Tough times up North

March 4, 2021 8:31 PM

It's been a tough few weeks up in Canada. Not just delays with covid-19 vaccinations, but the revelation that maybe Canadian butter is being boosted with palm oil. Now there's a full-on debate as to whether Buttergate is real. Even if palm oil is a normal feed supplement, do we want it to be? The icing on the cake is the (unrelated) scandal of the NY Times publishing a photo of Nanaimo Bars with TOTALLY WRONG proportions.
posted by GuyZero (82 comments total)

Was anyone else expecting this to be a Wordshore post?

plz add "notwordshore" tag thx.
posted by loquacious at 8:43 PM on March 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

Yeah I buy butter occasionally and it's typically the same brands from Save-On Foods, and this year I've noticed the cheap butter has been unpleasantly dry and crumbly to cut, and cook with. It doesn't soften right even left on the counter for an hour.
posted by polymodus at 9:05 PM on March 4, 2021

Hijacking this thread to say that Stokes sells a 1lb butter dish for less than $10 and while the lid isn’t perfect it is so nice not having to slice up a 454g brick of butter and I think only fellow Canadians can appreciate this. Also, I can’t say I’ve noticed any texture change in my butter out here in Alberta over the last 10 years.
posted by furtive at 9:11 PM on March 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

oh, canada.
posted by wibari at 9:12 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

From the second article if you don't feel like wading through it all:

More than 60 years ago, when no one in Canada had ever thought of palm oil as a dairy feed ingredient, University of Alberta researchers showed in carefully controlled experiments that butter hardness almost doubled with seasonal variation in the cows’ feed.

which is probably the biggest and most reasonable anti-buttergate evidence.
posted by GuyZero at 9:15 PM on March 4, 2021 [14 favorites]

I've never really paid attention to my butter and its texture, but I am now.

Kind of surprised that Jason Kenney hasn't announced a War Room on this issue, since it seems the dairy industry is using palm oil instead of good ol' Alberta crude.
posted by nubs at 9:18 PM on March 4, 2021 [10 favorites]

What Canada really needs now is Johnny Rotten to appear in their TV butter adverts.
posted by ovvl at 9:37 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Now I really want a Nanaimo bar... hell I'd even take one of the NYT or Canada Post wierdos.
posted by cirhosis at 9:42 PM on March 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Would you like to know more about the dairy industry in Canada?
posted by ovvl at 9:42 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

nice not having to slice up a 454g brick

As a side note, this is perfectly emblematic of the metric-if-necessary-but-not-necessarily-metric approach this country has. It will be 45 years next month since this country officially adopted metric and we still sell butter by the pound 454-gram block. I know of no one who thinks of their height in cm but that's what's on our ID.

Quel pays.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:43 PM on March 4, 2021 [13 favorites]

I would swear that I listened to a lecture years ago by an anatomist specializing in human beings who said that cows could adjust the saturation of fats after consumption, but humans (and dogs) could not.

But apparently, neither cows nor humans nor any other mammal can adjust fat saturation downward, at least:

Unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) cannot be synthesized by mammalian cells due to a lack of desaturase enzymes. Combined with their limited supply to the small intestines, UFA have been proposed as nutraceuticals to ameliorate dairy cow fertility. However, field studies based on a large number of animals are lacking on this subject.

Interesting that this article says that feeding dairy cows an unvaried diet high in unsaturated fats (unlike palm oil) reduces their fertility, which is desirable in dairy cows because it delays conception and that allows greater milk production according to the article. So they can’t claim the palm oil is better from a herd management point of view.
posted by jamjam at 9:53 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Here in Alberta I haven't noticed any butter issues. And our household goes through a ridiculous amount of butter, since I mix it with olive oil for sauteing stuff, and also use liberally to fatten up my picky eater kids. I guess the real test will be what happens in the butter dish when the weather gets hot.

I don't like Nanaimo bars, much too sweet. But the interview from tonight about the scandal - on As It Happens - was very entertaining. I'm sorry, I can't find a link. Also did you know t the middle part requires Bird's brand custard powder? TIL.
posted by kitcat at 10:05 PM on March 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

Also, I feel jealous rage when a recipie calls for '2 sticks of butter'. Cutting butter is such a crappy job - unwrapping the foil, getting your hands all buttery, deciding how much to cut. Then you have to saran wrap the leftover part and throw it into the fridge. And then sometimes you take that leftover chunk out of the fridge and it's all mis-shapen because you were lazy when cutting it to fill the butter dish. So then you have to use the water method to measure it. Or, you open another one and now you have two damn blocks of butter on the go.

