Butter

Some time ago I had a dinner party for which I bought some proper butter, made in a proper churn and stored in a wooden crock, from lain Mellis, the very good cheesemongers in Victoria Street in Edinburgh. I put it on my dinner table and people helped themselves to it without noticing, until one friend said, “They don’t make butter that shape any more.” Then I was able to explain that they did, and that that was how butter ought to be, and what good butter it was.

We are quite lucky in Britain with the quality of even the average everyday butter that is sold on our shelves. To my taste, too much salt is added to English and Welsh butter, and this is not something that appeals to me. But the texture and quality of the butter is of a much higher standard than that of a lot of other countries. Also, there is no extraneous water that needs to be pressed out of it when you are beating it. In series three, “Two Fat Ladies” went to a Welsh farm where we made butter. It was fascinating to see how the milk was churned and churned until the butter began to deposit, and then how the buttermilk was drained off and the butter washed repeatedly and then rechurned and the water patted out of it. It was a long and quite arduous process, but the butter that it produced was totally delicious.