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MargarineMargarine, as a generic term, can indicate any of a wide range of butter-substitutes. In many parts of the world, margarine has become the best-selling table spread, although butter and olive oil also command large market shares. Margarine is an ingredient in the preparation of many other foods. In informal speech people commonly refer to margarine as butter, but (at least in the United States) laws forbid food packaging to refer to margarine as "butter". Recipes sometimes refer to margarine as oleo (see below) or as shortening. Margarine has a long and sometimes confusing history. Its name originates with the discovery by Michel Eugène Chevreul in 1813 of "margaric acid" (itself named after the pearly deposits of the fatty acid, from Greek margaron, meaning "a pearl-oyster" or "a pearl"). Scientists at the time regarded margaric acid, like oleic acid and stearic acid, as one of the three fatty acids which, in combination, formed most animal fats. In 1853 the German chemist Wilhem H. Heintz analyzed margaric acid as simply a combination of stearic acid and of the previously unknown palmitic acid. In 1869 Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France offered a prize to anyone who could make a satisfactory substitute for butter, suitable for use by the armed forces and the lower classes. French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés invented a substance he called oleomargarine, the name of which became shortened to the trade name "Margarine". Margarine now refers generically to any of a range of broadly similar edible oils. Some people have also shortened the name oleomargarine to oleo. Manufacturers produced oleomargarine by taking clarified beef fat, extracting the liquid portion under pressure, and then allowing it to solidify. When combined with butyrin and water, it made a cheap and more-or-less palatable butter-substitute. Sold as Margarine or under any of a host of other trade names, butter-substitutes soon became a substantial market segment — but too late to help Mège-Mouriés: although he expanded his initial manufacturing operation from France to the United States in 1873, he had little commercial success. By the end of the decade both the old world and the new could buy artificial butters. From that time on, two main trends would dominate the margarine industry: on one hand a series of refinements and improvements to the product and its manufacture, and on the other a long and bitter struggle with the dairy industry, which defended itself from the margarine industry with vigour. As early as 1877 the first American states had passed laws to restrict the sale and labelling of margarine. By the mid-1880s the United States federal government had introduced a tax of two cents per pound, and devotees needed an expensive license to make or sell the product. More importantly, individual states began to require the clear labelling of margarine, banning passing it off as real butter. The key to slowing margarine sales (and protecting the established dairy industries), however, emerged as restricting its color. Margarine naturally appears white or almost white: by forbidding the addition of artificial colouring-agents, legislators found that they could keep margarine off kitchen tables. Bans on coloration became commonplace around the world and endured for almost 100 years. It did not become legal to sell colored margarine in Australia, for example, until the 1960s. Check out the following recipes that are tagged "Margarine":
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