I bet if they switched to doing sticks, they'd charge an extra dollar. And butter is already too expensive.
posted by kitcat at 10:19 PM on March 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

Gotcha fam: As it Happens, Thursday March 4, 2021
posted by Tad Naff at 10:20 PM on March 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

Aw, thanks fam!
posted by kitcat at 10:22 PM on March 4, 2021

it is indeed tough times in canada right now
posted by sixswitch at 10:46 PM on March 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

As a side note, this is perfectly emblematic of the metric-if-necessary-but-not-necessarily-metric approach this country has. It will be 45 years next month since this country officially adopted metric and we still sell butter by the pound 454-gram block. I know of no one who thinks of their height in cm but that's what's on our ID.

Quel pays.

As a side, side note, on March 31st 1985 the newly elected Progressive Conservative government abolished the Metric Commission effectively ending federal support for the metric system and permanently stalling complete adoption.
posted by Zedcaster at 11:02 PM on March 4, 2021 [12 favorites]

I'm not sure what that is, perhaps a Hoboken bar or something.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:26 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Lactancia sells a package with sticks! I learned this due to a substitution in curbside pickup. And yes it costs more.

I’ve occasionally brought butter over the border and I prefer Canadian butter...but French butter is the best. I claim that mostly so I can link to this butter video.

The NYT recipe is an abomination. At least TRY to approach things with some cultural awareness.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:13 AM on March 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

We had a good discussion of this on Slack at work, which quickly pivoted toward making your own butter and the superiority of Irish butter, which we can't seem to get here in southwestern Ontario. Nor can we get cream with sufficient fat content to make it ourselves, unfortunately.
posted by synecdoche at 3:38 AM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wait, you guys don't sell butter in sticks up there? All the pictures on google images look like giant honking slabs, like a heart attack waiting to happen. American butter comes in 4 individually wrapped quarter-pound sticks to a package, and the wrapper has a helpful Tbsp measuring guide (and if you're using a whole stick at once, like for baking, the wrapper makes a handy dish-greaser). OTOH, my store-brand American butter never spreads right on toast, so it's probably been full of palm oil this whole time. Probably a conspiracy between Big Dairy and Big Jam.

Honestly, between butter-not-in-sticks and milk-in-pouches and Montreal-style bagels, I don't know what you all are doing up there.
posted by basalganglia at 4:17 AM on March 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

You can’t have Nanaimo bars and Montreal bagels in the same thread without concluding their doing something right. Love ya, Canada. You’ll get through this.
posted by meinvt at 4:30 AM on March 5, 2021

Our packages have 1/4, 1/2, and 1 cups marked. Tablespoons are just insufficient.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:31 AM on March 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

Then you have to saran wrap the leftover part and throw it into the fridge.

I keep butter in a crock on the counter. Easy spreading. No fridge necessary.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:35 AM on March 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

Even the cheap store brands sell sticks and slabs both here. Sticks are much more expensive, and are occasionally harder to find, but they are handy if you are a lazy baker like I am.
posted by jeather at 5:08 AM on March 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

Canadian butter makes me long for Kerrygold so much. So much. I feel like I am living in a nation that has never had good butter and so does not understand fully how terrible a product it is producing.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 5:38 AM on March 5, 2021

No, we know. I don't have the same clout as the dairy farmers.
posted by jeather at 5:40 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

BUTTER DERAIL

Can't you guys access the butters of other lands? I like a Belgian butter called Chimay. It comes in a stupid shape, an elongated oval or a rounded-off rectangle, so it's impossible to measure without a scale, but it is so good that I don't care. Failing that there's something called Finlandia. Also good. These are both foil wrapped, which is better for keeping out fridgey off tastes.

American butterwise, I used to be able to get Kate's. That was in sticks like normal. Also good. My workaday butter for making omelets and whatall is Cabot. Every time I stray and try something new because it's labeled "Vermont-made from a jewel-like green mountain farm where all the cows have names" or whatever, it tastes like it came out of a 7-11 stockroom. Amish roll butter is the worst of all for that. Cabot does not delight but it doesn't disappoint, either.

