket it comes in, and other small incidentals. It's not a “tip” or a service charge and it goes directly to the restaurant and not to the server. It's generally a euro or two per person and you'll usually see it in small print at the bottom of the menu.

So there you have it: the essentials of Italian bread etiquette in a nutshell. Or maybe in a breadbasket, I don't know. In any case buon appetito e mangiare bene!

A Fifty-Cent Surcharge On Eggs? Okay, How About Buttered Toast?

I'll Fork Over Extra For A Decent Slice

The world was shocked the other day by the announcement that Waffle House is going to be charging a fifty-cent per egg surcharge. Well, at least it was shocking in the part of the world that knows what a “Waffle House” is. That means my two eggs, scrambled, with bacon, hash browns (plain) and buttered toast is now gonna cost me an extra buck. Boh! (That's pretty much the Italian equivalent of “meh”.) Like it or not, (and I don't) it is what it is and there's little to gain by screaming about it.

You really want something to scream about, though? How about the aforementioned buttered toast? I mean, why in the hell can't I get a decent piece of buttered toast at a Waffle House? Or an IHOP? Or pretty much any other chain breakfast place? Buttered toast. Emphasis on the “buttered.” It's a simple enough preparation. It seems like something anybody could do. I, myself, have been doing it since around the age of five.

I Googled “buttered toast” and was rewarded with numerous results containing actual recipes for how to make buttered toast. Seriously. But the very first one pretty much summed up the process: “Evenly spread butter onto toasted bread using a butter knife or spreader.” Ah-HA! THERE'S the rub! It's those first two words, “evenly spread.”

See, when I make buttered toast at home, I by golly make buttered toast. That means that you can actually see the butter on the toast and it also means that said butter is “ evenly spread” from the top of the bread slice to bottom and from side to side and corner to corner. In short, the toast is completely, thoroughly, and unequivocally buttered.

Not so in your average breakfast emporium. In many of those establishments I have to bring out a magnifying glass to detect the little spot of butter they administer with an eyedropper to the center of the slice of toasted bread. And in a lot of places, it's not even real butter but rather some unholy chemical concoction euphemistically labeled as “buttery spread,” “butter-flavored spread,” or my favorite “Liquid Butter,” which is actually liquid and hydrogenated soybean oil with a trace of salt, soy lecithin, and natural and artificial flavor, with beta carotene added for color and with dimethylpolysiloxane thrown in as an anti-foaming agent.

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I asked for buttered toast that it didn't arrive on my plate with a vague yellow smear across the center of the bread that made it look as though Remy, the delightful little rat/chef from the Disney classic “Ratatouille,” had dipped his tail in butter and scampered quickly across the surface.

Actually, I really do know why restaurants serve sub-par buttered toast. I don't like the answer any more than I like the surcharge on eggs, but.....

Let's bring Remy back into the discussion. A good chef like Remy would know that the magic number for an even, thick coating of butter on a piece of toast is one-and-a-half tablespoons. That's equal to about three-quarters of an ounce.

But, being a canny and cost-conscious little guy, Remy would realize that, with sixteen ounces to a pound, he's getting twenty-one slices of toast per pound of butter. As I'm writing this today, a pound of salted butter at my favorite restaurant wholesaler is going for about $3.25 for the cheap stuff and about $4.25 for the better quality product. Let's split the difference at $3.75. Twenty-one slices of toast per pound of butter equals roughly eighteen cents worth of butter per slice of toast.

Now, the standard two pound (thirty-two ounce) loaf of white sandwich bread that most restaurants use contains about twenty-eight slices and wholesales for about $5.25. Roughly nineteen cents a slice. Nineteen cents worth of bread and about eighteen cents worth of butter equals around thirty-seven cents that Remy's got to shell out for every slice of toast he serves if he's preparing it thoroughly buttered with real butter. An “order” of toast is generally two slices, so about seventy-four cents for an order of well-buttered toast. If Remy has a hundred covers (restaurant-speak for “diners” or “customers”) a day for breakfast, he's spending $74 a day on toast. $518 a week. $2,072 a month. You get the idea.

Now, “Liquid Butter,” on the other hand, wholesales for about $11.50 a gallon. There's 128 ounces in a gallon and if Remy just dips and smears maybe a teaspoon of cheap butter substitute on the toast he serves, that's 1/6 of a fluid ounce or about a penny-and-a-half per slice of toast. Add the bread back in to the equation and Remy can prepare a slice of “buttered” toast in this manner for about twenty-one cents. Forty-two cents an order. Forty-two bucks per hundred covers, etc. Does it matter that it's a crappy excuse for buttered toast? Nah. Not when the bottom line is on the line.

And then there's the toast itself. Inconsistent, at best. My grandmother used to like her toast burned to the consistency of carbon. Don't ask me why. My mother, on the other hand, liked hers barely warmed. A little brown was okay, but don't overdo it. Most restaurants strive to hit the middle ground. But lately I've been getting a lot of toast that is charred black on one side and barely warmed on the other. Or it's not really “toasted” at all. Lacking an actual four or six-slice commercial toaster in the kitchen, the cooks are slapping the bread in a pan or on the flattop and “toasting” it that way, or they're putting it on a sheet tray and sticking it under a broiler for a minute or two. Yes, technically it's “toasted,” but it's not really toast.

Tell you what; if you're gonna jack up the price of eggs by half-a-buck to cover the increased cost, I'd be willing to fork over an extra quarter to have a real, honest-to-goodness slice of buttered toast on my plate next to those high-dollar eggs. Real toast. Real butter. Slathered all over.

But I, as usual, am naught but a voice crying in the wilderness. It ain't gonna happen. And since Waffle House, IHOP, et.al. would likely look askance at me for bringing in my own buttered toast, I suppose my breakfast fate is sealed.

Or toasted.

