Partially buttered up

It started with a little harmless news reading. A Darigold factory in Caldwell resumed some of its production this week after closing Oct. 12 for a fire. Crews are back on partial butter production, but powdered milk fans are still left high and dry (you know, like their preferred lactose product in the cupboard shelf?).

That's good news, probably, if you like partial butter — or have any clue what that means. I didn’t. Lactose intolerance is comorbid with lactose ignorance, I’m afraid.

So like any self-respecting person of the 21st century, I turned to Google. That turned up zilch — a veritable googolplex of frothy, freshly squeezed (can you say squeezed?) milk, unpasteurized, oozing with pus, blood and everything else we pasteurize out of the cow formula we drink. Trying to Google the meaning of partial butter turned up confusing hits like recipes for butter — did you know it doesn’t come straight out of the cow with everything else the milk was baptized in? It was like reaching for a can of powdered milk and getting a handful of cream of wheat instead, because the Darigold factory hasn’t returned to full production yet.

How is it possible to lack answers with unfettered access to the world wide web? I asked around the office, desperate for clarification. The best explanation was that partial butter is what you get when a dairy factory only resumes partial production. One desk neighbor thoughtfully pointed out that if a fire resulted from full dairy production, partial butter manufacture was just good business; it must be half as flammable.

Too true, though not the tablespoon of truth I was foraging for. Days passed. The question haunted me.

I enlisted more help — parents, family and friends. But of course, there’s nothing worse than texting people out of the blue with an equally out of left field question; these days that’s a longwinded synonym for “guess what?” I had to let each loved one down, plaintively explaining that I had no way to sate their curious appetites and that I myself was scouring for answers.

They seemed moderately less engrossed in the tale than expected.

But good things come to those who wait.

After days of searching and hours (at least two) after the last beseeching texts — messenger pigeons homing in the digital dark — I got an answer. Two of them. When it rains, it pours.

Devin Weeks, the only person you can count on to pick up the world’s most boring expedition with zeal, was smart enough to ask her mother, a baker and superiorly knowledgeable person. Her mother knew exactly what partial butter is.

• partial butter (n.): regular dairy butter cut with margarine, approx. 50-50 split

For further confirmation, a baking friend remembered that partial margarine was a product cut with olive oil or a similar substitute (I can’t believe it’s not margarine!). Partial butter must naturally be cut with another substance, like olive oil — or perhaps margarine (I can’t believe it’s partial butter!).

• partial butter (n.,) revised: regular dairy butter cut with margarine, olive oil or similar substitute, approx. 50-50 split

That would also explain the confusing butter recipes — most of which involved adding olive oil, herbs and other ingredients to butter. Whoops.

It just goes to show you, no matter how great the digital web is, you can’t replace your social one, either. And when in doubt, ask Mom. Just be prepared to ask someone else’s mom, too.

But I have a new query: If you replace regular butter with partial butter, will the cat still jump on the counter to lick the tin?