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Biscuit and Butter, Memphis by abbyladybug, on Flickr

I love butter. I love its soft, smooth texture and how the saltiness of it stays on my tongue for so long even after the creaminess has moved on. I love it cold, stolen in a little sliver from the refrigerator. I love it warm from the butter bell on the table where its comforting aroma beckons me as I pass by. I love it hot, melted and dripping from my chin. I love how it elevates bread to an everyday crown jewel on my plate, coddles eggs in a skillet and carries spices across my tongue, leaving just a tiny bit to savor long after each bite is throughly chewed and swallowed.

I vividly remember cold New Jersey mornings when the milkman would open the squeaky lid of the aluminum milk box on our front stoop and load it up with fresh milk, cheese and butter, taking the clanking milk bottles away with him on his truck. He was a magical man, appearing in the long, blue shadows of early morning in his all-white garb and snappy cap but disappearing before I could rush to the door to meet him. In my four-year-old mind, he was my everyday Santa, bringing gifts to me. He came like the Sandman or the Tooth Fairy, regular and trustworthy. I made up stories about him and drew pictures that I left in the milk box for him. He was far more faithful than the mailman who only stopped at our house if the little red mailbox flag was up; not as fickle as the repairman who saw to our washer and refrigerator; and didn’t cause Daddy to shake his head and sigh like the Avon lady did. He was my hero.

The butter he brought me changed like the seasons. In January it was nearly white and nearly tasteless, but by March the onion and garlic flavor in the butter was so strong Mom didn’t have to add them when she cooked. In June the butter was so dark it was almost orange and Mom would put the butter dish under something too heavy for me to lift to keep me out of it. In the heat of summer we often had less butter and I could almost taste the “green” grass flavor in it. Thanksgiving butter was my favorite. It was dark once again, and plentiful, sweet and salty, with some unidentifiable tang to it. I’d trade the turkey, the dressing, the cranberries, even my piece of pumpkin pie for just one more blob of butter on my plate.

When I was ten my mother’s father passed away and my grandmother came to live with us for a few months. She’d slap my hand when I reached for more butter. She told me that butter belonged on bread, not on spoons. She warned me that a cousin had to be buried in a piano crate because she was so fat, and if I didn’t lay off the butter, that would be my fate as well. Grandma meant well. She was a new bride during the depression, and though her husband was a very successful dairy farmer, back when grass was all cows ate, the best milk and butter went to the customers, not his own family. Butter was a treat, it was candy on your birthday not an everyday blessing. And we really did have a cousin buried in a piano crate. They had to lift her out of the bed with a crane up through the roof because the doors were too small, and the roof needed replacing anyway. The thought that I could suffer a similar fate terrified me.

I learned to couch my love for butter in “acceptable” forms. Always on bread, not on spoons. If it was melted, it had better be on top of sweet corn or popcorn. Of course, Mom smiled when she figured out that I was sucking the butter off the corn on the cob without actually eating any corn. The attraction was just too strong, too compelling. On my sixteenth birthday, my father took me out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and ordered lobster. We had long since switched to margarine to avoid the piano crate coffins the doctors and ad agencies assured us were in our future if we stuck to butter. I nearly cried when I saw the lobster came with a big ramekin of melted butter. It was real butter, sweet and salty, dripping off my chin onto the little cloth bib. Dad didn’t mind asking for another ramekin even before the lobster-eating lessons started, he understood my guilty pleasure.

Now a mom studying nutrition, I have located a farmer that makes butter the same way my grandfather did. When I purchase her butter we talk about the grass, the sun and the color of the butter. My children have seen me sneak a bite of butter and tried it. My youngest is especially enthralled. She gave our farmer a thank you card at this week’s farmer’s market, thanking her for the dark orange, sweet and salty everyday crown jewel at our table.

I had an epiphany this week. What if I cast off the guilt and rules of acceptable butter consumption and just indulged once again? What if, instead of making sure the butter was supported by a piece of bread, I just enjoyed a little sliver of the stuff plain? Would the world end? Would the Food Pyramid Police give me a warning or just cart me away in handcuffs? Would I really be more likely to spend eternity in a piano crate if I skipped the calories and carbs in the popcorn and just opted for a spoonful of sweet, salty melted butter instead?

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.