DID YOU KNOW

That the paper butter wrappers are just parchment paper? So when you finish a stick, don't toss the wrapper. Collect them in a ziploc in the freezer and use them as pan-greasers and parchment paper for baking. For instance, next time you make small sans rival cakes, there are your little templates, all the same size, all ready to go!

END BUTTER DERAIL
posted by Don Pepino at 6:29 AM on March 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

Can't you guys access the butters of other lands?

I've never seen imported butter here is Ontario, I sure you can get it somewhere but not in any normal supermarkets, or Costo.

CBC had an interesting article on butter:

1. "foreign butter earns a whopping 298 per cent tariff when it enters this country."
2. Canadian Dairy Commission that imports nearly 3,300 tonnes of foreign butter into the country each year — and much of that goes to bakeries.

"They allow us to import butter. It's weird," said Blanchard. "So, if you go to the supermarket, you as the general public are going to pay more for lesser quality than I am going to get."
posted by Harpocrates at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I can only get Canadian butter in the shops around me. Even the Irish shop doesn't have Irish butter. Maybe this is a BC thing?

I churned butter as a child but I hate the taste of homemade butter from my memories so not quite going that far. But have thought about it.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 6:37 AM on March 5, 2021

furtive
Are the stokes butter containers glass or plastic? While normally I prefer glass containers, butter is the one exception I have. Glass plus a lid plus a pound of butter can get a bit heavy an unwieldy. And you're right. It's a miserable quest to go looking for a one-pound butter container with a good lid. Typically if you want something to fit the whole pound you end up with something larger than ideal, but that's sill better then cutting the butter to fit.

And yes, I've had a few pounds that don't seem to ever soften, even if left on the counter for days. I usually try not to buy the store brand butter and instead buy a named brand (Lactancia, Gay Lea, Nielson's) but during the worst of the pandemic shortages I ended up with some store-brand butter, and yes, those were the worst when it came to not softening.
posted by sardonyx at 6:39 AM on March 5, 2021

Don Pepino: Can't you guys access the butters of other lands?

Welcome to one of the weirder hornets' nests of Canadian politics. I'd recite the Saga of Maxime Bernier, but I don't have the energy for it this morning.
posted by clawsoon at 6:48 AM on March 5, 2021 [15 favorites]

(One of the first AskMe answers that I put serious effort into was on the topic of Canada's dairy supply management system.)
posted by clawsoon at 6:50 AM on March 5, 2021 [12 favorites]

Even the cheap store brands sell sticks and slabs both here.

Really? Where are you? That stuff is 7 or 8 dollars a pound up here. There's no such thing as No Name sticks and they don't sell them at Costco. I've only come across sticks when buying unsalted (again, like an extra couple dollars).
posted by kitcat at 6:53 AM on March 5, 2021

Can't you guys access the butters of other lands?

It's treated a bit like pre-legalized pot. You can if you know where, or often by bringing it in yourself and lying about it, but....
posted by warriorqueen at 7:04 AM on March 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I just want to say that I appreciate the expertise in Canadian butter supply shown here. For some reason I had not connected the cheese madness to the butter situation, and now I am duly chastened at that mistake.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:04 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

That the paper butter wrappers are just parchment paper? So when you finish a stick, don't toss the wrappe

Most Canadian butter that I see comes in a thin paper-backed foil wrapper (similar to the internal dividers in cigarette packs, if they still have those) that disintegrates progressively every tine you handle it until you are left with several discontinuous torn pieces stuck about the remainder.

I have noticed changes in the firmness of my butter lately, though. Sometimes with the same piece! When the room is cold it is often quite firm and it is winter so
posted by rodlymight at 7:17 AM on March 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

The image many Canadians would like to present of themselves and their country, as a ratio to the reality of Canada, is exactly how a discussion on the quality of Canadian butter on MeFi happens.

Amusing for a Friday and ultimately irrelevant in the face of countless serious failings. Yours in respect, A Canadian
posted by elkevelvet at 7:17 AM on March 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

Can't you guys access the butters of other lands?

As everyone has mentioned: no. They're really strict about even personal use dairy imports when you grocery shop across the border.

Really? Where are you? That stuff is 7 or 8 dollars a pound up here.

It's about 6$ a pound here, I think, a dollar or so more than the slab (for the grocery store brand, it's about an extra dollar for Lactancia). I'm in Montreal. It's not cheap, it's just available most of the time. I only buy unsalted bc I use the sticks for baking and add my own salt.
posted by jeather at 7:23 AM on March 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

It will be 45 years next month since this country officially adopted metric and we still sell butter by the pound 454-gram block.