If You're Not Using Kerrygold Butter, You Should Be

Banned In Boston? No, But Once Proscribed in Pewaukee

Anybody who has ever read anything I've written on the subject knows of my “love/hate” relationship with butter and margarine: I love butter and I hate margarine. It's not just because rich, creamy, delicious butter and I are both products of America's Dairyland. No, it's because margarine was developed by a nineteenth century French chemist as a cheap, artificial substitute for butter. And to me it still remains just that: a cheap, artificial substitute with all the taste, appeal, and nutritional value of the plastic tubs in which it is often sold. Blecchh!

In the interest of transparency I must admit there is a dark side to my history with margarine: My father bootlegged the vile stuff back in the 1950s. Yes, it's true. Oh, the shame of it! Now you're probably asking, “Huh? How do you 'bootleg' margarine?” Well, in the time and place I was born (Wisconsin in the '50s) margarine was illegal. You couldn't buy or sell it in stores. So my dad decided to supplement his income by emulating his father who ran moonshine back in the 1920s. He began taking orders from friends and family during the week and then drove over the nearby state line into Illinois on weekends where he'd load up the trunk of his car with contraband margarine – yellow dye packets and all – and sneak it back into the Dairy State. (Grandpa eventually got busted. Dad didn't.)

You know, I live in the South now and I have a hard time getting any traction with tales of my grandfather's bootlegging back in the '20s. Not when the person with whom I'm speaking probably has relatives who ran 'shine sometime last week. But when I tell them about my dad burning up the Midwest's version of Thunder Road with the trunk of his '56 Chevy Bel-Air loaded down with hot margarine.....well, that's deserving of instant street cred. But I digress.

I use butter for everything. Wait......as “Last Tango In Paris” comes to mind, let me rephrase that. (If you don't get it, Google it.) I use butter for any and all culinary purposes. I cook with it, bake with it, and use it exclusively at the table. Margarine has no place in my kitchen. No, I take that back: it might be good for greasing squeaky cabinet hinges. And I'm really picky about the butter I use. For decades I eschewed generic or store brand butters, refusing to subscribe to the erroneous “butter is butter” philosophy as I reached instead for “top shelf” brands like “Land O' Lakes” or “Challenge.” And then I discovered Kerrygold Irish Butter.

Kerrygold has been around in Ireland since the early sixties but its arrival on American shores came much later. In light of my previous allusion to the thriving margarine industry in Illinois, it's ironic that Kerrygold's introduction to the American market came through the Land of Lincoln in 1998. It was a tiny order but company officials in Dublin saw it as an opportunity to stick a foot in the door. And from that insignificant order of an exotic novelty product that was originally purchased to tie in to St. Patrick's Day, Kerrygold today sells a whopping twenty-three thousand tons of its product in the US every year, making it the country's second-best-selling butter brand, right behind the aforementioned Land O' Lakes and right up there with Challenge.

Is Kerrygold expensive? Damn skippy! About twice as much per pound as generic store brand butter. But you get what you pay for, right? And when it comes to taste, texture, and overall quality, Kerrygold is worth every nickel. Why? Glad you asked.

Kerrygold is a European-style butter (duh!). As such it has a higher butterfat content than typical American butter. Eighty-two percent to be exact. This higher butterfat translates into richer, creamier texture. Kerrygold butter also comes from the milk of grass-fed cows that are free of growth hormones. Why is “grass-fed” a big deal? Grass-fed butter contains five times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than butter made from the milk of grain-fed cows. This is a thing because some studies indicate that CLA can effect numerous health benefits, including varying degrees of fat loss, in humans. Butter from grass-fed cows is also much higher in Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin K2 when compared to butter from grain-fed cows. Of course, anything free of added growth hormones is always a good thing. And besides all the healthy stuff, butter from grass-fed cow's milk just tastes better.

Now, some ninnywhiners will protest that Kerrygold cows are not “100 percent” grass-fed. Puh-leese! About two-thirds of the land in Ireland is farmland and about eighty percent of that is lush, green grassland, the result of year-round temperate weather and moisture-bearing southwest winds. That's where the whole “Emerald Isle” thing comes from, you know? But it's not all sunshine and unicorns when it comes to the weather in Ireland, so those frolicking Friesian cows occasionally have to eat something other than fresh grass. They can graze to their stomach's content for up to three-hundred-twelve days a year on average, longer than just about any other cows in the world. But for the other fifty-three or so days, their diets have to be supplemented with silage. Big whoop. That's close enough to “grass-fed” for me.

The higher butterfat that gives Kerrygold its rich texture and appealing golden yellow color is also a baker's dream. Higher butterfat means less water content which means one very important thing when it comes to baking: flakiness, especially in pie crusts and pastries.

And, of course, as I mentioned, there's the taste factor. Coming as I do from dairy country, I know what butter is supposed to taste like. When my grandfather wasn't busy running a still, his regular job was as a butter maker at a local creamery. I've made my share of the stuff by hand-churning a little cream and adding a pinch of salt. Margarine's entirely bogus claims aside, nothing tastes better than fresh butter. American butter, even “the good stuff,” has suffered over the years as cost-saving, corner-cutting measures and cheaper ingredients have dulled the flavor. Not so with Kerrygold. It's still the real deal, made in the traditional manner. Folks in Ireland laugh when they hear Americans going gaga over the wonderful taste and quality of “fancy” Irish butter. It's just butter to them, the way it's always been. But don't take my word for it: try it for yourself. If you can't immediately taste the difference, drop me a line and I'll help set you up for a taste bud transplant.

Unfortunately, I don't generally use Kerrygold for everything in the kitchen. It's too expensive for commercial or restaurant cooking. Kerrygold doesn't sell in bulk quantities. I can't just nip over to the restaurant supply place and get it any cheaper than you can buy it at Walmart or wherever. I know professional cooks, myself included, who would love to use Kerrygold exclusively, but.......$$$. Like it or not, in the restaurant world, fewer dollars make more sense. So for commercial cooking, I rely on another “European-style” butter, Plugra. “Plugra” derives its name from the French “plus gras” or “more fat.” And it does, indeed, have a higher butterfat content than its common American cousins. BUT.....note the “European-STYLE” designation. Plugra may be European in style, but it's made in America by an American dairy consortium from milk produced by American dairy cows. By their own admission, “Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. is a member owned cooperative of more than 10,000 dairy farmers in 48 states. Currently, the milk and cream used to make our butter does not come solely from dairy farmers who certify that their cows are not being treated with rbST or artificial growth hormones.” (Thanks to blogging Chef Rob Endelman for that tidbit.) Still and all, it's a higher quality product than most other American offerings and I can just nip over to the restaurant supply place and buy it cheaper than you can at Walmart or wherever. But it still pales – literally and figuratively – in comparison to Kerrygold.

