Butter Test outcome

Just a quick note. Over the last week or so I've used up the Essential Waitrose butter, then the Lurpak butter, and I'm now back with Lurpak Spreadable, to round off the test. But it's already clear what I'll be using for the future - the Lurpak Spreadable.

This is not to deny the pleasure I had trying the two other butters. Both were creamy and of course more 'natural' - the Lurpak Spreadable being 'only mostly butter' as it was combined with rapeseed oil, plus some mysterious 'milk culture'. With the 'proper butters' I felt closer to green grass and contented cows.

It was also satisfying to unwrap the pat of yellow butter and tip it into the china butter dish. Both butters looked great in it. So much nicer than a plastic tub! The dish seemed to keep the butter fresh enough, even though it was out of the fridge for much of the day, in order to keep the butter soft enough to spread. I did wonder how this might work out in the summer, though. Probably I'd be messing around somewhat, popping the dish in and out of the fridge at intervals, to stop the butter turning runny on the one hand, or to prevent it getting unmanageably hard on the other.

As for flavour, the Waitrose (a cheap, basic butter this, not one of their premium offerings) was fine for cooking but seemed lacking as a spread. The Lurpak butter definitely beat it, cooking as well but tasting creamier, and in every way nicer. So I'd definitely regard Lurpak as the better choice, despite its much-higher price.

When it came to the Lurpak Spreadable - which although still 'butter', might feel by now damned as a 'processed product' and therefore 'inferior' - I attempted to make it all fair by transferring it from the plastic tub to the butter dish, just like the other two butters. This would at least make it look the same. I wouldn't be prejudiced by the plastic tub.

Well, after a week or more without using the Spreadable for anything, I instantly liked it for flavour. In fact, to my mind it trumped the two other 'real' butters. It was also a lot simpler to keep it in the fridge all the time. So it wins, on taste and convenience.

I know it's quite unnecessary, but I think I'll continue with the butter dish, even though I could revert to the plastic tub. The Lurpak Spreadable definitely looks like real butter in that dish, and somehow I get more flavour. I'd even say it acquires enhanced status as a healthy dairy spread, when taken from that dish. It's a psychological effect, of course. Like loose-leaf tea made traditionally in a teapot might seem a better thing to drink than the water-stain from a teabag, made in a cup.

Ironically, butter will play no part in tonight's cooking. It's haggis tonight, boiled up in the oven. Plus carrots and broccoli and onions and gravy. I'd better turn my mind to it soon, if I want to eat early!