It Tastes Like Butter But...

First if you can finish that sentence, you must be about as old as I am. Second, it doesn't taste like butter at all and neither does Olivio, an odd butter substitute which I encountered at my friend H.'s house today. She claimed they ate it for health reasons and when I turned up my nose, offered me some real butter. I had already spread the offensive substance on my bread and was interested to see if it was at all edible. Conclusion, not really, at least not for me. It was too salty and seemed to have a fake flavor. You may think me a butter snob but it wasn't always that way.

As a child, margarine was the spread of choice. My family used it because we were semi-kosher and also because they thought it was healthy. I happily spread the stuff on matzoh and corn muffins, even waffles. I actually enjoyed the taste. We all know now what a mistake that was and thankfully as I grew older and discovered the pleasures of real butter, I lost my taste for margarine.

Izzy has never encountered margarine or any other butter substitute for that matter. He is an unabashed butter hound. When I leave the butter dish on the table he will inevitably stick his fingers straight into a stick and rush off with a glob in hand, gleefully announcing, "I grabbed the butter." Often when I give him buttered toast, he will try to lick off the butter before it melts.

We usually keep several sticks of Organic Valley butter around the house, for both eating and baking. I have to wonder why anyone would choose a butter substitute for health reasons, especially after the whole margarine/transfat debacle. Processed foods of that nature are simply not healthy.

It is my hope that Izzy is so accustomed to butter, he wouldn't be able to stomach anything else. Would he be just as eager to dip his fingers into a tub of Olivio? What about Chiffon? Does it still exist?