I keep my butter in the ___________.
Over T-Giving, the BF's 'rents were here, along with his sister and brother. I did T-Giving soup to nuts. On the first day of their stay, BF's mom took a stick of butter and placed it on a plate. She then proceeded to leave the plate on the counter where it lived for the entire six days they were here!
I couldn't help but think, WTF? Butter is a dairy product. Hear that? D-a-i-r-y. This implies it needs to be kept cold to be fresh. The stick of butter wasn't in one of those fancy French bells with the airtight water gizmo, it was on a plate...out in the world!
Needless to say, I was totally freaked and could NOT wait to toss the bit that was left right in the garbage.
So is this a common practice?? Leaving butter at room temp? (PS - I really do love his family.)
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27 Comments:
Butter Bell
Hunnyoil at 8:25PM on 11/29/08
my butter is aways on the counter. the only time its cold is during the warm weather. even then i take it out to soften for use, that's how we grew up and i've never had a problem. it doesn't last for 7 days either. but i wouldn't throw it away if it did.
dearrie at 9:00PM on 11/29/08
covered butter dish on the counter.
jcmeloni at 9:04PM on 11/29/08
in the wrapper even,
dearrie at 9:07PM on 11/29/08
I keep extra butter in the freezer, current pound in the refrigerator and current stick in the cabinet, unless the kitchen is hot due to weather or using the oven a lot. I wouldn't leave unsalted butter out for days, but I don't worry about salted butter, and it doesn't last all that long. I use less when it's soft because it's easier to spread.
PerkyMac at 9:09PM on 11/29/08
that's all i'm trying to say.
dearrie at 9:27PM on 11/29/08
Same as Perky. Pound or 2 in the freezer. Pound in the refrigerator. Covered stick on the counter.
And, the stick on the counter is salted, for bread and rolls.
carolrsfMISSESTEXAS at 9:51PM on 11/29/08
i only ever keep butter in the freezer, in exceedingly user unfriendly one pound slabs, so that i can't easily pry off a small amount. if there is any butter at all that is even remotely spreadable, it's instantly all over my toast in one inch thick slabs and gone in a few days.
cybercita at 10:13PM on 11/29/08
I keep 4 boxes in the freezer. One full one in the fridge. One working stick in the butter drawer in the door of the fridge. I keep it wrapped in wax paper and foil when it has been opened.
JerzeeTomato at 10:15PM on 11/29/08
Americans refrigerate lots of things other folks don't. The first time I visited my pal in Wales, I was astounded at what she left out on the table or in the cupboards. For her and two adolescent sons, there was what we'd call a dorm-sized fridge, and that was IT. And no, she didn't shop every day.
lemons at 10:54PM on 11/29/08
in the fridge.... ALWAYS. Puerto Rico is just too hot to keep any butter anywhere else.
MadelynRodriguez at 12:21AM on 11/30/08
on the counter. if you keep butter in the fridge, how will you ever be able to spread it on anything? cold butter=rock hard.
joyyy at 12:58AM on 11/30/08
Butter bell if I'm cooking every day. But if I'm working in the restaurant 5 days a week (and thusly fed each night), then it lives in the fridge, sitting open on the wrapping paper.
mikaque at 1:50AM on 11/30/08
Okay, so obviously it sounds like keeping it on the counter will not kill you. Which totally surprises me--I mean, like you said, it is dairy, how does it not get bacteria, etc. or get rancid. Incidentally, my mother in law keeps hers on the counter and we are constantly chiding her for it, as we thought she was just being weird about it and could get food poisoning or something from it. I keep mine in the fridge, but must admit if I knew it wouldnt make me sick (and now that I know so many other people do it, apparently successfully) I might keep mine out, too. It would be so much more convenient : )
gourmetgal at 2:23AM on 11/30/08
A stick is always on the counter covered, but we go through so fast i would not make a difference whether it is hot or cold weather.
pjracz10 at 4:46AM on 11/30/08
Aorta.
tmj529 at 5:13AM on 11/30/08
I keep mine in a butter dish in the pantry. Granted, that's on the north side of the building, and in Denmark that remains cool even in the summer. But I've usually kept butter in a cool, dark spot other than the refrigerator.
