DiningBuzz! - Favorite Butter - Worldwide

I've been trying to limit the intake of one of my most favorite food groups...FAT :D

Consequently, I'm hoping to maximize the enjoyment of what little I do indulge in.

So, have at it and let loose with your favorite butter brands and (country of origin/salted/unsalted) and then the tastings can begin ^

Kerrygold salted pure Irish butter. I believe 8 oz is usually about 5 bucks here but honestly I don't look at the price. I am a cook and you can really tell the difference cooking with it, especially in sauces. I pretty much only use it for cooking though. For toast and other stuff I usually just use Land O Lakes or something like it.

Isigny Ste. Mere - salted, French. Got hooked on it in Brussels!

Échiré -- salted or unsalted they are awesome. No other butter has come close that I have tried yet. I actually love getting the unsalted and sprinkling a little fleur de sel or some other artisinal salt on it. Simply devine!!

Such a shame one cannot get it in Canada......

Isigny Ste. Mere - salted, French. Got hooked on it in Brussels!

+1. It's an appelation controlee product too.

Isigny Ste. Mere - salted, French. Got hooked on it in Brussels!

+1. It's an appelation controlee product too.

+2. BTW it is completely legal to bring butter back to the states. We usually rent an apartment in Paris, and we stock up on this stuff and freeze it. I put each one in a zip top bag that I bring along for this purpose and put it in checked baggage. It arrives home in perfect shape. You can actually buy what appears to be the same thing at Whole Foods, but it costs an arm and a leg and I swear it doesn't taste the same.

Kerrygold salted pure Irish butter. I believe 8 oz is usually about 5 bucks here but honestly I don't look at the price. I am a cook and you can really tell the difference cooking with it, especially in sauces. I pretty much only use it for cooking though. For toast and other stuff I usually just use Land O Lakes or something like it.
Good stuff, indeed, though I don't know how it compares to other butters of the world (such as the others mentioned in this thread).

It's somewhat reasonably priced at Costco, though they don't always carry it. If yours doesn't, bk3day, or you're not a member, come visit me and I'll stock you up! :D

I like Kerrygold, but the one available in Costco doesn't taste the same as the one I used to eat as a kid. I liked Anchor too when growing up, but that's changed too.

However, my favorite is the fresh butter we get on our family farm in Pakistan - it's made fresh every day and placed on the table just in time for breakfast (10-11 AM'ish). It looks like plain yoghurt or curd, but when you taste it, it's like the lightest but butteryest thing there is.

I've been trying to limit the intake of one of my most favorite food groups...FAT :D



And why are you disparaging Fresno's airport? :eek:

I'm a big fan of Smjor--Icelandic, salted. I've seen it in a number of Whole Foods on the east coast, but I've yet to find it in the western US, unfortunately. :(

I have never tasted anything quite like the truffle butter at Tetsuya's in Sydney (they gave me a jar to take with :) ).

There are of course cheap substitutes available in better gourmet shops...

Some excellent recommendations for great commercial butter on this thread, and until last year I would have been in heaven with any of them..... but now I have been spoiled and have found butter that blows these away. Hand churned butter sold at a few markets in Melbourne Australia. Amazing what a difference freshness makes, plus milk in Australia tastes soooo much better than US or even France or Switzerland (my prior high water mark for good tasting milk). This really results in a difference you can taste, but it is not sold in supermarkets! The Tetsuya butter is great mostly due to this (the trufle addition really doesn't do that much more for the great taste, but helps to justify the stratospheric price -- $100/lb anyone?).

Plugra anyone? Maybe not "favorite" but a great everyday butter.

I'm a fan of Kerrygold since it's easy to get here, Plugra is good stuff too but nothing beats the stuff I get when I'm in France. It's just amazing, so fresh and light but so much butter flavor.

but now I have been spoiled and have found butter that blows these away. Hand churned butter sold at a few markets in Melbourne Australia.

Errr - which markets? Who's the supplier? I'll have to hunt this down since I live in Melbourne!

Audrey

Kerrygold salted pure Irish butter. I believe 8 oz is usually about 5 bucks here but honestly I don't look at the price. I am a cook and you can really tell the difference cooking with it, especially in sauces. I pretty much only use it for cooking though. For toast and other stuff I usually just use Land O Lakes or something like it.

The Kerrygold unsalted butter is much better- esp if you're going to use it for cooking. Don't know if it's widely available in the US tho.

Plugra anyone? Maybe not "favorite" but a great everyday butter.

I stopped buying Plugra when I read the ingredients and found out that the reason it tasted so 'buttery' was because of the butter flavor that was added to it.

I used to get a really good English butter, but the store I got it at stopped carrying it when it changed hands. They also stopped carrying Kate's from Maine, which was also pretty good.

I'm currently looking for a replacement for those two. I might have to try Lurpak next.

Thanks all for the tips!

I'm headed to Paris (and BCN and Andorra) next week so, I will definitely keep an eye out for good stuff to bring home! :)

The Kerrygold unsalted butter is much better- esp if you're going to use it for cooking. Don't know if it's widely available in the US tho.

fwiw, Kerrygold is widely available in NYC and fwiw, Trader Joes carries both the salted and unsalted varieties. hmmm...not sure when the last time i tried some.

More recently, I've enjoyed pretty good but not great butters from England (Somerdale) and Russia (? - distributed out of NE Philadelphia and bought in Brighton Beach)

I see Cooks Illustrated did a taste test of many of the brands mentioned above...however the results link seems to redirect to their olive oil test.

