Why "shortening" in stead of butter?

[Katy]

Why do older recipes refer to butter/margarine as shortening? Is there a historical or linguistic basis for this?

It may just be a southern thing, but my Grandmother has an old cookbook from the late 1800s and none of the recipes call for butter, just shortening where butter would obviously be used today.

[Domino736]

it's the same shyt just called something else and is a different color, it does the same thing at the end

[ChaosMagic]

becasue butter was too much of an epic word back in the day of cake wars

[christy104]

different molecular structure. it will change the outcome.

its not TOO big of a deal usually to use butter instead of shortening most the time though.

[reinadelaz]

I think you may be missing some information. Shortening is not margarine or butter, but usually a plant-based solid fat.

[Female825]

In general, you can substitute shortening for butter in equal amounts in baking recipes.. Shortening yields higher, lighter-textured baked goods

[CYNTHIA]

There is a recipe called Short crust pastry.
The "short" was any fat that was available.Hence "Shortening"
Minced cow fat(suet) butter, Clarified animal fat(lard) were all used.
Later margarine was invented and substituted the animal based products.
Butter was only used IF you were rich and for special occasions.
The recipes then evolved and mixtures were used eg. 50/50 butter and lard
Short crust pastry was usually half the fat to flour. You could then shorten(make it more crumbly) it more by adding a little more fat.
SO...instead of 8oz. fat to 16 oz flour 10-12 oz may be used.

[jellybeanchick910]

In the late 1800s, there was no refrigeration. So, given the choice between shelf stable shortening, and perishable and expensive butter, shortening would be the way to go.

[JudithoftheNeverNever172]

From my understanding, 'shortening" was fat, usually collected in a special pot with a strainer on top when mother cooked the beef, the fat was saved (as nobody back then used any kind of today's flavours, garlic, pepper etc) so you ended up with this big pot of white fat that went solid, butter was a total luxury, if you had access to a cow, you had cream and then butter. Shortening was available to all households as women (cooks) saved it to be used to fry up just about anything and make pastry etc out of it, sounds absolutely gross today, but back then, that's what they did. I remember my old mum had such a pot when I was a kid, cause her mum had one. It was made of enamel coated tin, and the top bit had holes it in to catch any burnt bits etc. You can still get 'lard' at some supermarkets, which is just a block of rendered beef fat, it tastes great for some things but it is totally saturated fat and goes straight to your arteries, Margerine is a recent thing when you think about it and is much worse than good old natural butter.

[MrGrummp086]

"Shortening is a semisolid fat used in food preparation, especially baked goods, and is so called because it promotes a "short" or crumbly texture (as in shortbread). Shortening is basically just fat or lard from an animal or vegetable. The term "shortening" can be used more broadly to apply to any fat that is used for baking and which is solid at room temperature, such as butter, lard, or margarine. Shortening often has a higher smoke point than butter and margarine, and it has 100% fat content, compared to about 80% for butter and margarine."