The latest foodie fad is going to do a number on your cholesterol. High-end restaurants are now serving butter as a dish all on its own. As reported in Grub Street, the pinnacle of dining opulence is now a board smeared with butter, dressed up with salt, spices and herbs.
According to food historian K.C. Hysmith, butter was a status symbol in Europe in the Middle Ages, and so popular that wealthy Catholics paid a tax to the church to slip out of the butter ban during lent.
In New Orleans – a city that knows a thing or two about overindulgence – the restaurant Mamou serves a high end Plugrá butter service.
"One of my employees actually jokes that she wants to be enveloped in the butter after death," says executive chef Tom Branighan.
Las Vegas eatery Gigi's offres caviar topped butter for a mere $32. Or there's the butter service at Quality Bistro in New York, doling out $38 butter plates at a rate of 30 per night. The indulgence makes sense to anyone who's slathered their toast in the creamy yellow stuff.
"I have a finite number of dollars I can spend when I go out," says Jo LaRocca, an urban grower who lives in New Orleans, and who ordered the Espelette butter at MaMou with her partner to celebrate her 50th birthday. "So I want it to be good." And what's better than butter?"
See also: The neurotypicals are smearing butter directly on cutting boards and calling them "butter boards"