The problem, I think, is that Canadians mostly use American cookbooks. If you don't have a pound of butter to cut up into sticks/cups, recipes aren't proportioned properly.

Then you have to saran wrap the leftover part and throw it into the fridge.

Heathen! It comes wrapped in foil for a reason!

There's no such thing as No Name sticks and they don't sell them at Costco.

President's Choice comes in sticks, and is usually cheaper than Lactantcia, but not as cheap as No-Name, which, I agree, does not come in sticks that I've ever seen. But over at Metro, their cheaper (Selection) store brand butter does come in Sticks. Sticks are usually about $1-1.50 more expensive than the same brand's non-stick butter, but sale prices mess with that.

The best butter that is commercially available in Canada, though, is Riviera's tiny pots of goat milk butter. It isn't your every day butter, at about $9 for a tiny glass jar, but my god, slathered on warm sourdough bread it is a thing of pure and pristine magic.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:23 AM on March 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

I feel like I am living in a nation that has never had good butter and so does not understand fully how terrible a product it is producing.

Tis butter to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
posted by oulipian at 7:24 AM on March 5, 2021 [19 favorites]

I cook (mostly) for one so buying butter sticks makes a lot of sense. It's readily available in both places I grocery shop (Montréal & Victoria).

I don't know specifically but the fact that it can be hard to buy foreign butter is hard (though sometimes not so much for butter products; ie I can buy French garlic butter here but I can't buy French butter anywhere that I know of) suggests an adverse regulatory situation for importers. I still remember my grandfather's rants about the Wheat Pool and those are 30 years out of date.
posted by mce at 7:25 AM on March 5, 2021

Yes, the sticks I see are Selection, based on the stores I buy in. I buy fancier butter when I want to have butter-as-butter, but the store stuff is fine in baked goods that aren't things like croissants, which I don't make at home, or to fry an egg in, or similar uses. Riviera butter is great, though their yogurt is disappointing.
posted by jeather at 7:34 AM on March 5, 2021

Look up butter crocks on Amazon! The one pound butter ones with a wooden lid are awesome for my Kerry Gold.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:48 AM on March 5, 2021

Don Pepino: in re: Amish butter rolls, this just reinforces my impression that Amish baking/cooking is a bit fat lie. When we moved to Amish country I bought a loaf of bread at the farmer's market and it! was! Awful!!!!!! Sugary and puffy and good for nothing. The Amish grocery stores around me (Troyer's) are full of bulk flours/spices but most of all sugar, in all its forms: plastic sleeves full of synthetic cherry pie filling, bulk prepack candy, every texture from powdered to cube. The one time I bought rye flour it was old already, almost rancid tasting.

Anyway I grew up in Winnipeg and was never aware of butter in particular. I am dismayed to hear of this issue and will ask my mom about it.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:59 AM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Getting the proportions of the Nanaimo bar wrong is annoying but the worst part is the way they added peas to it. Peas don't belong in Nanaimo bars!
posted by Nelson at 8:00 AM on March 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

Stick-butter at my grocery store is like Apple Jacks or Cherry Coke, something American that will predictably crop up once or twice a year (butter-sticks around the holidays, Cherry Coke in the summer) and then just as predictably vanish. I haven't noticed it being more expensive, but it's usually on promotion when offered. I grew up in the States (I've kept these bitter butter memories too long…) and will concede that sticks are easier to measure. Still, the extra packaging feels extravagant now, and I just eyeball tablespoons or weigh them if it actually matters.

The Nanaimo bar thing, though, just shows how thin and delicate the chocolate shell of Canadian national identity really is.
posted by wreckingball at 8:22 AM on March 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

It's funny that the Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) comes up today cause I was just reading about Brewer's Retail last night which made me look up the Crown Corporations - I didn't realize until I'd been gone for 20 years how many industries in Canada are controlled by essentially cartels. I wonder how this figures in to the eternal mystery of why so many goods seem to have a 15-20% markup in Canada compared to everywhere else.
posted by aiglet at 8:35 AM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

That might be a Nanaimo-inspired bar but it is not a "classic Nanaimo bar". I don't even like Nanaimo bars but you can't go around lying about desserts like that.
posted by randomnity at 8:41 AM on March 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

