Margarine

I grew up in Wisconsin, the designated Dairy State, and back in the 1950’s margarine was illegal there. Why it became important to my family that we have margarine, I can’t remember – probably because it was illegal or maybe because it gave us a reason to go someplace 50 miles away.  All I remember is that it was far more attractive than it had a right to be.  So every now and then we would drive to Michigan,  buy margarine and smuggle it back across the state line.  It was white and lardish and came in a plastic tube-like container. A yellow color packet came with the margarine and had to be added, the package squished and squeezed in our hands over and over and over, to get the bleached-out shortening-looking product to achieve a uniform yellow color — and we argued over whose turn it was to do that in the car on the way home.  Bootleg margarine.