“Take something!”
This was request repeated over and over last weekend. After the parental house was shut down, Brother #3 got the burden of our parent’s things, which sit now in boxes in his basement. My ability to take home items thrust upon me was limited by my luggage. I took some old ‘Boy’s Life’ magazines, a box of recipes, and this butter dish:
After Mother died, Father asked what I wanted. I did not go for the china or the paintings or the silverware, What I wanted was this butter dish. It is neither fancy nor valuable. It is made from a sort of plastic that looks as new as when it was first used many decades ago. Its color is a funny shade of green, like an overripe avocado, which was popular back then. It seems to shout ‘I’m from the 70s’.
It’s been a year since I dropped el plato de manteqilla*. That one was made of blue glass which shattered upon impact. We’ve not had a butter dish since. I’ve been holding off getting a new one on the practical and maudlin grounds this one would work nicely.
Simple things like butter dishes are so integral to one’s life yet hardly noticed. Ours sat on the kitchen table for every meal (minus the formal ones) and was witness to the family talks in its countless permutations of passes. There was a time it held butter, then only margarine when butter was declared suspect. Then it went back to butter when it was margarine’s turn to be the bogeyman and we preferred butter anyway. In the passing of said dish there were sometimes voiced opinions of how the recipient ‘uses too much’ or the butter was too hard. Its cover allowed the dish to stay on the table during the months with “R” in them. This allowed the butter to be sufficiently soft enough for spreading on toast, its chief job then as is now.
This green plastic butter dish presently sits on the kitchen island at La Casa de Spo. It does not go with anything. Being among the modern kitchenware it looks dated, like a grandmother who brought a Jello-mold dessert to the family Thanksgiving while the younger relations all made Yuppie dishes with foreign names.
I am pleased as Punch to have it; I will think of the many meals it went with over as I ask Someone at supper to please pass it to me.
*Translation: the butter dish.
42 comments
March 22, 2021 at 10:26 AM
anne marie in philly
awwwwwww. REAL BUTTER is the best! may the piece serve you well.
March 22, 2021 at 11:06 AM
Urspo
I concur. It tastes better than margarine.
March 22, 2021 at 10:33 AM
Ron
What a nice memory of an all too often family item that is taken for granted. We too have a favorite butter dish, Pyrex clear glass. I would be devastated if we lost it to and accident as it is heavier that your plastic butter dish. Now I wonder what will happen to that valued “family member” when Bill and I no longer trod this earthly plane.
March 22, 2021 at 11:07 AM
Urspo
After you two go it returns to its baseline incarnation as a mere butter dish.
Oh if these things could talk !
March 22, 2021 at 10:40 AM
David Godfrey
The random little items, often mean the most, carry the deepest associations and memories. I passed on the furniture, helped my sister pack the china for one of my nephews, what I treasure are little things, dad’s log books from a lifetime of flying, those I never want to part with.
March 22, 2021 at 11:20 AM
Urspo
Yes. I recently experienced this with Father and what books he wanted to keep. He’s blind/can’t read so ‘no point’ to any books really but he wants them.
March 22, 2021 at 10:50 AM
jefferyrn
Smooth like butter!
March 22, 2021 at 11:20 AM
Urspo
But sparingly, I am dieting.
March 22, 2021 at 10:56 AM
Lori
I love your curious things around the house posts. Yes the avocado color screams 1970’s. How special it is now a part of your household.
March 22, 2021 at 11:21 AM
Urspo
Yes it does scream such. I like it.
March 22, 2021 at 11:04 AM
Mistress Borghese
I haven’t seen a butter dish in years!
March 22, 2021 at 11:21 AM
Urspo
Do you not use butter?
What sort of receptacle do you use?
March 22, 2021 at 6:09 PM
Mistress Borghese
Well, I use an Irish better that comes in its own tub.
March 22, 2021 at 11:28 AM
BadNoteB
I, too, treasure the inherited “family” butter dish that adorned our kitchen table from the time of my earliest memories. For too many years I firmly believed it to be genuine crystal and still recall the disappointment of learning its lineage was of cut-glass, the Woolworth variety (of all places!), circa 1957. No matter – it still sparkles brightly to my eye!
I also have my grandmother’s pastry blender (pie dough maker, before I knew better) that’s over 100 years old but still used annually in the making of Thanksgiving’s pumpkin pies. Both are treasurers that I feared other family members might fight to posses. Not to worry – they thought I was nuts then and and continue to tease me mercilessly as they gobble down the best pumpkin pie in the world every November!
Glad you had a good trip and are safely back home!
March 22, 2021 at 11:59 AM
Urspo
thank you for sharing your family souvenir memories here. I enjoyed reading them.
March 22, 2021 at 11:34 AM
Old Lurker
That looks like an awfully narrow dish. Around here it is rare to see a stick of butter; instead you get butter in heftier bricks.
March 22, 2021 at 12:00 PM
Urspo
Last night I realized the butter I buy (Irish, no rubbish) is in brick form and doesn’t fit in the butter dish designed for traditional sticks. I will have to buy different butter or cut up the bricks. I suspect I will do the latter.
March 22, 2021 at 12:25 PM
Moving with Mitchell
It sounds like you’re going to have to redo your kitchen in a retro style. The butter dish deserves it.