Don't know the precise chemistry involved, but butter is mostly fat, which isn't the best growth medium for most bacteria; if you think about it, oils don't need refrigeration. There is some water and protein in butter, so it can go rancid over time, therefore if you rarely use it or the climate is hot, it does make sense to refrigerate it. But in a cool spot, it will easily keep for several weeks outside the refrigerator, without any deterioration in flavour or safety.
mongoose at 5:18AM on 11/30/08
First of all, LOL @ tmj529.
Second, how the heck did I miss this option my whole life???? My mom had us convinced that butter needed to be kept in the fridge. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY - so we had extreme temps in both directions. Still, we NEVER kept butter out of the fridge for storage. I'm going to e-mail my brother and ask him if he ever does this just to see if the training got wound in his DNA as it did mine. (He now lives in NJ.)
As for it being really cold right out of the fridge, I shave a bit off very thinly and plop it on my toast and in 10 seconds, it's soft enough to spread.
Thank you so much, SEers. I have learned something today.
therealchiffonade at 7:53AM on 11/30/08
Growing up the butter was always on the counter in a butter dish. I now keep unopened boxes of butter in the freezer and the open box in the fridge. I don't use butter regularly, so it would definitely go bad if I left it out.
izatryt at 8:04AM on 11/30/08
I keep the current bar on the counter in a butter dish except in summer and when I'm on a diet and using it very sparingly. It won't have the shelf life it does in the fridge, but you can tell if it's going rancid, and if it does, it gets tossed. That doesn't happen often though, and to me, is totally worth the occasional tossed half stick for the convenience of always having it spreadable. As @lemons said, we keep lots of things in the fridge that really don't need to be.
chisai at 8:53AM on 11/30/08
So what other items are we keeping the fridge that don't need to be there?
LizSherman at 9:49AM on 11/30/08
Butter Boat. I like it better than the bell.
bessfour at 12:22PM on 11/30/08
Strangely enough, one of the only times I had butter go BAD it was in a butter bell. It actually had MOLD on it. Something I NEVER saw with it just covered at room temp, even after a couple weeks AND it's unsalted. Weird.
@mongoose: Fat is something that DOES tend to go bad quickly (often depending on the level of hydrogen saturation). ServSafe training teaches FAT TOM (Fat Acid Time Temperature Oxygen and Moisture) are the things that spoil food the fastest.
One other item I know of that we keep in the frig that others don't is eggs. My BIL was in france and couldn't find them and they had them on the counter at checkout. Again, they tend to just buy what they'll use in the next few days, so they aren't likely to be buying them by the dozen.
MaresyDotes at 2:14PM on 11/30/08
Same as iz - growing up, it was always on the counter, in a butter dish. Nowadays, since I'm the only one eating butter in the house, I don't use it as much and keep it in the fridge.
brooke29 at 2:23PM on 11/30/08
OOOOh this is a topic my DH and I argue about all the time! I'm a "Butter is a dairy product and therefore must be refrigerated" fanatic, and he's a "I hate spreading rock hard butter on my rolls and bread and ripping them to shreds" fanatic. So what does he do??? He takes my butter dish out of the frige and NUKES it so that the butter melts and pools and THEN puts it back in the fridge so it solidifies into a huge mess in the dish. I'm telling you, if he wasn't so cute, he'd be out on his arse!! :o)
juliebugsmama at 9:39AM on 12/01/08
Butter goes in the top shelf of the refrigerator.
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 2:34PM on 12/01/08
Covered butter dish on the counter. It's always soft and ready to spread.
dmcavanagh at 2:19PM on 12/12/08