The picture above is Tremella aurantia, also called golden ear or fairy butter. It is a jelly fungus tbhat came to be called fairy butter because of its golden hue and the imagination of people who like to tell fairy tales. Once thought to be inedible, the fairy butter mushroom is now harvested for restaurants that use it in recipes to soak up the flavors of spices.
But it the other kind of fairy butter that we want to bring back. It is a recipe popular in Colonial America for impressing guests when you offer it to spread on homemade sweet breads. This fairy butter consists of freshly-churned butter, eggs, flavoring water, and sugar. But presentation is key: the combined ingredients are pressed through a strainer or sieve to render it into delicate strands (all the easier to spread), and garnished with edible herbs or flowers.
Gastro Obscura tells us about both fairy butters, and about the fairy tales and superstitions surrounding the production of butter, along with the recipe and instructions for you to make your own fairy butter the next time you really want to impress someone. It looks a lot better than the mushroom.
-via Strange Company
(Image credit: Franco Folini)
