Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... (44 page)

. . .. Then New Orleans piped up and said: "Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the only one around that's first rate. For instance, they make olive oil out of cottonseed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart."

BUTTER SPREAD

Makes ¾ cup

½ cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons expeller-expressed flax oil

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

This is softer than butter and will spread more easily. In a food processor mix softened butter, flax oil and olive oil by pulsing. Place in a small bowl or crock, cover and refrigerate.

CLARIFIED BUTTER

Makes ¾ cup

1 cup (½ pound) butter

Those who are unable to tolerate milk protein in even the smallest amounts will want to clarify their butter, which is the process of removing the small amount of milk protein or casein contained in butter fat. Place butter in a small bowl in an oven set at 200 degrees for ½ hour. The butter will melt and foam will rise to the top and form a crust, which should be carefully skimmed off. To remove every trace of milk solids, pour through a strainer lined with cheese cloth. Store in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator. Use clarified butter for cooking and eating.

LEMON BUTTER SAUCE

Makes ¾ cup

about ½ cup clarified butter, melted (
clarified butter
)

juice of 1 lemon, strained

Mix butter and lemon juice. This is excellent with artichokes.

"Yes, that's so," responded Cincinnati, "and it was a tiptop business for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and Italy, with the United States customhouse mark on it to endorse it for genuine and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke up the game—of course, they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattling import that cottonseed olive oil couldn't stand the rise; had to hang up and quit."

"Oh, it
did
, did it? You wait here a minute." Goes to his stateroom, brings back a couple of long bottles, and takes out the corks—says: "There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the labels, one of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this country. One's European olive oil, the other's American cottonseed olive oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. . .. We turn out the whole thing—clean from the word go—in our factory in New Orleans; labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no, not labels: Been buying
them
abroad—get them dirt cheap there. You see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in a gallon of cottonseed oil, that gives it a smell, or a flavor, or something—get that out, and you're all right—perfectly easy then to turn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody that can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that one little particle out—and we're the only firm that does. And we turn out an olive oil that is just simply perfect—undetectable! We are doing a ripping trade, too—as I could easily show you by my order book for this trip. May be you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll cottonseed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a dead certain thing." Mark Twain
Life on the Mississippi

HERB BUTTER

Makes 1 cup

¹
/
₈
cup parsley sprigs

1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves

1 teaspoon thyme leaves

1 cup (½ pound) butter, softened

Place herbs in a strainer and plunge into boiling water for a few seconds. Rinse under cold water and pat or squeeze very dry. Place in food processor and pulse several times. Add butter and pulse until well blended. Chill in a crock or in individual molds.

RED PEPPER BUTTER

Makes ¾ cup

½ red pepper, cut into two pieces

½ butter, softened

Place pepper pieces skin side up on an oiled pyrex pan and bake at 400 degrees until skin begins to buckle. Cover pepper pieces with plastic bag for about 10 minutes to loosen skin. Remove skin and place pepper pieces in food processor and blend until smooth. Add butter blend well. Serve with meat or fish.

BERNAISE SAUCE

Makes 1 ¼ cup

2 tablespoons shallots or green onions, finely chopped

1 tablespoon fresh tarragon, finely chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried tarragon

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons dry white wine or vermouth

5 egg yolks, at room temperature

½ cup butter, preferably raw, cut into pieces

fresh lemon juice

pinch of sea salt

pinch of pepper

Properly made, Bernaise sauce never attains more than a moderate heat, so that all the enzymes in the egg yolks are preserved. So delicious with meats and grilled fish, it is a sauce worth mastering—and not very hard to master at that.

In a small saucepan combine the shallots or onions, tarragon, wine and vinegar. Bring to a boil and reduce to about 1 tablespoon of liquid. Strain into a bowl.

Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks with a whisk. Set the bowl in a pan of hot water over a low flame. Add about half the butter, piece by piece, to the liquid, whisking constantly until melted. Add the egg yolks very slowly, drop by drop or in a very thin stream, whisking constantly. Add the remaining butter and whisk until well amalgamated. Sauce should now be warm and slightly thickened. Remove from heat and add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. The sauce may be kept warm in the bowl set in hot water. Whisk occasionally until ready to serve.

The special nutritional factors present in butter as known up to 1942 are without question. It was shown that butter has the following characteristics of superiority over other fats and oleomargarine imitations: (1) The nation's best source of vitamin A; (2) Unit for unit, the vitamin A in butter was three times as effective as the vitamin A in fish liver oils; (3) The natural vitamin D in butter was found 100 times as effective as the common commercial form of D (viosterol); (4) Butter, prescribed by physicians as a remedy for tuberculosis, psoriasis, xerophthalmia, dental caries and in preventing rickets, has been promptly effective; and (5) Butter carries vitamin E in sufficient quantity to prevent deficiency reactions.

Since that time, new and important evidence has accumulated which indicates other nutritional functions supplied by butter. This evidence appears to revolve around the physiological ramifications of the effects of the vitamin E complex. Royal Lee, DDS
Butter, Vitamin E and the "X" Factor of Dr. Price

BUTTER SAUCE

(Beurre Blanc)
Makes ½ cup

6 tablespoons shallots, minced

6 tablespoons dry white wine

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ cup butter, preferably raw, cut into pieces

pinch of sea salt and pepper

This is the classic French sauce for fish. Properly made and not overheated, the butter will retain its enzyme content.

Place shallots, wine and lemon juice in a small pan. Bring to a boil and reduce to about 2 tablespoons. Strain into a small bowl.

Place the bowl in a pan of hot water over a low flame and add the butter piece by piece, whisking thoroughly after each addition. Sauce should become frothy and slightly thick. As soon as butter is amalgamated, remove from heat and season to taste. Serve immediately.

. . .the idea of butter, and words like "buttery," "deep-buttered," or "butterball," retain their enticing power in North American language. The reason is partly traditional. The English and the Dutch who emigrated to the States in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took the butter habit with them. Foreign travellers commonly noted that Americans ate absolutely everything—porridge, soup, meat, vegetables and puddings—swimming in butter. Margaret Visser
Much Depends on Dinner

PARSLEY BUTTER SAUCE

Makes about 1 cup

3 tablespoons shallots or green onions, minced

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

¼ cup dry white wine

1 cup
fish stock
,
chicken stock
or
beef stock

½ cup
piima cream
or
creme fraiche

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 tablespoon coarse mustard

2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

Combine shallots or green onions, vinegar, wine, stock and cream in a pan, bring to a boil and reduce to about half, or until sauce thickens slightly. Reduce heat and whisk in butter and mustard. Season to taste. Just before serving, stir in the parsley.

I have referred to the importance of a high-vitamin butter for providing the fat-soluble activators to make possible the utilization of the minerals in the foods. In this connection, it is of interest that butter constitutes the principal source of these essential factors for many primitive groups throughout the world. In the high mountain and plateau district in northern India, and in Tibet, the inhabitants depend largely upon butter made from the milk of the yak and the sheep for these activators. The butter is eaten mixed with roasted cereals, is used in tea and in a porridge made of tea, butter and roasted grains. In Sudan, Egypt, I found considerable traffic in high-vitamin butter which. . .was being exchanged for and used with varieties of millet grown in other districts. . .. Its brilliant orange color testified to the splendid pasture for the dairy animals. The people in Sudan, had exceptionally fine teeth with exceedingly little tooth decay. The most physically perfect people in northern India are probably the Pathans who live on dairy products largely in the form of soured curd, together with wheat and vegetables. The people are very tall and are free of tooth decay. Weston Price, DDS
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration