Butter & Garlic: The Sweet Story of Two Favorites

Some foods we like, some we love, some we crave. Butter and garlic belong to the latter, and we’re not the only ones who have thought so. Odes to garlic’s vitalizing powers are carved into the Giza pyramids. The Romans ate it for courage as they strode to conquer the world. Odysseus gulped down a head or so to escape being turned into a pig on Circe’s island. And butter has its own virtues. Abraham had Sarah serve it to the three angels who popped in for a visit on the plains of Mamre. And ancient Buddhists likened the 12 steps to refinement to the stages by which the Asian clarified butter ghee is derived from milk (ghee’s literal translation is liberation). And while the caramelized ooze of slow-roasted garlic or the velvet intensity of a beurre blanc might not signal enlightenment, they come pretty close. Judging by the pervasive use of the two iconic ingredients throughout the world, it seems that most cultures would agree.

About 5 million metric tons of butter are melted, spread, swirled and kneaded annually around the world, with India consuming the most, China and Japan the least. (In Hindu India, it’s the only animal fat permitted.) France falls right in the middle, somewhat below the United States. In case you wondered, ICE’s stockroom dispenses about 500 pounds of it each week.

Those of you cringing in saturated fat-induced horror, take note: Himalayan tribesmen routinely push 110 years thanks to a diet based on butter and yogurt, and Nepalese Sherpas wouldn’t think of showing up for work without their stash of yak-butter tea. Of course, their cows and yaks aren’t exposed to growth hormones and antibiotics, which filter down from American cows’ systems into ours. But eaten wisely, a little animal fat can be a good thing—much healthier, studies show, than hydrogenated-oil-laden margarines and spreads. And besides, there’s that flavor….

Over 120 different chemical compounds meld to produce butter’s incomparable taste and texture. The majority are found in milk fat, which accounts for over 80 percent of the product. Water makes up most of the rest, with a tiny percentage of curd. Three USDA grades of butter are available: AA, made from high-quality sweet cream; A, from lesser cream, which can taste slightly acidic; and B, which can be crumbly and watery and is used mainly in manufacturing.

As with wine, the concept of “terroir,” the taste imbued by the earth, pertains to butter. Butter from cows fed on grass will taste different from that of cows fed on grain. The taste of farmstead butters will change from one pasture to another, most notably in Brittany, where salt-marsh pastures produce butter with varying hints of salinity

But butter tinged naturally by salt-marsh grass is one thing, and butter processed with a salt additive is another. ICE chef-instructor Michael Schwartz likens our salted butter to self-rising flour: a convenience food that has no place in the professional kitchen, where “ season to taste” is the chef’s credo. But salted butter’s origins are more ominous.
“ Traditionally, salt was added to cover up a lack of freshness,” says ICE chef-instructor Sabrina Sexton.

So keep it unsalted, but especially, keep it under wraps. Kept covered in the refrigerator, separate from other foods whose aromas easily taint its flavor, butter will serve you long and well. But its downfall in storage is its gift in cooking. All fats absorb and elevate the flavors they come in contact with, and in the case of butter, the elevation can be stratospheric. Think of the pedestrian onion, or, more pertinent to this article, garlic—sautéed in butter, it becomes rhapsodic (just start your butter in a cool pan to keep the milk solids from burning).

Butter, with its 120 compounds, and garlic, which has hundreds more, make a brilliant and enviable marriage. “The richness of butter plays nicely against the acidity and sweetness of garlic,” ICE chef-instructor Ted Siegel points out. “Garlic’s got a lot of natural sugar and it caramelizes beautifully with butter.”

But like most complex entities, garlic can be temperamental. Burned, it becomes acrid; left too raw, its high acid content leaves it sharp and bitter. When garlic is exposed to heat, size is everything. A fine mince will burn much more quickly than a coarse cut. “Whether you mince or chop depends on the length of cooking time and how high the heat is,” Chef Sexton advises. ICE alumnus Allison Vines-Rushing crushes it for her popular celery-root soup at Manhattan’s new Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar, where she is executive chef. “I cook a whole head of it, peeled and crushed, with celery root and milk,” she explains. “The garlic gives the soup a depth and earthiness it otherwise wouldn’t have. ” And all the chefs urge caution when using it raw. “There’s only a few instances where I would, and then I use it sparingly,” says Chef Sexton. And never pack raw peeled garlic away, in oil or otherwise. Botulism is an avid opportunist.

Preparation impacts garlic’s salubrious results as much as its culinary ones. Heating it forms compounds that reduce blood pressure and cholesterol. Crushing it incites an antibacterial frenzy. Our modern laboratories apply it to cancer and AIDS, as ancient Egyptians did to plague and boils. A papyrus from 1500 BC recommends it for 22 ailments.

With about 300 garlic types grown worldwide, that’s very auspicious news. Categorized as either hardneck (shorter shelf life, wide taste span) or softneck (easier to grow, hotter taste), garlic comes in a profusion of colors and shapes that gives flowers a run for their money. Some, like the scarlet-striped Arden variety from Russia, even look like a flower, a Portofino tulip, to be exact. Uzbekistan, Spain, Louisiana, Guatemala, China—you name it, they grow it, and eat it.

And that’s actual cloves, not the processed variations that Americans often substitute for them. Garlic salt, garlic power, the pre-chopped stuff in jars—all are collectively spurned by ICE instructors. “They don’t have very good flavor,” asserts Chef Sexton, conceding that the powder could have use in a dry rub.

So crush it, chop it, slice it—just eat it, at least one clove a day, health experts suggest. Even cooked still swaddled in its papery skin, you can’t keep a good clove down—as long as you remember to remove the skins before serving, cautions Chef Schwartz. “You don’t want to give your guests a big, nasty garlic skin to chew on.” But Chef Siegel has another take. “I would serve the skins on,” he says. “The guests can squeeze the garlic out themselves and use it as a condiment.” All swoon at the notion of long-simmered cloves, a caramelized pillow of lush confit. “You have these little golden chunks that are unbelievable,” Chef Schwartz muses.
No wonder that 3,000 years ago, the Chinese seasoned a lamb with garlic before sacrificing it to the gods. Now, if only they had added some rosemary and a little red wine….

Food writer Diane Weintraub Pohl, ICE culinary graduate ’02, is a contributing writer at Westchester magazine and freelances for other publications, including The New York Times.