One thing I found really amusing about Kerrygold: up until very recently, it was illegal in Wisconsin. There are still laws defining, outlining, and restricting the use of butter and margarine in America's Dairyland. One of them, Wisconsin statute 97.176, originally enacted in 1953, pertains to the grading of butter at the state level by a “highly trained grader” on the basis of numerous flavor, body, color, and salt characteristics. This “graded” butter then was allowed to carry an official Wisconsin stamp of approval for sale within the state's borders. If you got caught selling unstamped or ungraded butter, you were looking at fines of between a hundred and a thousand dollars and six months in jail. The purpose, of course, was to protect local commercial product by freezing out artisanal and foreign competition. The statute wasn't much of a big deal and was pretty much overlooked and unenforced for decades. That is until ungraded, unstamped, foreign, and enormously popular Kerrygold came along. In 2015, somebody in Madison remembered the old law and outlawed Kerrygold, forcing consumers who wanted it to obtain it by less than strictly legal means. In other words, they had to bootleg it from Illinois and other neighboring states. My dad – gone now these many years – would have loved it. So in 2015, it was legal to sell margarine in Wisconsin, but not Irish butter. Lawsuits flew, but ultimately Ornua, the folks who make Kerrygold, agreed to comply with the state's draconian grading measures, and the golden butter in the golden foil wrapper made a welcome return to local store shelves.

Find out what the fuss is all about and go get some Kerrygold Irish Butter today. It comes in both salted and unsalted varieties and is available in stores nationwide – even in Wisconsin.

Margarine Is Dead! Long Live Butter!

Butter Me Up!

Recently, I wrote about a guy in Massachusetts who sued Dunkin' Donuts for “buttering” his bagels with margarine instead of real butter. (Spoiler: He won.) And that got me thinking: why are we even having this discussion? Margarine is dead. Long live butter!

Distributor US Foods says its butter sales jumped almost seven percent in 2016 and Americans are forecast to eat a projected 940,000 metric tons of butter in 2017, a substantial eight percent more than they did in the previous year. The Department of Agriculture says that's the highest consumption of butter in the US since about 1967, the time when margarine began its meteoric rise in popularity.

Margarine – or oleomargarine – has been around since the mid-nineteenth century when it was developed by a French chemist to serve Napoleon III's army as a cheap substitute for butter. But very few people in their right minds ate the stuff by choice. Butter was abundantly available and relatively affordable if you weren't feeding an army. It remained that way right up through most of the first half of the twentieth century. Then WWII and its rationing programs came along and butter took a real hit. People got used to margarine doing the war years and, fueled by copious advertising dollars, “oleo” sales took off in the 1950s. Margarine was “modern” and fit right in with the trends of the '50s; plastic furniture, plastic toys, and plastic butter. Even butter strongholds like Wisconsin, where margarine was actually illegal well into the 1960s, eventually caved in to the demand for margarine.

Let me ask you a simple question: Why would you buy margarine? Would you buy it because you are health conscious? Would you buy it because you are cost conscious? Or would you buy it because you are simply unconscious? By that I mean you buy it out of habit just because you always have, or because your mother did, or because that's just what somebody on TV told you to do. And if you try to tell me you buy it because you really and truly prefer the taste, I'll call a doctor to examine your single malfunctioning taste bud.

I mean, how many margarines have touted themselves over the years as being “buttery tasting?” How many of them blend themselves with butter so they taste more buttery? Conversely, how many times have you seen butter advertisements that say, “Mmmmm...tastes just like margarine!” Admittedly, somebody who has grown up on the chemical taste and texture of butter-flavored axle grease may believe they actually like it, not knowing any better way. But in general terms, flavor is not a factor in this discussion. So, let's go back to the other excuses … I mean, reasons … for buying margarine.

It's cheap. Okay, if cost is your prime motivator, though it pains me to admit it, you win. There is no doubt that margarine is cheaper than butter. Taste, quality, and cooking performance aside, if your budget is so slim that you have to feed yourself and your family a diet of low quality, cut-rate, processed imitation food products, then that's the way it is. There is no point in your reading any further. I've already lost you and nothing I can bring to the table will change your mind. And I weep for you.

Now, let's bring the health bandwagon to the front of the parade. Margarine is so-o-o-o much better for you than butter! Butter has cholesterol! Butter causes heart attacks! Butter is evil! The road to hell is greased with butter! Margarine is safer! Margarine is healthier! No saturated fat! Heart-healthy! Omega-3! Cholesterol free! It's all Madison Avenue, folks. None of it is Mayo Clinic. In fact, here's a fun quote from the Mayo Clinic; “not all margarines are created equal — and some may even be worse than butter.” To which you gargle, “Oh! Oh! How can anything be worse than butter? All that saturated fat! All that cholesterol!”

Let's have a word about fat. Specifically, trans fat. Again, from the Mayo Clinic; “Like saturated fat, trans fat increases blood cholesterol and the risk of heart disease. In addition, trans fat can lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or 'good,' cholesterol levels.” What's more, trans fats have been shown to make blood platelets stickier. Just what everybody needs, stickier platelets! They clump up and clot so much easier. And you know what? Margarine's loaded with the stuff! Especially the solid stick margarines that most people buy because they are cheap! One tablespoon of cheap stick margarine packs a whopping 3 grams of trans fat and 2 grams of saturated fat.

Now, there are “good” margarines out there. Mayo cites Benecol and Promise Activ. They are fortified with plant stanols and sterols, which can help reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad,” cholesterol levels. But in the same paragraph, the docs at Mayo recommend using whipped or light butter or a butter blended with canola or olive oil “if you don't like the taste of margarine.” Hardly a medical mandate for margarine, eh? Some cardiologists today actually recommend butter over regular stick margarine.

Here's the scoop from Harvard Medical School: “The truth is, there never was any good evidence that using margarine instead of butter cut the chances of having a heart attack or developing heart disease. Making the switch was a well-intended guess, given that margarine had less saturated fat than butter, but it overlooked the dangers of trans fats. Today the butter-versus-margarine issue is really a false one. From the standpoint of heart disease, butter is on the list of foods to use sparingly mostly because it is high in saturated fat, which aggressively increases levels of LDL. Margarines, though, aren’t so easy to classify. The older stick margarines that are still widely sold are high in trans fats, and are worse for you than butter. Some of the newer margarines that are low in saturated fat, high in unsaturated fat, and free of trans fats are fine as long as you don’t use too much (they are still rich in calories).”

So, it boils down to a matter of picking your artery-clogging poison. Neither butter nor margarine are on anybody's list of health foods. Butter is better than some margarines and some margarines are better than butter. But there's one thing that butter brings to the table, and that's nutritional value. Butter is an excellent natural source of fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E and K. Not so with margarine, which has very little nutritional value at all.

What caps the issue for me is the fact that butter has been around since the dawn of civilization while margarine was created from a chemistry set about a hundred-fifty years ago. So if I have to make a choice between a good-tasting, natural substance that's bad for me and a bad-tasting, artificial substance that's bad for me – well, just call me “Mr. Natural.”

From a culinary standpoint, there isn't a margarine on the planet that can beat butter's performance in cooking. I know, a lot of recipes call for “butter or margarine.” That's primarily because margarine was being promoted so heavily when most of them were written. But the difference in the results is remarkable. Butter has browning and flavoring characteristics that margarine can only dream about. Butter is more heat stable than margarine. My own education and experience aside, I can't find a single professional chef or baker who prefers any form of margarine over good old-fashioned unsalted butter.

In fact, other than misinformed health nuts, the only people who actively advocate the use of margarine are the people who make it. The food magazines and cookbooks that cop out with the “butter or margarine” option only do so as a result of the butter backlash that began among health freaks in the 1970s. Because the fats in margarine are partially hydrogenated (i.e., not fully saturated), margarine pushers can claim it is "polyunsaturated" and market it as a healthy food.

Hydrogenation became popular in the US because hydrogenated oil doesn't spoil or become rancid as quickly as regular oil and therefore has a longer shelf life. And when it comes to marketing strategy, shelf life is where it's at. You can leave a stick of margarine sitting out for years and neither molds, insects, nor rodents will touch it. Only humans are stupid enough to eat the stuff.

Here's the definition of “margarine” from the Kitchen Dictionary” section of food.com: “A butter substitute made from a variety of different vegetable and other oils. The process of hydrogenation (used to make the margarine hard and spreadable) causes the margarine to produce trans-fatty acids in the body. These acids are known to cause a slew of problems: elevated cholesterol, hardening of the arteries, even cancer. Some margarines contain whey, and thus, are not dairy-free or lactose-free.”And here's a thought from Dr. Dane A. Roubos, D.C., B.Sc., originally published in Nexus Magazine: “To maintain good health it is important that we have the correct intake of omega fatty acids in our diets. Hydrogenated fats like margarine are non-foods with toxic effects and should be avoided at any cost.”

“Non-foods with toxic effects.” Isn't that a ringing product endorsement? Funny, I've never seen that one on a commercial for Blue Bonnet.

From a nutritional standpoint, the '50s and '60s were not good to us. An entire generation of Americans, hornswoggled by unscrupulous, dollar-driven ad men and their pseudo-scientific puppets, grew up believing that it was perfectly okay to consume gallons of sugary, syrupy soft drinks because doing so was “refreshing” and would make them part of a new cool, hip “in” crowd. We were led down a garden path that actually led out of the garden and into a chemistry lab where our food was salted, sugared, processed, and preserved beyond anything our ancestors would have even recognized as food. This was all done in the name of “modern convenience,” of course. Old-fashioned cooking was so passe, after all. It was all about “minute” rice and “instant” potatoes and macaroni and cheese from a box. Worse still, we liked it, or at least deluded ourselves into thinking we did. We so coated our taste buds with chemicals and preservatives that we actually thought the stuff we were heating up from cans and boxes and plastic packages was not only good for us, it was good tasting, too. That's why a man I know, a man brainwashed from birth by Madison Avenue's claims of margarine's health benefits and superior taste, won't have what he calls “that butter crap” in his house.

And now here we sit, obese and ridden with allergies, diabetes, cancer, and all manner of cardiac diseases, wondering how we got here. Thank God butter consumption is up: maybe people are finally learning something.

Look, as I said before, I'm not trying to tell anybody that butter is a health food. It's not. It's purely a saturated fat and every legitimate health organization on the planet recommends limiting your intake of saturated fat. But it's a natural fat. It was created by a cow, not a chemist. And if I'm going to die anyway, I'd rather be killed by Mother Nature than by the bastard step-child of a French chemist whose Frankenstein-like creation was developed in order to win a contest.

So butter me up another biscuit, Betsy, and make sure it's real butter. I don't want any of that margarine crap in my house.

The Law Says Margarine and Butter Are Not The Same

Accept No Substitutes

“Would you like your toast buttered, sir?”

“Yes, please.”

Implicit in that exchange is the fact that I expect my toast to be “buttered” with butter, dammit, not some horrid chemical concoction made up of hydrogenated vegetable oil or worse. But far too many people fail to recognize the difference anymore. Thanks in part to years of idiotic pseudoscience and to generations of ultra-successful marketing, an alarming number of today's consumers make little if any distinction between butter and margarine. To “butter” something has become a verb applied to the liberal application of any butter-like substance to a food. But there are a few old fossils like me who do recognize the difference and at least one who decided to do something about it.

