Bordier Butter

"Bordier Butter, the Soul of Butter, half salted" is printed on a plain paper wrapper.  This is arguably the best butter in the world. It is completely artisanal, made not with modern technology for mass production but by hand, using technology hundreds of years old (if not thousands).

Butter is made from milk. So, the quality of milk is important. Bordier gets milk from a community of local farmers in Bretagne (all with strong relationships with him and each other). This community of farmers share farming practices and support each other. It is hard to hanky panky when you are one family. The cows graze freely. They are not stuck in factory stalls and force fed grain.

So, the milk already contains the aromas of wild flowers. No, really. 30 years ago, we travelled through Bretagne, en route to Mt. St. Michel in Normandie. We lodged with the bed and breakfasts provided by French farmers. In those days, there was no AirBnB but if you drive into the tourist office of any town, you can get a list of farms offering bed and breakfasts. The milk we drank at breakfast came warm from the cow. It was not pasteurised. It was fresh, still warm from the cow's own body temperature. It was creamy, rich and had a slight floral bouquet.

That is the type of milk used to make Bordier Butter.

Regular butter is made in large steel vats. The aim is to produce a lot of product at high speed. Bordier has ONE malaxeur made of wood that kneads its butter slowly, lovingly for exactly the time it takes to reach a certain texture. The time needed can vary. It depends on the season, the temperature, the humidity. So, the butter artisan needs to be able to read his butter. You need butter EQ so to speak. You need that 6th sense for butter.

This is why the mouth feel of Bordier butter is nothing like supermarket butter.

Once you have ever had Bordier butter, your tastebuds will be spoilt for butter. No other butter even comes close to the aroma and the texture of Bordier butter. Bordier Butter is different throughout the year. I like the spring butter best. In spring, the cows feed on fresh grass and spring flowers. So, the butter has a floral bouquet. 

I like Bordier best on top of Japanese short grain rice. No, not mixed in. On top of. Big cold chunks on top of steaming rice and quickly eaten before the butter melts into the rice.

Bordier makes many different flavours of butter. I only like the plain butter. The plain butter does not have distractions. It is pure, simple butter. Only then can you really taste how different it is from supermarket butter.

Bordier butter is expensive. It is expensive on the pocket. It is expensive for my waistline. So, I almost never buy it. The Daughter came home on Saturday carrying one brick of it as a gift to me. What an indulgence!

Another thing about Bordier Butter that catches my fancy is where it resides. This beurrerie sits inside the walled fortifications of Saint Malo: as in, in the wall itself. Saint Malo is a fortified town that sits across from England on the English Channel. Throughout history, Saint Malo has played an important part in the Franco-English wars. Saint Malo pirates departed from here to attack English ships and steal plunder. The walls of Saint Malo are famous. The guard dogs of Saint Malo, who patrolled the walls of Saint Malo, are also famous. 

The Guard Dogs of Saint Malo.

The Walls of Saint Malo.