Soapy butter
Okay, I bought a brick of butter -- you know, the uncut pound thing. Today, I whacked off a hunk and put some into the butter dish I just took out of the dishwasher. Then I made some toast, buttered it, and started munching.
Odd floral soapy flavor. Hmmmm....what could that be? I tasted the bread. It was fine. Took a litte taste of the butter on the toast, and it, too, tasted fine.
Thought I was going nuts, took a bite of toast and butter. Ugh. Soap. Went to the butter dish, carefully tasted a bit of butter that was the outer portion of the butter rather than interior, where I cut it. Yup, soap. Blech.
So glad I didn't use it in an important recipe, and that I discovered this before I served it to anyone else.
I tossed the whole pound out. Then I thought about it. Should I have simply cut off the outer portion of the butter that had apparently absorbed a soapy flavor somewhere in shipping? Should I have returned the butter to the store?
What would you have done?
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11 Comments:
Take it back to the store. Tell them you do not have the receipt and ask for an exchange. No one will argue with you.
JerzeeTomato at 2:19AM on 08/08/08
I'm really weird about funky flavors coming into food where they should not be. If it was me, I would have thrown the whole entire pound out, too. Yuck!!! Soap? That's horrible. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
littlesalsi at 2:19AM on 08/08/08
Oh, it's already tossed. Now, I'll probably never buy that brand of butter from that store again, because I'll be worried that the supplier stores it next to the laundry detergent or that the cows eat some kind of soapy tasting flowers.
Honestly, it didn't taste terrible, it was just odd. First, there was a floral scent, and then a flowery taste. And then it was soapy. Not strong, but enough for me to not want to eat any more.
Probably would have made a lovely cilantro butter for those who think that tastes soapy. :-)
dbcurrie at 2:26AM on 08/08/08
Odd that you should mention that. I've had green tea ice cream taste like floral perfume before at a restaurant. I smelled the bowl, the spoon, exchanged spoons, asked for another serving, and still...perfume green tea ice cream. I didn't even detect a similar smell from the server. Blech!!!
I'd have fun with that being cilantro butter - super suds. :P
Cassaendra at 7:47AM on 08/08/08
Couldn't it have been that your dishwasher didn't wash the butter compartment well enough?
HeartofGlass at 11:13AM on 08/08/08
Why would you rather write about it than just return the wretched thing to the store .... what's the point?
Pointy at 12:57PM on 08/08/08
I returned a bottle of off-tasting olive oil to the store and got my money back plus a free bottle of better oil.
It pays to complain!!! In the end we all benefit.
Pointy at 1:00PM on 08/08/08
Heh, reminds me of earlier this week. A coworker had washed a batch of strawberries and had them lined out having just finished dressing cakes with them. I came along in a normal fashion and snagged a berry. INSTANT SPITOUT! Soap was ALL over the berry, truly disgusting. She gets worried and eats a couple herself - no soap on hers. Finally awhile later, the berries are still sitting there and I select one more, sniff it, and yup - SOAP! She's decided at this point I'm crazy because all her berries have been fine. I instruct her to take a bite of THIS berry. Pay back is great! :D
feriorrenna at 4:57PM on 08/08/08
I'm with the "return it IMMEDIATELY" crowd. When you consider how much butter costs nowadays, i would never for a minute accept butter that tasted/smelled of soap. That's disgusting. i don't care what the explanation might be. With butter going at prices like $3.50 and $4.00, it's precious stuff. it needs to be of an expected quality.
But then I do bring things back and i do complain (just sent in an email to an on-line business going "no, I never signed on for your service. I want proof or a refund NOW.")
Fluffnik at 6:49PM on 08/08/08
My mom actually just mentioned to me the other day that sometimes when fats are being digested, it can initially taste soapy. She mentioned this after I ate some yogurt in a plastic container--it turns out that I think the plastic was the culprit, but the yogurt was nonfat so it wouldn't make sense anyway. But, the fact that a few people mentioned olive oil and ice cream as also tasting soapy does support the fat-digestion theory! Don't know for sure, but perhaps that is causing the weird taste
luswim06 at 9:00PM on 08/08/08
@fluff -- if it was a health concern, I would have brought it back, just to warn the store. But the butter was under $3 and I wasn't planning on going back to that store in the immediate future, and it wouldn't have been worth my time and gas to make a special trip. Not to mention that I had already dumped it in the trash before I thought about returning it. Digging through the trash to retrieve bad butter just didn't appeal to me.
Also, this might have been one of those instances where I was tasting something that no one else could easily detect. Happens all the time. I'll make two variations of something and ask which one people like, and much of the time they can't tell the difference.
One other time I had some butter that tasted odd to me. Not sour, not soap, but it probably picked up a flavor or scent from something it had been next to. DH couldn't detect it, but it seemed obvious to me.
dbcurrie at 10:50PM on 08/08/08