A Worcester, Massachusetts man recently sued doughnut purveyor Dunkin' Donuts for slathering his bagels with margarine rather than butter. Jan Polanik filed a pair of class-action lawsuits against Massachusetts franchise owners of twenty-three stores in Grafton, Leominster, Lowell, Millbury, Shrewsbury, Westborough and Worcester after he said he paid a quarter for butter on his bread and was not told a substitute was used. And he won. Polanik got five hundred bucks as an “incentive award” for representing the class and up to 1,400 other people are entitled to claim up to three free buttered muffins, bagels or other baked goods from the cited stores as compensation for the oversight. Those stores will be required to use only butter — no margarine or butter substitutes — for a period of one year and if they use butter substitutes in the future, their menus will have to explicitly state that fact.

For its part, DD claims that the majority of its restaurants in Massachusetts carry both individual whipped butter packets and a butter-substitute vegetable spread. A few years ago, a Dunkin' spokesperson offered The Boston Globe an explanation for why vegetable spread might be used. “For food safety reasons, we do not allow butter to be stored at room temperature, which is the temperature necessary for butter to be easily spread onto a bagel or pastry.” The spokesperson claimed that the recommended store procedure called for individual whipped butter packets to be served on the side of a bagel or pastry, but not applied. She said, “The vegetable spread is generally used if the employee applies the topping.”

I can buy into that explanation to some extent because after I banned liquid margarine from a restaurant I took over, I was dunned by a health inspector who caught an employee, unaccustomed to the changeover, leaving butter out at room temperature. After I had to toss several pounds of butter – and one employee – it never happened again.

But this kind of thing occurs all the time. You don't think they're buttering your toast with real butter at Waffle House, do you? Waffle House runs on liquid margarine; gallons and gallons of the stuff go into and on everything, including your toast. Let's face it, margarine is cheap and easy to use and most consumers either don't know the difference or they don't care.

They know and they care in Wisconsin. The state that bills itself as “America's Dairyland” is probably the only one that still carries laws on the books specifically restricting and defining the use of butter and margarine. “Oleomargarine Regulations” as outlined in statute 97.18 include subsection 3, which declares: “No person shall sell, offer or expose for sale at retail any oleomargarine or margarine unless: (a) Such oleomargarine or margarine is packaged; (b) The net weight of the contents of any package sold in a retail establishment is one pound; (c) There appears on the label of the package the word “oleomargarine" or “margarine" in type or lettering at least as large as any other type or lettering on the label in a color of print which clearly contrasts with its background, and a full accurate statement of the ingredients contained in the oleomargarine or margarine; and (d) Each part of the contents of the package is contained in a wrapper or separate container which bears the word “oleomargarine" or “margarine" in type or lettering not smaller than 20-point type.”

So I guess nobody will be confused by packaging. “Hmmm....I wonder if this is butter or margarine?”

Subsection 4 states: “The serving of colored oleomargarine or margarine at a public eating place as a substitute for table butter is prohibited unless it is ordered by the customer.”

Clear as a bell. You can't substitute margarine for butter in Wisconsin unless the customer asks for it. Oh, and as an informational aside, the reference to “colored” margarine dates back to the days when the stuff was sold in its natural state – a pasty white. Apparently, nobody wanted to spread a greasy substance that looked like Crisco on their toast, so manufacturers used to include yellow dye packets to make it look more like butter. At one time, the dairy industry pushed back, supporting legislation in several states that would have forced margarine producers to dye their product pink so it couldn't be mistaken or represented as butter, but the Supreme Court eventually intervened and quashed that scheme.

And just in case you might be tempted to foist off margarine on Wisconsin's helpless students, patients, or inmates, subsection 5 of the statute covers that thusly: “The serving of oleomargarine or margarine to students, patients or inmates of any state institutions as a substitute for table butter is prohibited, except that such substitution may be ordered by the institution superintendent when necessary for the health of a specific patient or inmate, if directed by the physician in charge of the patient or inmate.”

You catch that? Ya gotta have a prescription for margarine!

Violators “may be fined not less than $100 nor more than $500 or imprisoned not more than 3 months or both; and for each subsequent offense may be fined not less than $500 nor more than $1,000 or imprisoned in the county jail not less than 6 months nor more than one year.”

And you can rest assured that while miscreant margarine peddlers are doing time in the county lockup, they'll be eating nothing but good ol' natural Wisconsin butter.

I told you Wisconsin is serious about butter. So serious, in fact, that imported Kerrygold Irish Butter cannot be sold in Wisconsin because it hasn't been graded for quality by state or federal authorities. This has led to bootlegging as scofflaws nip into Illinois and return with carloads of contraband butter, much the same as my dad used to do back in the 1950s when margarine was actually an illegal substance in “Dairyland,” prompting him to take orders from family and friends and venture across the nearby state line on weekends to fill them. (Proving, I guess, that the nut didn't fall far from the tree. My grandfather was busted for violating the Volstead Act back in 1921. Oh, the shame!)

In spite of my father's nefarious hobby, I have had a lifelong love affair with butter. Like Mr. Polanik, I accept no substitutes. I have visited most of the municipalities he's suing and although my dyed-in-the-wool Krispy Kreme-born-and-bred wife would never allow me to darken the door of a Dunkin' Donuts shop unless it were the last possible resort, I would definitely be among the customers demanding my pound of flesh – or butter – from his legal action. Don't sell me something “buttered” with margarine. It does make a difference to some of us and now the law has recognized that difference.

My wife, raised far from “America's Dairyland” in “The Heart of Dixie” often chides me for making a fuss in restaurants that bring me little bowls full of little packets of plastic butter masquerading as the real thing. And despite my best efforts, I have my share of friends and relatives who are willing to clog their arteries with trans-fats in order to save a dime. A few among them are not only parsimonious, they also lack taste buds. I have a friend who swears he can't tell the difference and an in-law who wounds and offends me by referring to my beloved butter as “crap.” Which only goes to prove that people who have been inured to and inundated with cheap substitutes all their lives wind up not knowing their culinary asses from holes in the ground.

