2026, Food, home, Mysteries

Half Butter?

36 Comments

YA and I switched from margarine to butter a long time ago.  It was a hit to our budget at the time so I’ve spent years keeping an eye out for butter on sale.  I have absolutely no brand loyalty to any kind of butter, unless you count the seriously fancy hand churned butter that I get a Kowolskis every couple of years.

I’ve also been lucky enough to have two friends who have worked at dairies.  My friend Tim worked at one of the big names for years and he would regularly be able to grab a pound or two of butter from their “free shop”.  Right about the time he retired, my friend Rita moved to the same company and now part of my solstice gift every year is a gift bag of butter.  Such wonderful friends.

Because of how I acquire some of my butter, I don’t always know what I have in the fridge.  Last week, I opened up a box of butter and was surprised when eight little wrapped bars fell out.  Instead of four ½ cup bars, there were eight ¼ cup bars.  As a baker who goes through quite a bit of butter, I laughed out loud.  I didn’t know anybody packaged butter like this.  I do occasionally need a half a stick of butter but it’s pretty rare and when I do, I just cut a whole bar in half.  Not a reach. 

But I suppose there may actually be a need for these half bars since somebody somewhere when to the trouble to manufacture and package these things???

Butter or margarine?  Any brand loyalty?  Would you appreciate half bars?

36 thoughts on “Half Butter?”

  1. It’s been so many decades since we used margarine for anything, part of me is surprised it’s still around. For a long time we used to buy separate butters for cooking and for the table. The table butter was, first, a hand-rolled butter from the co-op, then for a few years it was Irish butter, then New Zealand butter. Our baking & cooking butter was the more economical generic kind. I’ve never paid any attention to the specification of unsalted butter in recipes. Those recipes invariably call for salt to be added at some point; I just add less.
    Some time in the last year or two there was an online taste comparison of butters. In that comparison, the regular Trader Joe’s butter scored quite high. We were already using it for our cooking butter and decided to use it for our table butter as well.

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    1. Four tablespoons of butter is a typical amount called for when one is making a roux, so I suppose you could call it roux butter. Still, cutting a stick in half is no ordeal.

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  2. Yes, I’ve used butter instead of margarine (or Crisco) for decades now… except when cooking/baking for a friend who can’t eat dairy products – then I use an alternative from the co-op.

    No need for half bars – just creates more packaging.

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  3. We get Irish butter (salted) and use it for everything. It is a splurge, but worth it. I just decrease the amount of salt in recipes that call for unsalted. I use lard for pie crusts and pastries. Crisco just isn’t acceptable anymore. I get the lard from a butcher shop in Pennsylvania. It freezes well. Husband likes to use it for frying and browning.

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  4. As a former dairy farmer, it is, and has been, only butter. There is so substitute. That other term is never used.

    I always thought the tablespoon measurements on the packaging was very clever. Such a simple solution.

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  5. I’m old enough to remember when margarine was sold uncolored in a pouch with a button of colorant and you would have to squeeze and work the colorant into the fat to approximate a butter color. That was my job as a child.

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        3. The same dairy industry influence that prevented margarine from having the colorant pre-incorporated led to the labeling of Velveeta as “pasteurized processed cheese product”, rather than “cheese”.

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  7. I use the butter/margarine debate to simply discard any food/health advice I don’t like. The research can do a 180 at any time. so I’ll eat as I please.

    Store brand butter, or whatever is on sale, will do.

    Unsalted butter is often specified in recipes simply as a way of conveying to you exactly how much salt was present when the recipe was tested. Different brands of salted butter don’t use a consistent amount of salt, so using unsalted is a way of controlling for that factor. Serious bakers often opt for unsalted, but more most of us it’s not necessary.

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  8. Maternal Great Grandfather fled Hamburg and came to the US in 1914 after he was caught smuggling butter on the Hamburg wharves. There was a very rampant smuggling problem in Breman and Hamburg from Niedersachsen

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      1. No, it was really butter. I don’t know what governmental entity was charging high duties on butter, but if he could smuggle it without paying duty on it, he had a good market for it.

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        1. I think Bremen and Hamburg imposed duties on imports from Niedersachsen and elsewhere, , and there was a black market in Bremen and Hamburg for those goods.

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  10. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Butter here. I heard many stories from my mother, her mother, and aunts about churning butter and how superior hand churned butter is. I am eyeing their cream pitcher and butter paddles right now, displayed on my kitchen shelf. I do not know what happened to the churn–it was probably abandoned on the farm, then thrown away. Grandma’s quote: “Everything tastes better with a cup of butter and a cup of cream.” That was especially true of her strawberry shortcake.

    Preferred brand: Kerrygold or Kirkland Grass fed.

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  11. At one time I kept our butter in a butter bell. It keeps the butter at room temp and spreadable very well. The potter I bought it from said to never use unsalted butter or it would get moldy very quickly. I put it to the test, and he was right. Salted buttr never got moldy in the bell. ~Occasionally Anonymous

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  13. My mom’s father made butter for a living. The farmers brought their milk to the creamery and he made it into butter. Mom remembers playing in the ice house where the butter was stored with big blocks of lake ice covered with straw.

    So of course, she used butter most of the time, though margarine was around occasionally. I don’t know what she used it for. She used lard for pie crust and kept a cup of bacon drippings in the fridge for making fried eggs, etc.

    As an adult, I use butter almost all the time. I’m not too fussy about the brand but it has to be unsalted. I used to use lard for pie crust but it became too hard to find. We keep a tub of margarine for making grilled cheese sandwiches (easier to spread).

    I haven’t seen the half sticks, but have seen quarter-pound sticks that are short and chunky instead of the usual shape. They were confusing to work with.

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    1. The place in Pennsylvania where I get our lard does a great job shipping the lard, and the lard is really nice in pie crusts. Let me know if you want the name and phone number

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  14. I’ve seen and used the half sticks. I thought it was convenient. It really isn’t much more packaging since the same amount of butter is wrapped in the same amount of paper. I don’t usually buy that brand though. If I can, I choose Hope butter from the Hope Creamery. It is much more expensive, but the flavor is so much better. The entire pound of butter is only wrapped in one paper wrapper. It isn’t divided into sticks at all – it’s the full pound. You have to cut or slice it, which is challenging for baking. I like Tillamook butter too. I use unsalted for baking (rare), and salted for general use. I haven’t used margarine in a very long time.

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