Butter, it’s been you all along
I was dreaming my life had ended. I was walking along a beach, a large stick of cultured butter at my side, and the path along the sand marking my life was defined by our footsteps. My body had finally succumbed to the stresses of yo-yo dieting, spurts of working out, and extreme lifestyle changes—all driven by the belief that being healthy was better than being happy. After all the starts and stops, the good foods and the bad, in the end all I could think about was how hard I’d tried to be fit and eat right.
I’d tried cutting fat, sugar, and bread. I survived on nothing but dry, canned tuna. I spent six long months eating nothing but blocks of cheese and strips of bacon. Vegan. Pescatarian. Locavore. Mediterranean. I fasted intermittently. I consumed “whole” foods from Whole Foods. I ate organic, biodynamic, and regeneratively, responsibly, environmentally, consciously farmed foods as the staple of my diet. I convinced myself I loved kale. And after all this, I still died.
As I looked back over the path of my life, butter had always been by my side during moments of failure—whether slowly steeped with fresh garlic in its aromatic golden aura, or slathered atop a slice of warm, crusty, freshly baked sourdough bread sprinkled with a pinch of sea salt. Butter was there when I made a roux that could turn anything into a silky sauce, its elegance so magical I replayed those moments of thickening over and over in my mind as I tried to fall asleep at night. It made a buttery croissant more buttery, and it sang to me as it warmed in my pan, waiting to turn dizzily beaten eggs into a custardy moment of happiness.
Butter had been my best friend, my worst enemy, my secret weapon, my guilty pleasure, my confidant, my companion, and my sidepiece. Butter had been the blood in my veins, and the lub-dub in my heart. Butter had been my everything. And even when I shunned butter after diving headfirst into each of my many health-kick flings, deep down I always knew butter was merely giving me space—and was never any farther away than the compartment in my refrigerator door.
Looking back at my footprints in the sand, I noticed that the smooth, creamy, buttery indentions disappeared during those hard times of dieting. I turned to the large stick of butter beside me and asked, “Why did you leave me in my time of need?” And the butter put a pat on my shoulder and said: “That’s when I carried you.”
In the end, I realized butter had been the nutritious ingredient I was searching for all along. I was misguided by the food-pyramid scheme I was raised on and blind to the truth. Butter wasn’t the heart-clogging, obesity-causing villain—it was the one who had always been there, loving me unconditionally and patiently waiting for me to realize that kale will never love me back.
Matt Miller
Matt Miller is the owner of Kitchen Lingo Books in Long Beach, California. He has written about food and wine for LA Weekly, Eater LA, Eaten Magazine, Delicious (UK), Riot & Roux, & Then Magazine, and his recipes have been featured in Cooking Light Magazine, on the Travel Channel, and the Food Network.