March 22, 2021 at 12:27 PM
Urspo
If Brother #3 got his wish I would have most of Mother’s kitchenware and daily dishes – many from that time. The butter dish would feel quite at home back among the usuals.
March 22, 2021 at 12:29 PM
Sam
I love your curious posts as now it has me searching my brain for what was used as a butter dish when I was a child. Certainly nothing matched or coordinated, as nothing I grew up with was matched or coordinated. My family has two-the blue Tupperware one I either got when a friend or coworker in the last 80’s hosted a Tupperware party, or it was a wedding shower gift. I also have a glass one that I take out when I set a sit down holiday or birthday meal, so only about one time per month. It is not valuable-just cut glass.
March 22, 2021 at 1:18 PM
Urspo
My mother had a fancy butter dish that was let out at holidays, just like yours. I wonder what happened to that one.
March 22, 2021 at 12:30 PM
martin
Canada, alas, has been hit with its very own buttergate scandal. It became widely noticed over recent months that our butter was no longer soft at room temperature. Apparently, the pandemic-inspired surge in baking led to a higher demand for butter which in turn led to changes in livestock feed – viz the addition of palm oil to increase the milk output of cows and increase the milk’s fat content. The result: hard butter. This virus has a lot to answer for!
March 22, 2021 at 1:20 PM
Urspo
Really now? What a story!
I’ve learned butter has ‘flavor’ to it depending on what the animal is fed.
I use a butter from Ireland. It is expensive but tastes so much better.
March 22, 2021 at 2:38 PM
Linda Practical Parsimony
Bakelite? Could be. Cut glass is better than crystal for food as lead may leach into drink or food. I love your butter dish.
March 22, 2021 at 2:48 PM
Urspo
I do not know the difference between cut glass and crystal. I guess I use the words as synonyms when there is a difference. I learned something.
March 22, 2021 at 4:22 PM
larrymuffin
Cut glass has a lot of lead in it use during its fabrication.
March 22, 2021 at 3:37 PM
Todd Gunther
I had no choice but to start using butter again when the pandemic cut off the supply chain of my favorite margerine. My cardiologist had to change up my cholesterol medication because my count waas suddenly higher.
No special dish for our butter. We get it out of its special compartment in the refrigerator door an hour or so before we wat to use it.
March 22, 2021 at 4:10 PM
Urspo
all docs is quacks.
March 22, 2021 at 4:21 PM
larrymuffin
They still sell these butter dishes in fancy kitchen shop for about $19. CDN. I like the butter yellow colour. You probably saw ours.
Was that salted or unsalted butter? Here in PEI unsalted butter is not common, double salted is en vogue.
March 22, 2021 at 7:19 PM
Urspo
I always go for unsalted butter. I like to salt things to my taste.
March 23, 2021 at 10:46 AM
larrymuffin
We only buy unsalted butter also for eating and cooking
March 22, 2021 at 4:49 PM
Pipistrello
You came home with a prize! Butter tastes better, as the ads say. Our dish is clear glass but doesn’t fit the whole block so it gets chunks at a time. Just as well since a few days of attacking with toasty-jammy knives and it looks like a wreck. Clear glass lids requireth tidier habits.
I’m shocked to read about Canada’s buttergate scandal. Am off to google.
March 22, 2021 at 7:18 PM
Urspo
A bonus of the green plastic butter dish is it is opaque. It hides the butter near the end of its prime which I learned is shunned merely due to looks.
March 22, 2021 at 6:13 PM
Jim M.
How well do the stubby sticks of butter fit the Elgin butter dish? Just curious as I recently learned there are two distinct forms of butter sticks. East coast and West coast. When i moved to New England I discovered the butter keep, its bell shaped top, made of ceramic, the butter is placed inside the “bell” and the whole top then is placed in a bottom container that has water, keeps air out, butter doesn’t become rancid in warmer weather, so no rock hard butter when buttering your toast in the morning. But then it doesn’t have the wonderful stories associated with it from earlier days.
March 22, 2021 at 7:16 PM
Urspo
I learned something here. I’ve not heard of such.
March 22, 2021 at 6:37 PM
Debra She Who Seeks
I usually keep a small stick of butter in the fridge in a baggie for baking purposes only. For all other eating needs, margarine is king in my house.
March 22, 2021 at 7:15 PM
Urspo
Is this for health reasons? Taste preference? Budget ?
March 23, 2021 at 7:45 AM
Debra She Who Seeks
Taste preference, plus the fact that marg never goes rock hard like butter. Always spreadable!
March 22, 2021 at 10:17 PM
Robzilla, Native of Slam Diego
That’s why I keep a sauce pan and two mixing bowls that are as old as I am. My late mother used them and then gave them to me when I moved out of the house. I still use them to this day, and when I do I feel that family connection. I’m glad to see you get the same feeling from the butter dish.
March 23, 2021 at 6:27 AM
Urspo
It gladdens me to read this. I hope most folks have some sort of kitchenware that when used evokes memories. I suppose women are more likely than the menfolk to have something passed down like this to use from generation to generation.
March 23, 2021 at 10:27 AM
rjjs8878
What a lovely memento!
March 23, 2021 at 1:18 PM
Urspo
thank you
it is isn’t it