What are thoooooose (Nanaimo bars)!!??!!?!
posted by Reyturner at 8:43 AM on March 5, 2021

f****** palm oil, man. RIP borneo
posted by lazaruslong at 8:57 AM on March 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

a loaf of bread at the farmer's market and it! was! Awful!!!!!!
This was my experience of the rhubarb pie at the Iowa City farmers' market in 1997, too. It had that weird, ersatz soggy cake crust like you get on a grocery store pie and was all sugar. I think they probably make a bunch of very very good stuff and eat it and they make a bunch of inexpensive-to-mass-produce stuff and sell it at the farmers' markets. Which is a great business model and I don't hold it against them, but that doesn't mean that I need to ever buy another enormous log of stale butter again just because the independent grocery store has an excited handlettered sign up pointing to it.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:19 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have a lot of feelings about butter. I'll largely spare Metafilter from those thoughts but... while I don't really consume a lot of butter (maybe that's a lie? probably) I do often buy a lot of random types of butter. Cheap to expensive, from local farmers and giant agro conglomerates. Here in Ontario it is definitely a "thing that has changed" with the larger commercial butter. My expensive conglomerate butter (this or this when I can't get this or this) went from moderately spreadable to harder at my room temperature (which is often cold granted). Which, you know, is fine for when you are making pastry. Maybe not so much when you butter a soft piece of white bread. I guess I personally am not worked up about it but I would like it clearly labelled that the cows producing the milk have been given this additive. So the consumer can make an informed choice.

Also, I can’t say I’ve noticed any texture change in my butter out here in Alberta over the last 10 years.

That's likely because (from the Globe article)

“In my experience in the Prairie provinces, 80 to 90 per cent of dairy farms use some level of palm fat.” A colleague of his in Edmonton estimates it’s at more than 90 per cent.

And in interviews I've heard, the Praires in particular have been doing it a good long while.

Can't you guys access the butters of other lands?

We can actually but it just isn't normally in places like large grocery chains generally. And it is always expensive (Usually about $14 Canadian (so about $11 USD)). I buy pots of French butter, seems to be available seasonally, from the deli. I've seen French, Portuguese and Irish butter the most frequently. However, I have only seen Kerrygold once (!) at a speciality store for $$$. See clawsoon's comment above for why.

Wait, you guys don't sell butter in sticks up there?

We do but its just not as common as in the US. And it is usually a premium style butter - often the cultured type of butter.

Amish butter rolls, this just reinforces my impression that Amish baking/cooking is a bit fat lie.

Perhaps this is a controversial statement, but in my experience with things labelled as "Amish" in the US is largely a fiction, some kind of weird marketing gimmick (maybe an attempt at "authenticity"). On a trip to Lancaster County PA years ago I was seriously surprised what passed for "Amish" food. I base this on having married into a Russian & Ukrainian Mennonite family from Manitoba & Ontario and having lived in Mennonite country for 20+ years and having eaten a lot of that food (and trust me, it will kill you). So what I'm saying is that the food I had marked as "Amish" wouldn't pass muster at MJ's Kafe.

I know of no one who thinks of their height in cm

Raises hand... I think it is likely generational. My son thinks also in centimetres for instance.

And in conclusion... WTF is that NYT? That is not a Nanaimo bar. That's some sad Church bazaar leftover given to you by your great aunt on Epiphany because she felt bad that she gave up on knitting you that sweater she's been working on for the last decade and you are no longer the same size you were when you were 6. Even the priest at a funeral luncheon would cross himself and scorn that abomination.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:43 AM on March 5, 2021 [14 favorites]

Maybe this is a BC thing?

Must be, we can get imported Irish butter here relatively easily, and it's not *too* much more than the not-great/not-terrible local butter, which, admittedly, is already very expensive. I've even seen NZ butter, which is delicious.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:02 AM on March 5, 2021

*raises hand surreptitiously* Maybe switch to Miyoko's Kitchen cultured vegan butter? No palm oil and good enough to put on a cheese plate...but can you get it in Canada? *slinks away*
posted by sophrontic at 10:37 AM on March 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

And in conclusion... WTF is that NYT? That is not a Nanaimo bar. That's some sad Church bazaar leftover given to you by your great aunt on Epiphany because she felt bad that she gave up on knitting you that sweater she's been working on for the last decade and you are no longer the same size you were when you were 6. Even the priest at a funeral luncheon would cross himself and scorn that abomination.

Agreed. I cringe to think about how they would handle the butter tart.

