Butter: A Rich History
Elaine Khosrova
Food, science, history
Ah, the now-classic single-noun-titled biography of a substance. We already own Salt and The Potato. Getting this one felt kind of inevitable.
Butter's not bad. It's somewhat scattershot in its approach, touching on its subtopics--buttermaking, history, nutrition, and so forth--in no very particular order. I think Khosrova would have been wiser to have started with, at minimum, a definition of terms. No doubt in her foodie bubble everyone is born knowing the exact distinctions among butter, butterfat, milk solids, cream, whey, and so forth, but I wasn't. On the other hand, the vigorous defense of butter's healthiness was (if nothing else) heartening.
If you're ever in Cork, Ireland, don't miss the Butter Museum. Really.
And you forgot to warn people not to read it when you're hungry!
ReplyDeleteA good point. The last 10% of the book is recipes. They are not low-cal.
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