“I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.” Yeah? Well I can. “Country Crock?” It's a crock, alright. “Everything's Better With Blue Bonnet On It?” Not on your tintype, tootsie. “Promise” wants you to “Love Your Heart.” Okay, so don't eat “Promise.” “Fleischmann's” exhorts you to “Eat Well, Live Well, Be Well.” Great advice. What's it got to do with “Fleischmann's?” Remember “Chiffon?” “It's not nice to fool Mother Nature?” Well, I assure you, Mother Nature is not that easily fooled and neither am I. How about these Top Ten New Margarine Slogans from a 1994 Late Night With David Letterman?

10. I can't believe it's not healthy.

9. Little pats of poison

8.You can't spell margarine without angina.

7. Pure chemical satisfaction!

6. Thought you were healthy? Well guess again Pepe!

5. For external use only

4. Which are you gonna believe – boring laboratory studies, or cool TV commercials?

3. Give us a week, and we'll shut off your heart.

2. Elvis ate it, why don't you?

1. Mmm, mmm, dead!

If margarine is so all-fired marvelous and better than butter, then why does margarine always claim to “taste like butter” while I've yet to hear butter claim to “taste like margarine?”

Hooray for Jan Polanik, my butter buddy and great hero of the cause. You know, people in the Midwest have butter sculpting contests at state fairs and such. Out in Iowa, they've done Elvis and John Wayne in butter. How about somebody sculpting Jan Polanik? He certainly deserves the honor. And maybe save a few pats for the judge who ruled in his favor.

Richard Nixon probably knew something about butter. Well.......Butterfield, anyway. (Alexander Butterfield was the guy who revealed the existence of the White House taping system in 1973.) So, in my best Nixon voice, let me make one thing perfectly clear: butter is butter and margarine......is not.

Which Qualifies as “Crap,” Butter or Margarine?

I'm writing from a slightly pissed off perspective, so proceed with caution. I'm still shaking with anger over something that happened during the holidays. I was visiting out of town and, as is often the case, I was asked to cook. Specifically, to cook breakfast. Now, when it comes to breakfast, the Italian side of my heritage is completely subjugated by other aspects of my ancestry. No prima colazione of coffee and pastry for me. Breakfast is some combination of bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, pancakes, biscuits, and toast. Bring on the syrup, the jam, jelly, or preserves, and most of all, bring on the butter. Paula Deen ain't got a thing on me when it comes to butter at breakfast.

So that's why when one of the people I was serving made his way to the refrigerator and pulled out a tub of margarine, I was confused. “There's butter on the table,” I said. To which he replied, “Oh, I don't eat that butter crap.” 

I was rocked to the core of my Dairyland upbringing. Never in more than a half-century of life have I ever heard the words “butter” and “crap” used in relation to one another. Creamy, delicious, wholesome, all-natural butter has been a staple of mankind's diet since humans and cows first developed a relationship in neolithic times. And it remained a staple until some 19^th century French chemist developed oleomargarine as a cheap substitute to feed Napoleon III's army. The fact that Napoleon III was overthrown and sent into exile not long after should tell you something.

Right from the start, margarine faced a steep uphill climb on the acceptance front. It didn't look natural, it didn't feel natural, it didn't smell natural, and it certainly didn't taste natural. And, as you can imagine, dairy farmers were none too fond of it. I won't go into all the details of the legal battles between butter and margarine that took place over the next few decades. The subject would take pages to cover. But three things occurred mid-century that would enable margarine to gain prominence over butter. The first was WWII, the second was the post-war industrialization of our food supply, and the third was a fallacious war on fat.

In 1942, the US government implemented its wartime Food Rationing Program. In March 1943 the Office of Price Administration added butter, fats, and oils to the list of foods to be rationed. These were part of “Red Stamp” rationing that also included meats and most cheeses. People got sixty-four red stamps each month and when their stamps were used up, that was it until the next month's issue. Butter was a hefty sixteen stamps per pound. “Oleo” – as most people called it – was substantially less, resulting in an enormous boost for margarine on the home front. Oddly enough, many Americans were so unfamiliar with the product that they thought it was something Uncle Sam invented to help the war effort. Rationing of lard, shortening, and oils was phased out in early 1944, but butter and margarine remained rationed until late 1945. 

After the war, the industrialization of the country's food supply, which had been slowly building momentum in the preceding decades, took off like one of the rockets down at Cape Canaveral. And lucky ol' margarine was riding right there on the nose cone of that rocket. Buoyed by brisk wartime sales, margarine manufacturers organized and found some money and muscle. The 1950s saw dozens of federal and state laws restricting and regulating the manufacture and sale of margarine fall by the wayside, until only Wisconsin stood guard at the gate – at least until 1967. Once margarine manufacturers got their collective foot in the door, they milked their advantage (sorry) for all it was worth and by 1957 margarine was outselling butter for the first time. People's palates had been sufficiently dumbed down during the war and now folks didn't have to smuggle margarine like old-timey bootleggers anymore or add their own packets of yellow coloring to the milky white gunk. Besides, it was cheap! At an average of 19 cents per pound it was much cheaper than the 65 cents per pound price tag butter carried in the mid '50s. And you know how Americans like to save money – even if it kills them.

Which leads to margarine's last step up the slippery ladder of success. As “Space Age” science came roaring to the forefront of the American consciousness, the previously unheralded study of food science took on new importance. Suddenly our culture stopped eating food and started eating “nutrients.” In his book “In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto,” author Michael Pollan dubs this phenomenon “nutritionism.” No longer did we look at a pork chop as a pork chop. Under the aegis of nutritionism, a pork chop became a conglomeration of protein, fats (saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated), carbohydrates, dietary fiber, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, and a handful of vitamins and minerals. And it was as a result of nutritionism that margarine took the high ground in the war against butter.

