Butter is butter is butter… or is it?

“Butter is butter is butter,” a friend of mine suggested, scoffing at my predilection for Kerry Gold above all else.

“Butter is butter is butter,” he repeated, as if thinking me slow of mind as well as wit.

This friend, who shall remain nameless, is convinced that if butter is real butter not a mixed margarine alternative, then it doesn’t matter if it came from Kerry or Donegal or Tyrone.

In that way, he would search out the cheapest butter going, as sure
as eggs are eggs, that it didn’t
matter the branding so long as it was real.

“But what about butters in other countries?” I remember asking of this so-called friend. “You can always tell when you’re abroad that the butter you’re eating isn’t Irish. French butter, for example, I always think has a paler hue.”

“What were you putting your fancy French butter on then?” he sneered.

“Snails and slugs? Or maybe to grease up your hair?”

I ignored him. And because he was being so rude about things, I have refrained from informing him about my new butter discovery, a product you have no doubt already noticed in one of the pictures.

Isigny Sainte-Mere Unpasteurised Salted Butter, I all but stumbled across last week when on a rare trip to Derry. I was in Sainsburys at the time and, I swear to God, the word, ‘unpasteurised’ caught my eye as I walked past.

Now, if you’ve ever eaten a cheese which has been made with unpasteurised milk, you’ll know that the difference between that cheese and that made from pasteurised milk is like night and day.

Consequently, I couldn’t help but wonder if that difference would apply to butter made from unpasteurised cream. My only regret is that I didn’t fill my basket with Isigny Sainte-Mere.

Back at the ranch and after I’d tasted a nip on a teaspoon, I couldn’t wait to get it into a bit of toast so as to give it the full savour appreciation experience. I wasn’t disappointed. This was butter, but not as we know it.

Deeply flavourful (a hit of nuttiness?), Isigny Sainte-Mere Unpasteurised Salted Butter even offered an echo of cheese, such is its potency.

“I love it!” I exclaimed to an empty kitchen.

However, not all of the clan was quite as enthusiastic as me…

Whilst the littlest little human loved it (she could eat normal
butter to a band playing), the biggest little human declared that it was, “just a wee bit too funky for sandwiches.”

This I could almost understand although, having said that, I tried it on the following day’s sarnie just to be on the safe side. And I loved it there too.

Slightly paler in colour to something like Kerrygold, Isigny Sainte-Mere Unpasteurised is nevertheless an exceptional product and the kind of butter i would be happy to have as is, which is to say, on its own on toast or maybe on crusty bread with nothing else other than ham as an embellishment.

Yes, it’s funky and yes, it’s potent but this is the product which definitely bucks the claim of butter being butter being butter.

This is next level butter and yet ironically, before pasteurisation reared its head (thanks Louis), this is the kind of stuff all our forebears would have been eating and thanking themselves lucky Louis hadn’t had yet his breakthrough.

How often have you had a nip of butter on a teaspoon and felt the need to go back for more? It’s that good.

I have even found myself forgetting I’ve put the butter onto something; it’s still very much a new addition to the kitchen.

Then, when I’m eating my peanut butter on toast in the morning (with butter, obvs) and I’m thinking, “Jaysus, that’s wile good.”

Only then do I remember it’s so great because of the Isigny Sainte-Mere.

As with any premium product though, I think this stuff is best enjoyed as unadulterated as possible. Forgoing the odd nip on a spoon (I’m only human), I’m looking forward to trying this as the perfect seasoning for mashed potatoes – or maybe
even within the crusty slices of a garlic butter baguette. God, now that I think of it, how great would this stuff be on toast with the softly poached egg? Slathered onto corn on the cob? On a sirloin with a few grinds of black pepper.

As I said, only regret is that I didn’t fill my basket with Isigny Sainte-Mere.

Another trip to Derry, so.