The love of Bretons for salted butter?
The love of Bretons for salted butter?
What a strange idea to put salt in a dairy product!
Butter has been used for centuries and centuries, but not always as a cooking ingredient. For a long time, peoples like the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians used it as a beauty product, in the form of cream and balm against burns.
In the Middle Ages, it had become common for the French to put salt in the butter (“amann” in Breton), this allowed it to be better preserved.
But on March 20, 1342, a tax was put in place that upset French habits: the gabelle.
The gabelle was a tax on salt which was very very expensive for the population, so expensive that few people could afford it. This forced the French to remove salt from their consumption and settle for soft butter.
All the French, except the Bretons! At the time, Brittany was a territory almost independent of the kingdom of France. This independence allowed the Bretons not to have to pay the salt tax to the French monarchy and therefore to be able to use all the salt from their salt marshes.
The mineral produced and harvested in large quantities was sold little in France, because beyond the borders, taxes had to be paid.
This is why the Bretons were able to put it everywhere and thus preserve their food. Practical at a time when the refrigerator did not exist!
The gabelle was abolished in 1790 by the National Assembly just after the French Revolution. But the culinary habit resisted and still persists today.
It has since been proven that adding salt to butter helps drive out the water therein and thus bring out its aroma. One more reason to use semi-salted butter!
Isigny PDO unsalted butter churn - 250g
Price
€8.92
Unsalted churned butter 82% - 250g
Price
€8.34