Practitioners of nutritionism had launched an all out war on fat and cholesterol. Butter, a byproduct of animal fat, was just loaded with unhealthy saturated fat and cholesterol. Leading scientific studies of the time said that one tablespoon, with its seven grams of saturated fat and 31 mg of cholesterol, was going to close up your arteries, shut down your heart, and put you in an early grave. Chemically engineered margarine, on the other hand, was all fluffy and white and made from pure vegetable oil. With a miniscule 2.2 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon and no cholesterol, margarine was touted as the miracle health food of the age. It had much higher levels of healthy poly and monounsaturated fats than wicked old butter and with just a tiny touch of butterfat added in, why, it tasted just like butter! (A finer example of the dumbing down of the American palate cannot be found.)

The problem with food science and the cult of nutritionism is that it changes its mind on a daily basis as new information becomes available. The nails in yesterday's coffin are transformed into the pillars of today's health with amazing alacrity. Eggs, for example. And yesterday's nutritional marvels, like margarine, become today's detritus just as quickly. See, what the floggers of margarine didn't tell us – because they didn't know – was that the very process by which liquid vegetable oil becomes solid – a process know as “hydrogenation” – creates a compound called trans-fat, an almost completely unnatural and chemically produced substance that will grease your slide into heart disease, diabetes, and some forms of cancer faster than any natural fat – saturated or otherwise – ever found in “that butter crap.” Can you say “oops?”

Another problem with nutritionism is its persistence in the public mind. Like any good lie, once told and spread around, it can never be untold. We raised at least two generations on the fallacy that chickens laid little death bombs and that in order to survive, you needed to eat either just the whites or, better still, packaged, processed, pasteurized egg substitutes. Only through science, brothers and sisters, could you truly be safe. Eventually that lie was thoroughly discredited, but because it was around for so long and believed by so many, it will never entirely go away. I guarantee that if you were to ask any ten random people today, eight of them would still say eggs are bad for you. The same holds true with “healthy” margarine.

For me, if I am going to be led to my premature death by a natural substance that is lightly sweet with a pleasing mouthfeel, containing an amazing variety of natural vitamins and minerals and that has been a part of man's diet since prehistoric times or a stick of bland, greasy, hydrogenated, bleached, deodorized, artificially flavored and colored, chemically processed goop containing mutagenic and carcinogenic trans-fatty acid compounds – well, I think you know upon which side my bread is buttered.

“Well, margarine's all we had growing up and it hasn't hurt me yet.” Not that you know of, anyway.

“I don't taste any difference between butter and margarine.” Really? And you probably liked New Coke, too, didn't you? Can I interest you in palate replacement surgery?

“I can't afford butter. It's too expensive.” Okay. Put the money you save into a fund for a nicer funeral.

“Well, if it wasn't safe or good for you, the government wouldn't let it be sold.” Thalidomide anyone? By the way, do you smoke?

You know what else is cool about butter? With cream and a little salt, I can make it myself. I can make a small quantity by putting the cream and the salt in a tightly covered glass jar and shaking it up for a few minutes. Tah-dah! Butter!

Have you had any fresh homemade margarine lately? Let's see......first you steam clean the vegetable oil to remove impurities – and any vitamins and antioxidants it might contain. Then you heat it to extremely high temperatures, which makes it go rancid. Then you inject it with hydrogen and nickel – two of my favorite all natural ingredients. This produces a lumpy gray grease. Tah-dah! Margarine! But wait. We're not finished. Next you add emulsifiers to smooth out the lumps. And don't forget the bleach. It takes away that ugly gray color and makes the grease a nice milky white. The unpleasant rancid smell is then removed by another steaming session. Now you're ready to add the synthetic vitamins and the artificial flavorings and colors. Yum-yum.

Butter is “crap?” I think not.

And apparently a lot of people are right there with me. According to recent industry figures, US butter consumption has reached a forty year high, increasing twenty-five percent in the last ten years alone. The word about the healthy antioxidants in butter, the omega-3 fatty acids, the protein, folate, vitamins A and D and other nutrients is getting around. Does that make butter a health food? No. Not by a long shot. It's still loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol, and should be used in moderation, not as a snack food. But it's far and away healthier than its plastic counterpart. Especially, the medical folks say, if you're a man who has already suffered a heart attack, which, by the way, the “butter crap” man is. Oh well. His funeral. Literally.

People have also figured out that there is no substitute for the natural flavor and texture of butter, not only on toast at the table but in the preparation of foods. A savvy new generation of home cooks has caught on to the fact that margarine has never been used in quality food preparation. Even while home cooks of the '50s and '60s were using “margarine or butter” in accordance with the directions on their box mix recipes, the pros have always relied on real butter. Just ask the folks at New York's International Culinary Center where they go through 21,946 pounds of butter a year. That's a lot of “crap,” wouldn't you say?

To the people who persist and say, “Well, they make healthier margarine now that they used to,” I can only ask, “why do you insist on putting chemically processed man made artificial food-like substances in your body when nature provides everything you and your ancestors have needed since they came up from the seas and down from the trees?” The words “they make” should scream at you. It is precisely the things that are “made” and “processed” that are turning us into a nation of obese, disease-ridden corpses that are, at the same time, artificially sweetened and wonderfully well-preserved.

Margarine was created to win a prize. Today, the only prize it should win is a booby prize. Butter is "crap?” Get real – and get real butter.

Margarine Is Still Illegal -- And Nobody Cares

I don't make any secret of my disdain for margarine. I find that it tastes like exactly what it is; processed yellow-colored hydrogenated vegetable oil. I never bought into the bogus health claims made by its purveyors and current food and nutrition science doesn't either.

I've always wondered; if margarine is so great, why do the marketers of the stuff insist on names like “I Can't Believe It's Not Butter?” Why do they tout how “buttery tasting” their product is? Never once have I heard a butter maker proclaim, “Wow! It tastes just like margarine!” Even the URL for the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers proclaims the popularity of real butter – butteryspreads.org. Hey, what's wrong with “margarineyspreads.org, huh? For my money, if I want something that tastes like butter, I buy butter!