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/tastetests/overview.asp?docid=17728

I see Cooks Illustrated did a taste test of many of the brands mentioned above...however the results link seems to redirect to their olive oil test.

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/tastetests/overview.asp?docid=17728

The results apparently are available only if you are a member.

I don't know any brand names, but I have always found any butter in Mexico to be mighty tasty.

Errr - which markets? Who's the supplier? I'll have to hunt this down since I live in Melbourne!The best hand churned butter is sold at Victoria Market. Useful for those living in Melbourne, but not for the rest of the world. The flavour is phenomenal.

Homeade raw cream butter, Steph3n's home TX, purchased just outside Stephenville, TX.

I can't say it's the best in the world, but I remember being very partial to the milk and butter in the Netherlands.

The worst butter I have had must be in Mexico. Although they do lots of things really well, so far I have found that does not include butter management. Oh well, probably best not to eat it anyway.

Isigny Ste. Mere - salted, French. Got hooked on it in Brussels!

Just had Isigny Ste. Mere (sweet) on my Air France flight to (JFK-CDG)

It was good but I'm still thinking there's something better out there...

btw, they serve Presidente (sp?) in the Air France lounge.

Just had Isigny Ste. Mere (sweet) on my Air France flight to (JFK-CDG)

It was good but I'm still thinking there's something better out there...

btw, they serve Presidente (sp?) in the Air France lounge.

President is about as generic and bland as you can get. But then you were't looking for la creme de la creme at an airport lounge, were you?

+2. BTW it is completely legal to bring butter back to the states. We usually rent an apartment in Paris, and we stock up on this stuff and freeze it. I put each one in a zip top bag that I bring along for this purpose and put it in checked baggage. It arrives home in perfect shape. You can actually buy what appears to be the same thing at Whole Foods, but it costs an arm and a leg and I swear it doesn't taste the same.

Is that right? I did not know that! ^ Thanks for the info.

I can't recall the names, now, since it's been so long since I was a student there, but Isigny St. Mere - I believe that was one I enjoyed - I actually also liked President, too. I would typically buy my butter at Le Bon Marche or at a fromagerie. In France, you have a choice of so many artisanal food products.

Here in the states, I like salted Hotel Bar - cheap, typically fresh and suitable. Land o Lakes is also perfectly fine.

Oh, wait! I know - there actually was a Dutch deli near me that sold artisanal butter off a huge block - you'd tell them what amount you want, and they'd cut it off the block, put it in butcher's paper, and THAT was very fine butter. But the Italian family sold out to a Polish couple, and the shop went out of business literally two months later. (I know, like a lot of good that does the threadstarter, lol, but try and look for a small deli or shop that shells cheese - they likely sell fine butters, as well.)

OT but on a dairy theme, why is it so hard to find real cheese in the States?

OT but on a dairy theme, why is it so hard to find real cheese in the States?

:) I have a source for this, I buy it at the same dairy as the raw milk.
They ship if someone is interested can PM me.

Why is it hard to find real milk, even regular pasteurized in France/Switzerland?
UHT shelf milk is :td:

I don't think you will be able to top homemade butter, but it's not something easy to find in the US, very local.

Kerrygold is available in most supermarkets up here in New England. I am not a huge fan of it.

Vermont Butter and Cheese has a cultured butter which is outstanding. Wholefoods and some markets sell it, it is usually stocked in the cheese section, not the dairy case.

To be honest, though, I usually stick with good old Land o Lakes. The others are great if you decide you want to eat a nice slab of butter, but since you usually use it in something or to cook something in, then I dont think those work so well.

I'm currently looking for a replacement for those two. I might have to try Lurpak next.I buy Lurpak when I'm cooking something special (not that often, as I normally cook for one). The leading grocery chain in my area, Publix, carries it.

http://www.lurpak.com/C1256F170024DD5C

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wonderous poster: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.297 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Kerrygold salted pure Irish butter. I believe 8 oz is usually about 5 bucks here but honestly I don't look at the price. I am a cook and you can really tell the difference cooking with it, especially in sauces. I pretty much only use it for cooking though. For toast and other stuff I usually just use Land O Lakes or something like it.
Good stuff, indeed, though I don't know how it compares to other butters of the world (such as the others mentioned in this thread).

It's somewhat reasonably priced at Costco, though they don't always carry it. If yours doesn't, bk3day, or you're not a member, come visit me and I'll stock you up! :D

Kerrygold is good stuff (granted I haven't had any other intl butter, but this was nice and creamy...

I'm partial (but by no means any kind of expert) to either Cabot or Parmigiano. That's right, the stuff that comes from the same cows/farms as Paramsean Cheese. The latter costs an arm and a leg in the US and my mom thinks the flavor is too strong. She prefers Lurpark or another brand (can't think of it).

The best hand churned butter is sold at Victoria Market. Useful for those living in Melbourne, but not for the rest of the world. The flavour is phenomenal.

Ah - that's the Warrnambool butter. I remember visiting Warrnambool in January 1979 and being blown away by the butter (I was shorter then that I am now!).

I thought you'd found an artisanal butter at a farmer's market, which would be another step up. Or has Curds and Whey started selling more butters?

Audrey

I second Jamoldo's comment about the parma cheese. It is quite strong and not great for cooking or making sauces with, but if you just toasted some bread, it is great.
I remember when I ate at Per Se in 2005, they places two kinds of butters at our tables. One was from New Jersey and the other from Vermont and one was much paler in color than the other (can't remember which was which). Needless to say, at that price point, both were fantastic on the mini-baguettes.