I Can’t Believe It’s Butter
I guess I have butter on the brain. For obvious reasons yesterday’s post got me thinking about butter.
Specifically it got me thinking about my favorite butter.
Before my cholesterol numbers spiked, I would keep the refrigerator stocked with a minimum of two butters: one for cooking and one for eating. Perhaps this is the reason my cholesterol spiked.
The eating butter was always some kind of fancy-pants thing picked up locally at the Honest Weight Co-Op. For as much as I don’t love the place, I find myself shopping there a lot.
But there is one butter that stands above the rest.
Its name is Pamplie.
I first met Pamplie at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. My life-long friend ADS and I faked some credentials so that we could pass as Trade Affiliates. At the time that involved putting up a fake website and making business cards. I believe we were a food marketing consultancy, but I may be mistaken.
Anyhow, there we were sampling treats from all over the world: wines, meats, cheeses, chocolates, oils, vinegars and such. And in one corner of the smaller exhibit hall we find a large display for the cheese distributor Cheeseworks. ADS calls me over and says, “You’ve got to taste THIS!”
Now it’s hard for something to stand out as delicious in the vast sea of delectable treats that make up the Fancy Food Show.
But this butter was delicious. This butter is delicious. This butter is special. It’s French. It’s cultured. It’s well seasoned with fleur de sel, which provides an assertive and very pleasing savoriness. The flavor is round and nutty with an almost cheesy quality. If you are salt sensitive, this is not the butter for you.
And when you put a pat of the stuff on warm crusty bread, it will outshine anything else you have in store for the remainder of the meal.
That said, I do not vouch for this butter in any other capacity than as a topping for bread. I could imagine that its distinctive flavor could work very well in some baked goods, but baking is a science that I know precious little about.
The sad news is that I have given up Pamplie and almost all butter for that matter until my cholesterol numbers are better.
But there are two pieces of good news.
1) The draconian diet seems to be working, and my numbers are dropping.
2) Cheeseworks also sells olive oils, and I’m opening one of them on Friday.
I promise to keep you posted.
FUSSYlittleBLOG 
Yeah, I’ve had to give up butter for benechol. Same reason as you. Aging sucks.
I used to buy good butter from time to time, I really like Kerrygold and Plugra but the whole one income thing means sacrifice has to come from somewhere. European and artisanal butters typically stand out for being cultured and having a higher butterfat content. In my opinion, they are a waste of money in most baked goods except maybe an all butter pie crust (the only kind- again, in my opinion) or shortbread or butter cookies. In most other baked goods, you wouldn’t really notice a difference so why bother?
If you really want to be fussy, you’d get some high quality local cream (and as always, I recommend Battenkill Valley Creamery) and make your own butter. So easy to do in the food processor but for a fun project for kids (like budding fusslets) you can make some with cold marbles and a lidded jar. Just shake until you think your arms are going to fall off.
I love aggressively salty butters. Pamplie sounds delightful. I’ve also wondered about the Amish butter too. It seems like a good price.
I got one… I forget the name now, but it’s one of the round paper wrapped ones. So good. I ate the entire 8 oz amount in a night. With bread, that is. Not just with a spoon.
I’m going to look for it. It appears to be a great butter and I can hardly wait to try it. I’m going to investigate the different cheeses also. Thanks.
It’s my favorite butter. I’ve found your blog from searching for Pamplie! I used this butter (nit the flue de sel one but the unsalted with higher butter fat in my croissant. I wish bakery use better butter in their baking because it made the different especially in shortbread, croissant, cookies, pie crust.