Friday, October 23, 2009

The proverbial stick of butter

OK, so while we Canadians could teach the Americans a thing or two about how to organize money (different colours for different bill denominations... brilliant and effective!), these guys sure know how to handle butter. I remember growing up, reading recipes in Mom's books, and wondering "how much is a stick of butter?", as that seemed to be the default amount of fat that so many recipes called for. It sure wasn't one of our Canadian bricks of it.

I have very rarely seen sticks of butter in Canada, but sticks are the default wrapping method here, and I have to give it both thumbs up. Look at those little measurements on the sides! Those are tablespoons! The rest of the measurements are in a handy list on the side, in case you forget a stick is half a cup.

All the brands are sold like this- at first, once I gleefully discovered the brand I'd bought was in sticks, I'd shake the boxes in the grocery store to make sure I was also buying sticks the next time, but they all rattle reassuringly, sticks are the norm.

Canadian dairies, are you listening?!?! :-)

4 comments:

  1. Sorry, they are not listening... They are not ready to do this. In Quebec, up to not long ago, it was illegal to colour margarine to make it look like butter. They now removed this stupid law so mybe there is hope for some improvements. I like the way the sticks have measuring marks on the sides. Sure is a breeze and you don't have to dirty measuring tools when you use butter. -Eric

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  2. I live in Montreal, and I have bought my butter in sticks for at least 15 years. They are indeed, very handy. On the topic of butter in the US though, I found that buying butter, or butter fat content dairy products is almost like a sin. My big thing when I am in the US is that I have a fit because most of the time I cannot find just plain regular whole milk yogurt. It is either low fat, no fat, or some weird flavor. And sometimes I have a hard time finding things like sour cream. Whole milk cottage cheese (again the obsession of low fat and no fat). When my friend (who is American) is in Montreal, he lusts at our dairy section. lol

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  3. Hi Suzanne,
    I too have found the yogurt to be a problem in the states. When I was pregnant and definitely in need of calories, all I could find was low or no fat yogurt. It's just not the same.

    I just read a recipe the other day that called for a stick of butter-now I know how much that is. Thanks N.

    I guess you still have Thanksgiving to look forward to. We had dinner with friends around here this year, and enjoyed turkey and all the juicy, fatty drippings for a week afterwards.

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  4. Well the good side of this is we have raw milk cheeze (the best ever!) and they don't, don't they?
    -Eric

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