*THIS IS NOT A BUTTER TART DERAIL. CARRY ON.*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:55 AM on March 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

Ashwagandha: That's some sad Church bazaar leftover given to you by your great aunt on Epiphany because she felt bad that she gave up on knitting you that sweater she's been working on for the last decade and you are no longer the same size you were when you were 6. Even the priest at a funeral luncheon would cross himself and scorn that abomination.

You have summed up so much.
posted by clawsoon at 10:57 AM on March 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

To be honest though, as far as delightful Canadian church bazaar / funeral luncheon baked goods go, for me at least, the real top of the line treat is the pets des soeurs. Take that Nanaimo Bars and Butter Tarts! And if I see a recipe for pets des soeurs with effing matcha or passion fruit from you NYT... I will not be responsible for my actions and I will file a human rights claim against you.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:10 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Always here for the butter tart derail. With raisins, please!

My mom's husband (franco-manitobain, métis) makes butter tarts now and they are so good. He also loves pêtes de soeurs, particularly the meaning of that phrase, because farts are always funny and farting nuns, especially when you are no longer catholic, are even funnier.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 12:11 PM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

"If you're going to do something different, you can call it a Nanaimo-esque bar, or in the style of a Nanaimo bar."

Nanaimno
posted by gurple at 12:20 PM on March 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

What Canada really needs now is Johnny Rotten to appear in their TV butter adverts.

Nay. We'll use Joey Shithead
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 12:38 PM on March 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Since pots basically legal, I'd start with Jimmy Reardon.
posted by clavdivs at 2:00 PM on March 5, 2021

Pets de sœurs, qu'est-ce que c'est?
Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, fart! Better
Run, nun, run, nun, run, nun, run away
Oh, oh
posted by oulipian at 2:02 PM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

That Nanaimo bar is a travesty
posted by torisaur at 2:56 PM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Imported butter is hard to come by in BC, but it's not like good butter isn't available.

It's that they're much more regional and limited production sizes limit distribution. At the regular supermarket (IGA, Save-on, Safeway) there's almost always pasture raised organic available, usually produced within a couple hundred km. Its definitely more expensive and more seasonally variable (flavour and in availability).
posted by porpoise at 2:56 PM on March 5, 2021

Weirdly, Howard Dean (yeah that Howard Dean) weighs in in the G&M about how good Canadian dairy management is.
posted by GuyZero at 4:03 PM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Weirdly, Howard Dean (yeah that Howard Dean)

I think the preferred phrasing is, "YEEEEEAAAAH that Howard Dean."

Speaking of dairy products there, I used to wonder why milk was notably cheap in Vancouver compared to elsewhere in Canada. I should note that I lived there twenty-plus years ago and have been back many times since, although not since 2015, so I have no idea if this is still the case. It seemed counterintuitive: if you draw a circle with 50 km radius around Ottawa or Montreal or Calgary, you will find huge numbers of dairy farms. Do the same around Vancouver and you get a fair bit of salt water and quite a few steep surfaces of rock: two terrains not much favoured by cattle.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:11 PM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

What Canada really needs now is Johnny Rotten to appear in their TV butter adverts.

Nay. We'll use Joey Shithead

Yeah, cuz Talk + Quality Butter = Good Brunch Party.

In related "En Eh Aye Eh Aye Ehm Oh, that's how you spell Nanaimo" news, one of my grammas lived in Nanaimo before the war. She often made them for us for x-mas, and, since she passed the recipe on to my mom, they were a popular fall/winter treat. So, I've eaten what seems a metric fucktonne of them.
posted by house-goblin at 4:16 PM on March 5, 2021

I used to wonder why milk was notably cheap in Vancouver compared to elsewhere in Canada.

According to these Canadian government statistics, fluid milk is pretty much the same price in Ontario and BC. That said, milk is the quintessential grocery loss-leader, so maybe BC stores were just more competitive on milk prices.

The older CTV article has some salient info:

Currently, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba all pool their dairy quotas, while other provinces operate independently.

so it seems to be some regional quota management practices.
posted by GuyZero at 4:23 PM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

mo Butter Tart derail: you could have it without raisons if you personally hate raisons, I don't get it but I'm not offended. What I am offended by: Muskoka gourmet butter tarts with really runny syrup, which stained all our clothes and the seats of our vehicle, Fvck those guys.

