We bought a French style butter dish recently. This has a cup which contains the butter, which is then inverted over an outer cup which contains some water. What I find really odd is that this seems to keep the butter at a consistency which is easy to spread. What I want to know is - how, and why?
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Coo-er. Not une chose that I'd ever heard of, but I'd be prepared to start consuming butter again (rather than olive spread) if I had one. As it is I'm still hunting down someone who has a Camembert keeper in stock as I really don't like keeping Camembert in the fridge, and if left out it can become very wayward once started.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Those articles are interesting, and give a partial explanation. What I'm finding odd is that the butter really is spreadable right out of the dish (cup) - which it certainly isn't out of the fridge, and there is something about the dishes which keeps the temperature uniform enough to keep the butter smooth. We have used other butter dishes, which we also like, but which are much more susceptible to temperature, and do not give a consistently smooth spreading butter. Of course it could just be conincidence and early days - we've only been using the upturned butter dish for a few days, but it already does seem to be a very different and sensible way to keep butter in a good condition, compared to other solutions we've tried.Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
I wonder if there is some form ov evaporative cooling inside the contraption which keeps the temperature about right.Comment
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I've been using one of these for a few years and wouldn't be without it.
Th main advantages are that it keeps the butter fresh for many days at room temperature and the butter doesn't become a gooey mess in warm weather. Mine holds approximately 2/3 of a stick of butter.
[Later Edit] Perhaps I should mention that I almost always use French unsalted butter. Also, some people recommend changing the water every three days.Last edited by johnb; 12-12-15, 22:42.Comment
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We used to have a butter dish that had a glass base and an earthenware lid which was glazed on the inside but not on the outside and there was an indentation in the top into which you could pour water. The water then oozed into the porous earthenware and slowly evaporated keeping the butter cool. A relic of the days before fridges, I guess. There was a wine cooler on a similar principle in Breamore House.Comment
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On a not unrelated tack, I recall, back in the mid-1950s, an Uncle and Aunt having a water cooled 'refrigerator' which was plumbed into the mains water supply in the feed to the kitchen sink tap (this was before hot and cold taps in the kitchen). It was held to be rather effective.Comment
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I think it might be the site which - after I'd painstakingly filled in my details - lost interest when I tried to add my post code. Must explore further.Originally posted by Bryn View Post
Meanwhile, where did people buy their butter dishes?It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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I seem to remember that I got mine through Amazon, imported from the USA where they seem to be popular. Amazon has many to choose from if you search for "Butter Crock", though most seem to be made in the USA.Originally posted by french frank View PostComment
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An old (deceased, lived to her 90s) friend used to complain that Brie was never sold ripe enough, and upon buying it used to place it in her airing cupboard/hot press for a few days.Originally posted by french frank View Post
Said lady worked at Harrods for a number of years, once took an order over the phone from Marlene Dietrich.Comment
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One of these Osokool things was left in a house into which I moved many years ago and in which there seemed not to have been a proper fridge. I got rid of it pronto; it was minuscule, largely ineffective and certainly no substitute for the real thing at the time nor for the Canadian manufactured car fridge that I occasionally use now. I'd never thought of it as somewhere in which I might think to put cheese at somewhere between fridge temperature and room temperature, though.
French and butter belong together in the same sentence, though - such a vast selection of fine unsalted ones from Brittany, Normandy and especially the Charente, a few of which are organic and a few unpasteurised; I've never tasted a British butter that comes close. That said, my cheese preferences are mostly British!Comment
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If you can bear to use the amazonians (and don't mind the typo on this page), this looks good value...Originally posted by french frank View Post
I'd never heard of the butter dish, and never encountered one in French homes. Interesting item."...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Thanks johnb!
Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post
Where did she keep her red wine … ?
Caly - I thought I might end up with amazon.fr since an account here is an account there and I often get books from there. On this occasion the one-click doesn't appear to have registered. Do I keep trying and end up with numerous boîtes à Camembert?
By the way - has anyone used an Amazon drop-off point? There's one in the Coop but I don't know how it works.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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... I have ordered, as a xtmas present for the house, one of these:Originally posted by french frank View Post
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