What is Oleo

I’ve got a bunch of cookie recipes from my Italian grandmother that call for Oleo – they’re hilarious to read and fun to piece together as you try to figure out how to make the things.

And man, does that food coloring capsule sound disgusting.

Oleo is margarine-When it first came out, iIt was called oleo-margarine when I was a kid and came white with a little yellow dye capsule that you kneaded into the white to make it yellow. Had something to do with not being real butter.

My parents called it “oleo” and we never had butter in our house, even for baking. My niece (who was 6 yrs younger than I am) called it “Grandma’s plastic butter.” When I went to someone’s house and they had butter, it was such an exotic luxury.

I am allergic to whole milk and milk products, which includes butter; therefore, I’ve had to use oleo. Now days you can get oleo w/o trans fat and other stuff. The butter fat is what I can’t have.

Thank god I stumbled upon this post! I have scanned in tons of my grandmothers old recipes and run across Oleo quite a few times. Now I know! Thanks.

Does GoodLuck oleomargarine ring a bell? It’s what we always used growing up.
On the other hand, my grandpa & grandma ran a farm & used real butter. We called it the “udder butter,” not even getting our own connection with the real thing

What I remember most about Oleo is the taste. I did NOT like the taste. To me, it had a fishy oil taste that I remember well. Nothing at all like butter tasted or what margarine now taste like. My grandma would use it much of the time when I was a child.

Oleo is margarine. Use the solid stick margarine in recipes. Soft spread has water and air in it and will not meaasure right. I prefer Crisco butter flavored shortening sticks. It makes better cookies. You can also substitute real butter. We used oleo margarine as a kid, too (the bag witht the colored capsule.) I believe it came out during WW2 because of all the shortages and economy.

It came with the separate dye because it was not legal to sell yellow margarine; if you wanted it to look like butter, you had to mix it in yourself.

Oleo was the brand name of the margarine. My mother still calls it Oleo. We use butter at our house.

I grew up in Wisconsin on the WI/IL border. At that time (the 50s) margarine was not allowed to be sold in WI so my mom and her girlfriends would take turns crossing the border to IL to bring home the margarine. Then they would gather at one house and split it up between them. Resourceful housewives those of the 50s.

When I saw this post, It made me think of my Mother. Her name was Olis and everyone in her family called her Oleo. I just recall in the early 70′s when the commercials came out it’s Butter no its margarine, My Brother and I started calling her Butter.
That just got us grounded. I still write it down on my list as Oleo. Yes, when my husband & I first got married he was confused. Those dye packs were fun to mix, but if you got it on your hands they would be yellow for day’s.

Awww, this post took me back to when I would always hear my great-grandma say “oleo”. As a little girl I remember asking my mom what it was and “butter” has always stuck in my head but I really enjoyed reading the reasoning behind it. Thanks for bringing back a lot of memories!!!

This made me fell really old because I didn’t have to look to know what oleo was

We are old Sam!

I was so glad to see Deborah’s response. I lived in Milwaukee from 1979 to 1981 and was amazed when people told me that margarine was once illegal to be sold in Wisconsin, the dairy state. I’ve told people this story many, many times over the years.

It is what they call margarine now.
When I was young that is what it was called, however it was white and you had to mix it the yellow coloring that was in the package.
Marcia

Why would you need it to be yellow anyway? Homemade butter is white, not yellow. Thanks, though, I’ve been wondering a long time what exactly oleo was–I was beginning to think it was shortening, so at least I was close!

I believe the theory was, if it was yellow it would look more like butter.

Ofcourse, I have my grandmothers old recipe book with loads of recipes mentioning Oleo. That’s funny. There are so many trademark names that have become the calling name for a certain type of product. Should have quessed.
Thanks.

Amazing how far we have come, huh? I had the honour/honor of being the chosen one elected to blend a bag or 10 of Good Luck only a few times….and have often wondered where that brand went. In musing over the stories written here this a.m., I would offer here that Imperial Margerine just “might be” Good Luck in disguise? From what my fading memory provides me with,..(65-past here)..I would suggest that because I seem to recall that Good Luck & Imperial both have the “same colored/coloured” packaging?

Thanks for the help! I recently got a bunch of my grandma’s old cookbooks and wanted to try some recipes out but wasn’t sure if oleo was margarine or shortening! Thanks

Glad I could be of service!

Oleo reminds me of the gasoline that was called ethyl. I do remember it being called oleo, but I am old…

today margerine oil content ranges from 53% or lower and some as high as 80%, any idea what % the oleo would be more similar too? i’ve noticed some recipes actually call for margine with a certain % or higher oil and i wasn’t sure which one to use for recipes with oleo? thanks

Not sure, but I do know that in my baking and candy making these days, I have switched to using butter. Margarine seems to be really watery in the past few years and for candy – it never ‘sets up’!

If you’re recipe calls for a “stick” of oleo, and all you have is soft margerine or stick butter, which would be best to use in a candy recipe that is dropped onto wax paper to harden?

Soft margarine is not for baking, use a stick of butter or a stick of margarine.