Margarine is nothing but a cheap substitute for the real thing. And I don't believe in cheap substitutes. I once saw a Volkswagen Beetle with a kit-built Rolls-Royce front end bolted on. That's margarine. You can dress it up, but it's still a Volkswagen.

Margarine has been a cheap imitation from Day 1. That's it's purpose, it's raison d'etre. The 19^th century French government needed a cheap substitute for butter to foist off on its troops. A French chemist named Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès invented a substance he called oleomargarine and the rest is history.

Needless to say, the dairy industry was not happy with the new kid on the block. It wasn't long before farmers in dairying states were up in arms, demanding that something be done about margarine for the sake of preserving the health and well being of their market and of their very way of life. Ultimately, by 1902, thirty-two of America's forty-five states had some form of restriction on colored margarine. And, of course, Wisconsin lawmakers were at the head of the charge. In 1895, “America's Dairyland” enacted stringent laws prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or use of margarine colored to imitate butter.

In its unadulterated form, margarine is a pasty white color. Just imagine spreading a nice thick, greasy layer of Crisco on your toast. Margarine makers, realizing that such an unappealing appearance was a real marketing drawback, began selling yellow food dye capsules with their unattractive product to make it more…well...attractive. (At one point, an attempt was made to force margarine manufacturers to color their product pink, but the Supreme Court struck down such forced coloration restrictions.) By and large, the gimmick worked and people started buying the second-rate substitute not because it was better than butter but because it was cheap. In those days nobody knew anything about saturated fats and trans fats and cholesterol. And as long as the stuff sorta looked like butter, well, you could almost get over the unnatural artificial flavor. Factor in the widespread dairy product rationing that accompanied a couple of subsequent world wars, and, despite heavy taxation and restrictive legislation in the dairy states, the demand for margarine took off. Kind of like Prohibition; the best way to popularize a substance is to make it illegal.

In fact, now that the statute of limitations has probably expired, I can come clean and admit it; back in the '50s, my dad was a bootlegger. We lived just a few miles north of the Illinois border. Margarine was legal in the Land of Lincoln and my dad used to take orders from friends and neighbors throughout the week and then head south on Saturday to fill up the trunk of his car with contraband, bringing it back to Wisconsin for clandestine distribution. Oh, the shame!

But those days are all behind us now, right? Even as liquor began to flow after the 18^th Amendment was repealed in 1933, legal margarine has spread itself across the land and is now free for all to consume without legislative restriction, right? Wrong.

That's right. Wrong. While some statutes in previously anti-margarine states have been quietly removed from the books over the years, some laws in some states remain in effect. Granted, they're not enforced, but they're still there.

Spurred on by the aforementioned National Association of Margarine Manufacturers and other lobbyists, laws regulating the sale and use of margarine came under serious fire in the 1950s and '60s. Federal taxes on margarine were eliminated in 1951. State color bans, taxes, and other legal measures began to fall to well-funded pressure until, in 1967, Wisconsin became the last state to end its restrictions on margarine. Happy days were here again and people like my dad were out of business.

But....

Wisconsinites are a determined lot and they didn't completely cave in to the interests pushing fake butter. While all the old laws regulating butter were repealed in '67, a new one was added. That law, targeted at the food service industry, made it illegal for restaurants to serve margarine as a replacement for butter. Customers can request margarine, but it can't legally be the default table offering. And if a restaurant insists on serving margarine, the law insists that it make butter an available option. The law also requires that butter be served to students in schools, patients in hospitals, and inmates in prisons. Anybody who violates margarine laws faces fines ranging from $100 to $500 and they can be jailed for up to three months for the first offense. Fines and jail time increase for additional violations, with recidivist margarine offenders subject to fines of $500 to $1,000 and six months to a year in the pokey.

Nobody can remember the last time the law was enforced, if it ever has been. One or two complaints trickle in to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture every year. And the authorities dutifully send out warning letters. And that's about it. Most consumers don't even know the law exists and most restaurant owners, if aware if it, don't care. And they don't care for a very good reason; most of their customers don't want margarine. One Wisconsin restaurateur says he goes through five or six times as much butter as margarine. Another says if he puts out margarine, his customers won't touch it.

But there is the whole money thing and that's why a Wisconsin state representative, one Dale Kooyenga, is out gunning for the last of the state's margarine laws. Something like 21,000 inmates are being fed expensive butter when margarine is cheaper. And besides, he feels it's an antiquated, anti-free market law that's just plain silly. And silly laws, he believes, “erode citizen's respect for the overall rule of law in our state.”

Now, Wisconsin has a boat-load of silly laws. Why isn't Rep. Kooyenga going after the law that bars cats and dogs from cemeteries (excepting dogs guiding the blind, of course.) Or perhaps he should tackle bike riders in Sun Prairie who ride with no hands: “No bicycle shall be allowed to proceed in any street in the city by inertia or momentum with the feet of the rider removed from the bicycle pedals. No rider of a bicycle shall remove both hands from the handlebars or practice any trick or fancy riding in any street in the city nor shall any bicycle rider carry or ride any other person so that two persons are on the bicycle at one time, unless a seat is provided for a second person.” Man, I should still be doing time for the number of violations I clocked against that one back in the day. Women in Racine can't walk the streets at night without being accompanied by a male. Milwaukee says if you look offensive you're not allowed to be seen on the street during the day. LaCrosse bans unclothed mannequins in store windows. And my personal favorite, one I think the Honorable Mr. Kooyenga ought to challenge: according to state law, when two trains are at an intersection, neither shall move until the other does.

It's a good thing I'm no longer a citizen of Wisconsin. I'd feel so eroded.

Apparently, there aren't too many of Kooyenga's compatriots who fear erosion over the margarine law. At last count, only eleven other lawmakers – out of a possible 132 – have signed on as co-sponsors of his bill. The other 120 are no doubt sitting in their favorite eateries slathering delicious, all-natural butter on everything from fresh bread to corn on the cob.

Hey, Wisconsinites! Try this on; Paula Deen for Governor!