Virginia Apple and her daughter, Rosie, are getting ready to bake a cake.
Virginia tells Rosie that on this date in 1869, oleomargarine was patented.
Rosie is surprised. She assumed Friends have always used margarine. Laura Ingalls used butter though, come to think of it. She had to churn the buttermilk for hours and hours to make butter.
Virginia explains the history of margarine to her interested student.
Back in the 1860's, Napoleon III held a contest to see if someone could come up with a butter substitute for his army and navy because butter spoiled too quickly.
Hoppolyte Mege-Mouriez of Provence, France invented oleomargarine which was basically made from beef fat.
In the United States, the dairy industry was not happy with the butter substitute and put heavy taxes on making yellow margarine. Without the coloring, the margarine did not look very appetizing because it looked like lard.
Finally, in 1951, the tax system ended and margarine was here to stay.
Margarine is actually a major source of Vitamin E. It now consists of vegetable oils and healthy ingredients.
Rosie has enjoyed her history lesson and thinks she will call margarine Napoleon Butter from this day forward.
Now...it's time to bake a cake!
Fabulous--I was reading a book back in April 2009 and got interested in margarine from a reference in the book, and discovered the same information.
ReplyDeleteWhat we don't know, eh?
http://jjbks.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/margarine-rides-to-banbury-cross/
Thank you so much for the link, Judy!
DeleteI visited your blogs today and really...you are a very talented artist, jewelry designer, and writer!
But that green drink? The sight of it sent me to the kitchen to pour a nice tall Pepsi over some ice!
Oh how interesting, I never knew this...I thought it was more recent than this. Thank you for such an interesting post.
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