The Lemon Fool

Mashed fish fingers? Curried banana skins? Is she having a laugh?

Scott.

Post-Brexit menus? Though where the banana skins will come from (other than the stockpile that Boris has) I don’t know.

Toast. No, not the double-buttering of it. More curious why she says "I always buy unsalted butter", but then sprinkles salt on it. What's the difference?

(I seem to have got into the habit of watching this, as it's on where Only Connect used to be. Must stop.)

Scott.

swill453 wrote:Toast. No, not the double-buttering of it. More curious why she says "I always buy unsalted butter", but then sprinkles salt on it. What's the difference?

(I seem to have got into the habit of watching this, as it's on where Only Connect used to be. Must stop.)

Scott.

Interestingly (perhaps), I have been discovering the delights of good quality butter. For the last decade or two I've not really noticed the slow decline in flavour of the ordinary regular stuff then about a year or so ago I bought a pack of Marks and Spencer "Salted Brittany Butter" by accident, and the taste of it is wonderful, just like I remember butter tasting as a kid. I now eat the stuff exclusively despite the price (two quid). Waitrose sell a near identical butter called "French butter with sea salt crystals". Well worth a try I suggest.

Unsalted butter is grim though, and best avoided IMO. Inspired by the M&S butter experience I hand-made some butter of my own to put on my home-made rustic bread. It too was disgusting and tasteless, even with salt mixed in. Back to the M&S stuff.

I use Kerry Gold. It does not as far as I know have added salt. That is not good for our health apparently. KG is very nice.

Dod

Lurpak Slightly Salted for me. Or occasionally Président Slightly Salted

Dod101 wrote:I use Kerry Gold. It does not as far as I know have added salt. That is not good for our health apparently. KG is very nice.

Dod

It probably does have salt. Have a look at the pack.

Dod101 wrote:I use Kerry Gold. It does not as far as I know have added salt. That is not good for our health apparently. KG is very nice.

Without salt we'd die. A typical spreading of salted butter would have less than 0.1g of salt.

Scott.

bluedonkey wrote:

Dod101 wrote:I use Kerry Gold. It does not as far as I know have added salt. That is not good for our health apparently. KG is very nice.

Dod

It probably does have salt. Have a look at the pack.

I did before writing the above. It does not mention salt but neither does it say anywhere on the pack, no salt or with salt so I expect it will have some. I find though that in general a lot of recipes have too much salt in them. I find it a bit like sugar which I suddenly stopped using and now cannot stand it. Not trying to be righteous or anything. it just that my taste buds have changed.

Anyway Kerry Gold is very nice and creamy.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:

bluedonkey wrote:

Dod101 wrote:I use Kerry Gold. It does not as far as I know have added salt. That is not good for our health apparently. KG is very nice.

Dod

It probably does have salt. Have a look at the pack.

I did before writing the above. It does not mention salt but neither does it say anywhere on the pack, no salt or with salt so I expect it will have some. I find though that in general a lot of recipes have too much salt in them. I find it a bit like sugar which I suddenly stopped using and now cannot stand it. Not trying to be righteous or anything. it just that my taste buds have changed.

Anyway Kerry Gold is very nice and creamy.

Dod

We're obviously both having a slow day, spending time discussing packs of Kerrygold butter! If you have the pale coloured pack, it's unsalted, but the gold pack is salted.

swill453 wrote:Toast. No, not the double-buttering of it. More curious why she says "I always buy unsalted butter", but then sprinkles salt on it. What's the difference?

(I seem to have got into the habit of watching this, as it's on where Only Connect used to be. Must stop.)

Scott.

I think there are many reasons to watch Nigella, not that I have a telly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtS2Ikk7A9I

Salt is put into butter to increase our taste response, just as we put it into pizza, ice-cream, meat, etc. From a dietary perspective we hugely oversalt almost everything.

There is a cultural snobbery in saying that "I only buy unsalted butter", and some virtue-signalling going on (Nigella, virtue-signalling, cor, strewth)

Ditto cultural snobbery for grindy grindy sea salt vs 'normal' salt.

However there is a serious point. If you are going to put salt in, then you will get maximum flavour response in the human if the salt is on the outside of the mouthful. The salt on the outside hits the taste receptors in the mouth and is almost immediately communicated to the brain (yummy, stop bouncing Nigella and let me concentrate on the food). In contrast if the salt is on the inside then a lot of the salt will be delivered to the stomach untasted. Which in turn means that you have to put extra salt in so as to get an equivalent flavour response. That is why so many processed supermarket foods are oversalted, and also there is/was a salting arms-race going on as we become habituated to salt.

So if you are going to put salt in food, then put as little as possible ON the food, and do so as LATE as possible, ideally immediately before putting it in your mouth.

Which all brings back fond memories of a girlfriend who taught me how to eat (and salt) tomatoes. A lot better than Nigella.

regards, dspp

bluedonkey wrote:

Dod101 wrote:

bluedonkey wrote:It probably does have salt. Have a look at the pack.

I did before writing the above. It does not mention salt but neither does it say anywhere on the pack, no salt or with salt so I expect it will have some. I find though that in general a lot of recipes have too much salt in them. I find it a bit like sugar which I suddenly stopped using and now cannot stand it. Not trying to be righteous or anything. it just that my taste buds have changed.

Anyway Kerry Gold is very nice and creamy.

Dod

We're obviously both having a slow day, spending time discussing packs of Kerrygold butter! If you have the pale coloured pack, it's unsalted, but the gold pack is salted.

Indeed. Thanks for the info though. I did not know that and usually buy the gold pack.

Better than arguing pointlessly as I find I am doing more in these days of the Covid restrictions.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:Better than arguing pointlessly as I find I am doing more in these days of the Covid restrictions.

You've put your finger on something there. A MeToo that conventionally remains unspoken.

Will we be able to shake that off if and when Covid restrictions are lifted? I expect a lot of us will find it hard or indeed impossible.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Dod101 wrote:Better than arguing pointlessly as I find I am doing more in these days of the Covid restrictions.

You've put your finger on something there. A MeToo that conventionally remains unspoken.

Will we be able to shake that off if and when Covid restrictions are lifted? I expect a lot of us will find it hard or indeed impossible.

Thanks. We notice this in others but seldom in ourselves. I have though noticed a tendency myself to be more grumpy than usual at the moment.

Dod

Mike4 wrote:Interestingly (perhaps), I have been discovering the delights of good quality butter. For the last decade or two I've not really noticed the slow decline in flavour of the ordinary regular stuff then about a year or so ago I bought a pack of Marks and Spencer "Salted Brittany Butter" by accident, and the taste of it is wonderful, just like I remember butter tasting as a kid. I now eat the stuff exclusively despite the price (two quid). Waitrose sell a near identical butter called "French butter with sea salt crystals". Well worth a try I suggest.

Unsalted butter is grim though, and best avoided IMO. Inspired by the M&S butter experience I hand-made some butter of my own to put on my home-made rustic bread. It too was disgusting and tasteless, even with salt mixed in. Back to the M&S stuff.

[/quote]

For spreading on bread etc. we too only use French butter with sea salt crystals but "Isigny Ste Mère unpasteurised salted butter" is a nice alternative. However, for cooking and baking I use Lidl unsalted. (Or ghee if cooking curries or anything that requires sauteeing in hot butter).

john