Butter

Beurre

What it is

Archaeologists keep finding “bog butter” — barrels buried in Irish peat two thousand years ago, still recognisable. Why France splits into salted Brittany and sweet-cream everywhere else is a tax story: Brittany was exempt from the salt tax, so its butter kept the salt.

In the kitchen

Cook it past melting and it becomes beurre noisette — brown butter that smells of hazelnut and improves nearly everything, from fish to financiers.

Goes with

Potato Egg Corn Sage Button mushroom Honey Spinach Scallop

Also used with

Bergeron apricot Absinthe Lactic acid Pauillac lamb Salt marsh lamb Aiguillette baronne

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