Butter Tart trivia: apparently Canadian-born talk show host Alan Hamel introduced distributing butter tarts to California stores. He mentioned it on his show if I remember correctly.
posted by ovvl at 5:03 PM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Regarding the mystery of cheap Vancouver sushi milk, besides the dairy pool and grocery store loss leader practices, the Fraser Valley, where dairy farms are plentiful, is just a short drive to the east.
posted by house-goblin at 6:36 PM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

→ Miyoko's Kitchen cultured vegan butter... but can you get it in Canada?

I doubt it. Because of Supply Management, butter is made from milk here. You should have seen the fight that oat milk producers had to get their product called "milk". I mean, sure, it's porridge-washings, but it looks a bit like milk.

Kerrygold tastes of marketing. It's not great butter.
posted by scruss at 6:55 PM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

I doubt it. Because of Supply Management, butter is made from milk here.

According to their website, some Loblaws stores carry it (at least in Southern Ontario, I didn't check elsewhere). I've never seen it (though I honestly haven't looked hard) but Scruss is right about nomenclature as it does raise a question - why is it allowed to be called butter when it is essentially margarine? Or why not simply "non-dairy spread"? Seems strange that Vegan Butter is enough to keep Dairy Supply Management at bay. For instance syrup that you might use for pancakes that isn't 100% real maple syrup isn't allowed to be called maple syrup (its called table syrup or pancake syrup or the ambiguous maple flavoured syrup or some such). Maybe butter is considered a generic term in this instance as in peanut and the various nut & seed butters?
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:02 PM on March 5, 2021

Here in Sweden, butter comes in 250 and 500 gram blocks. Whenever I'm using an American recipe, I convert the sticks and teaspoons to grams. How do you even measure solids in tablespoons? I've heard anecdotally that kitchen scales are more popular in European homes than in North America.
posted by Vesihiisi at 3:02 AM on March 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

How do you even measure solids in tablespoons?

A pound is, IIRC, 32 tablespoons. I have certainly seen some butter packaged with essentially a ruler along one edge of the wrapping so you can cut off as many tbsp as you need and toss that into the pan.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:54 AM on March 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

Here in Denmark, there are rulers on the packaging, showing 25 grams.
Butter from grass-fed cows is softer, easier to spread, and also more fragrant. During winter, hay and silage are acceptable replacements. These days it is also important to know wether your dairy products come from farms that do sustainable land management.
I love butter. I think my favorite is from la Normandie in France, but we have good organic butter here in Denmark, too. And it's fun to make it from scratch, specially with kids. I should probably eat less, both for my personal health and the health of our planet.
In the EU, I don't think it is legal to call anything else butter. Which is fine with me. If I want to cook without animal products, there are lots of fine vegetable oils I can use and they are tasty and often healthy. I can't think of a single reason to use fake butter. (Not least because I am traumatized by the experience of my stepdad forcing us to use margarine instead of butter on sandwiches when I was a kid. I still don't use any spread on sandwiches, though I love a piece of buttered toast).
posted by mumimor at 5:47 AM on March 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

And to add to that, we've lost the Great One's father this week. If you're not in Canada, you can't understand the impact of the Gretzkys. I mean, I've been introduced to people as "Here's Bob, he met Walter Gretzky in 1995 …". It's a BFD.
posted by scruss at 6:50 AM on March 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

On a culinary level what passes for "good butter" is just mediocre butter that North Americans have been accustomed to using due to lobbying by modern industry. Canadians deserve Thomas Keller level butter on every countertop
posted by polymodus at 12:35 PM on March 6, 2021

I need someone to drive the truck while I run interference in a hot rod. We're bootlegging butter to Canadians!

~northbound and down/buttered up and truckin'~
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:07 PM on March 6, 2021 [5 favorites]

i had some extraordinary butter in switzerland. not surprising, though, as they really know how to treat a cow right over there.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:59 AM on March 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

Vesihiisi, there's a guide on the package to let you know where to cut. Works better with sticks of butter than with whole bricks, I prefer to use a scale too.

I once did a chocolate tempering class, and the chocolatier who grew-up learned his trade in France mentionned that our butter is different, it has more water in it.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:36 PM on March 8, 2021

WaterAndPixels - is that American butter that has more water in it?

When I was in the US, I'd use margarine instead of butter to add to popcorn/ tossing wings. Up here, the margarine has too much water and I strictly use butter for popcorn/ wings.
posted by porpoise at 4:28 PM on March 8, 2021