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The water gives it an airtight seal. The butter needs to be soft enough to press into it and the water needs to be changed every few days. If you live with no AC in very hot summers, ithe butter will drop out into the water.
I have always been among the "leave-it-on-the-counter" school of butter-keeping but only in the cooler weather. In the Summer, it's a puddle of oil so in the fridge it goes. I keep meaning to get one of those butter-keepers with water in the bottom and a lid but somehow, I haven't gotten around to it.
My Dad was strictly a cold butter guy. I like it somewhere between rock-hard and darn-near melted.
I just remembered: We had a dog years ago and he would sneak onto a kitchen chair, eat the butter and just as quietly, slip behind the couch thinking he'd gotten away with it.
What the heck would 'washing' them have to do with whether or not you put them in the fridge?
Doesn't make any sense to me.
And who the heck 'washes' their eggs anyway? Never heard of anyone doing that before.
It's true. Washing the eggs gets rid of a protective coating that makes the eggs non-porous and impervious to bacteria. The flaw in the other poster's post, however, is that most eggs purchased in the US have already been washed before they even hit the store shelves.
The water gives it an airtight seal. The butter needs to be soft enough to press into it and the water needs to be changed every few days. If you live with no AC in very hot summers, ithe butter will drop out into the water.
We had one of those when I as a kid but it was a needless hassle. The water had to be changed, yes, and it was a nuisance to push the butter into the "bell" and the whole thing was hard to wash. I'm not even sure what benefit accrues from the "airtight seal." Air doesn't do anything bad to butter.
I keep a stick of butter in the cupboard in a small glass dish with a lid. No hassle at all.
Does nobody here train their furballs to staythehelloffa the counters and tables?
One stick of butter stays out almost all the time here, except for those rare and short periods when it *might* get so warm that it melts.
I *hate* trying to spread hard butter on bread/toast/pancakes/french toast.
We have a covered butter dish, but it hardly ever gets used, mostly the butter just sits on a small plate on a small tray that sits on the toaster.
(No animals are allowed on counters/tables, dogs are not allowed on chairs, couches or beds.)
I don't have cats, and my dogs can't reach counters or tables if they wanted to, nor are they food stealers. I also keep butter in a covered butter dish, as well. Growing up, where butter was always kept out, we had no house pets - lived on a farm, animals = outdoors.
My in laws will leave butter out at room temperature all day long, sometimes overnight. I am always paranoid about using it or giving it to my kids. Of course Google says you should always keep it refrigerated, but nobody has ever gotten sick from my in laws' room temperature butter.....their creamy, soft, never rips your toast to shreds room temperature butter.
Does anyone else leave their butter out too?
I also leave my butter out. A friend of mine never refrigerated jars of mayo either and no one in the family of six ever suffered consequences. Of course I wouldnt have ever eaten anything she made with mayo. Their immune systems must have been better than most.
What the heck would 'washing' them have to do with whether or not you put them in the fridge?
Doesn't make any sense to me.
And who the heck 'washes' their eggs anyway? Never heard of anyone doing that before.
It's 100% correct.
This applies to farm-fresh eggs, not the ones purchased in grocery stores that come power-washed already. As others pointed out, eggs are laid with a protective, but not visible coating from the chicken. When they are collected and go straight from coop to consumer, as with raising chickens/selling to neighbors/at farmer's markets, etc. (I grew up with chickens). The coating seals the egg (look at eggshells closely, you'll see that they have pores...if they are rinsed like they are when sold commercially to retailers, those pores are open to the air/whatever the egg comes into contact with).
If the eggs are left in their natural state, they have a decent shelf life. We had a wire egg basket on the counter where we would bring in the eggs we collected for home use. They didn't require refrigeration if they were being regularly used, much like butter. They'd be okay for a couple of weeks (depending on a few external factors), but never sat more than a few days without being used. For people who keep chickens and harvest their own eggs, it's typical to write the collection date on the shell in pencil to keep track of how old the egg is and use them in order, whether you refrigerate them or not.
Most of you will be probably shocked to learn that I don't refrigerate my yogurt either.
I make my own at home, but even the one from the store doesn't get refrigerated. It gets briefly cooled before consumption, but not refrigerate. To benefit the bacteria...
A friend of mine never refrigerated jars of mayo either and no one in the family of six ever suffered consequences. Of course I wouldnt have ever eaten anything she made with mayo. Their immune systems must have been better than most.
The myth that mayonnaise spoils about six times faster than anything else is just that, a myth. Jars of commercial mayonnaise last practically forever, even out of the refrigerator.
Now, I've made homemade mayonnaise for my whole life, and I do keep it in the fridge where it lasts at least a month. (We eat it up by then, and I've never had any go bad). But if you google, you'll be warned of dire consequences if you eat homemade mayonnaise at all, and you'll definitely die in agony if you keep it longer than three days.
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