A HARTE APPETITE: NO MARGARINE OF ERROR: REAL BUTTER IS THE WAY TO GO WHEN A LOT IS AT STAKE

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported the exploits of a Sheboygan man who snuck into the basement of a tavern in the wee hours of the morning intent upon stealing some beer and who found himself locked inside with no way out except for a small opening in a door. It was a tight squeeze, but by smearing himself generously with some butter, which was also being stored in the basement, the slick would-be thief was able to make his escape.

Perhaps the culprit could have just as easily eluded the authorities had he relied on Parkay, but to me his story just goes to show what I have always maintained: When you've got a lot at stake, there is no substitute for real butter.

Yes, I know there's a product on the market now called "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" I can. That's not to say that ICBINB is not a perfectly good spread. It's just that when it comes to butter vs. margarine, I side with Joan Gussow, a nutrition professor at Columbia University. She says, "I trust cows more than chemists."

Sin of indulgence

From a health standpoint, it would appear that her faith is well placed. Concerned about their profiles, both visual and lipid, many Americans have become wary of butter, adopting an attitude almost as intolerant as the one Martin Luther alleged represented the position of 16th century church officials bent on selling dispensations. He complained, "Eating butter, they say, is a greater sin than to lie, blaspheme, or indulge in impurity." (Accordingly, as Jean-Louis Flandrin observes, those countries of the world which rely on butter for cooking are pretty much the ones which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church at that time.)

But now medical science tells us that margarine may not be so good for us, either. For one thing, it contains transfatty acids, which can increase cholesterol levels.

It's not really health concerns that prompt me to prefer butter over substitutes. Fundamentally, it's the taste involved. As the Oxford Companion to Food notes, "Butter is a fine cooking medium; the excellent flavour which it imparts to food is matched by no oil or other fat." Food writer Al Martinez goes even further. He says, "Without butter, fine cooking would disappear from the face of the earth." He doesn't overstate the case by much, as far as I'm concerned. I concur wholeheartedly with his observation that butter is to food what love is to romance. "Without it," he declares, "there is only lard and emptiness."

Popularity differs by region

Realization of this truth, perhaps, accounts for the fact that people have been making butter for centuries. The first documented mention of the process is in the sacred songs of dwellers of Asiatic India, dating back almost 2,000 years before Christ. But Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat notes that long before that, around 3500 B.C., the vertically designed churn was in use, an improvement over the even more archaic Mongolian method of churning cream horizontally in a leather flask. By biblical times butter was well known, and apparently well regarded, as confirmed by a line in the Old Testament: "She brought forth butter in a lordly dish." (Judges 5:25.)

Curiously, the ancient Greeks and Romans didn't care much for butter, preferring oil instead. Pliny, in fact, called butter a food of the barbarians. In medieval France, it was even thought to make a person susceptible to leprosy. Thus, according to Toussaint-Samat, butter was all but unknown in Italy until around the 15th century and, incredibly, Taillevent's classic French cookbook of the late 14th century calls for it in a mere 2 percent of its recipes. Even today, the relative popularity of butter and oil differs geographically. People in English-speaking countries tend to favor butter while those in Hispanic countries favor oil. The French are evenly divided. (Even so, their per capita consumption of butter is three times ours.)

Spreading fame

Countries differ also when it comes to the animal sources they rely on for their butter. In the United States butter is made with cow's milk. But in India they use water buffalo's milk; in parts of Asia, sheep's milk; in Egypt, goat's milk; and in Tibet, yak's milk. Horse, donkey, and camel butter are the rule in some parts of the world. Not surprisingly, the species employed affects the flavor of the butter produced, as does its diet. For example, the prized butter of Normandy gets its distinctive flavor from aromatic herbs ingested by the cows there.

Cultural preferences notwithstanding, butter has become the object of spreading fame. In fact, it has even been seen as sacred. East Indians of the Vedic era petitioned it as a deity and used butter made from the milk of sacred cows for religious ceremonies. Tibetans used to simmer their dead priests in it prior to embalming them. (Talk about buttering someone up!) Moreover, butter has been used for cosmetic and medicinal purposes as well. Cleopatra reportedly bathed in the stuff and not that long ago it was thought that a pat of butter placed near a person suffering from cancer would absorb the disease.

But it's clearly what butter does to food that has sealed its reputation as a substance for which there is no rival. In baked goods, as a medium for sauting, as the basis of a sauce, or just slathered on good bread, nothing can compare to it. As Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin properly proclaims, "Life would be so lonely without butter."

Gooey Butter Cake

Like so many great culinary discoveries, this one was an accident. According to legend, a German baker in St. Louis in the 1930's mistakenly added the wrong proportions of ingredients to his cake batter and the result became a city tradition. This recipe, adapted from the Junior League cookbook St. Louis Days ... St. Louis Nights, is the one used at the venerable Heimburger Bakery.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour, divided

1 and 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 and 1/2 sticks plus 1/3 cup butter, divided

1 egg

2/3 cup evaporated milk

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

powdered sugar

Directions:

Combine 1 cup flour and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cut in 1/3 cup butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling. Pat into bottom of 9x9-inch greased pan. Beat remaining 1 and 1/4 cups sugar and remaining stick and a half of butter until light and fluffy. Mix in egg. Alternately add remaining cup of flour and evaporated milk, mixing in after each addition. Add corn syrup and vanilla and blend well. Pour batter over crust and bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes until nearly set. Do not overbake. Cool before serving.

Listen to A Harte Appetite Friday mornings and Saturday afternoons on KRCU, 90.9 on your FM dial. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.