interesting article about butter in the globe this morning. i always wondered why croissants here were not as sublime as in other countries…

“Canada is a butter backwater, with less variety and quality and far higher prices than nearly any other food-loving nation.  In Europe and the United States, it’s available in myriad permutations, from gently nutty regional butters, to fragrant, seasonal butters made with the summer milk of a single herd, to extra high-fat “dry” compositions used in baking.

In Canada, butter is just butter. Give or take a few very minor variations, it’s a monopoly-produced dairy commodity, the same from coast to coast.

As scores of top pâtissiers have realized, Canadian butter is uniformly made with a government-mandated 80-per-cent fat content, while most butter in Europe – the stuff that makes for great pastries – starts at 82 or 83 per cent. What’s worse, Canada’s government levies a 289.5-per-cent tariff on all but a tiny quantity of foreign butter.”

i get that these regulations began in the name of “fairness” (classic canada) but the lack of options and the power of the dairy industry is down right ridiculous. this reminds me of the article on quotas and the impossibility of purchasing small farm raised chickens last month.

maybe soon we’ll be able to experience higher quality croissants (one of my top ten favourite things in LIFE)