butter

a while back, i discovered a need for stick butter in my refrigerator. it's what i put in my oatmeal, cornmeal, cream of wheat, etc. when recipes call for something in the butter category, stick butter goes in. tub stuff is for toast.

anyway, i purchased a box of the imperial brand, a sort of gold box with dark blue print on it. a box has four sticks of the stuff, and lasts me a damn long time. i have never looked on the package to see whether it is butter, margerine, vegetable spread, soy product or what have you. i know it ain't real butter. i know it's processed beyond belief and only bears a passing resemblance to cows. i'm fine with this.

in fact, i'm not fond of butter butter. it's too.... something. i don't know what. the taste of butter is just too butter. if given a choice based on taste alone, i'll choose margerine every single time. it's what i've grown up on, except at thanksgiving when the family splurges on butter butter and i've got to eat that for a while.

anyway, i bought the stick butter (which as i hope i've shown is really just the imperial brand whatever that i've used from an early age), brought it home, stuck it in the fridge.

just now, i made a bowl of cream of wheat. i opened the package to get a stick of butter out, and the packaging inside is different. it isn't foil/paper/stuff as i'm used to, but is pure paper. nevertheless, i added it to the bowl with the sugar.

this stuff doesn't taste like my regular, familiar, comforting stick butter. it tastes like butter butter. like real butter. like the butter butter we eat for a week or two at thanksgiving.

and my cream of wheat doesn't taste right. it doesn't smell right. it tastes and smells like butter butter.

i looked at the wrapper, and it doesn't say butter anywhere on it. nor does it say margerine. it talks about percentage of vegetable oil, but that's it. the box is the same way. nowhere does it say that i purchased butter butter, and yet my butter tastes like butter butter.

if i'd wanted butter butter, i'd have looked for a package that said butter on it. usually, they're so proud of their butter butter status that they have that real big-like on the packaging. or the other ones that aren't butter butter but claim to taste like it. the word butter features prominently. or the ones that are so proud that have no resemblance to butter, margerine, or cows in general. they're also sure to say so in big letters.

i now have three full sticks and all but a little under a tablespoon of a fourth stick of butter butter-tasting butter. and i don't like butter butter. i don't want my butter to taste like butter butter.

and if you didn't plump up just reading about all this butter, i'm impressed.

love and peace