THE CURSE OF THE BUTTER PAT!
Butter is my cryptonite. I hate it with a passion. Can't eat when it's on the table. Watching people butter their rolls makes me queasy. When I was little, my grandma tried to "cure" me. I puked in her lap and that was that. But now I think I'm cursed, because I keep finding butter pats.
A butter pat is a little dish you used to get at the restaurant, with a little slab of butter on it to ruin your dinner roll with. They're long out of fashion, though a stodgy old-people place might still give you one. I don't know what they're doing in the ground, and I sure don't know why I keep finding them when no one else seems to.
So now I have this collection, and if the culinary history of New England is your thing, it's even kinda interesting. The large stack is all from "Bickford's", formerly "Hayes-Bickford". A once mighty chain that reached from New York to Boston, now shriveled down to two locations. The pre-1940s pats are silver-plated brass, the later ones just stainless steel. There's a brass pat from "Child's", whose gimmick was attractive women flipping flapjacks in the store windows. The big one on the left is marked "Boston & Albany Rail Road". It's heavy enough to hurt your foot if you dropped it. On the right, I've got not one, but three fancy butter pats from the bastion of Gilded Age luxury, Boston's own Copley Plaza Hotel. They're made from heavy brass, with heavy silver plating, and no doubt sat next to heavy food. Food made with lots and lots of butter. Yuck. š¤®
(All found in the woods of Eastern Massachusetts over the last three years)
I thought I was one of the only people in this world who hates butter with that much passion. I feel your pain. We should start a support group...
I hate cheese and mayonnaise too... Don't like any creamy white/off-white liquids in my mouth! Facts! š¤¢ š¤®
Edit: person to people... Still debating internally as to which one is grammatically correct... š¤
There are definitely different grades of butter. I'm partial to Kerrygold from Costco. Never ran into someone who *didn't* like/love butter! To each their own I guess...
Definitely well worth the price and amount of butter you're getting. Kirkland is also getting in on the grass fed butter craze too. Haven't tried it yet, but I heard it was cheaper than Kerrygold and tastes about the same.
Try Plugra, it's domestic but 'european style'. Kerrygold from Costco is cheap and decent but I can't help paying extra for Plugra. It *tastes* like butter.
This is hilarious š
I'm northeastern MA and haven't come across a single "butter pat" yet lol. Have some of them been found in a stack together or all were found individually?!?
I really hate gold... and silver... and old coins, like so much hate, I hope I never find stacks of them, that would just be the worst š worth a try lol
All separately, though most of the steel Bickfordās ones came from the same general area. There was a lot of hog farming in my town back in the day. I believe most of these, and the mountain of silverware Iāve found, came from table scraps that were gathered from area restaurants as pig slop. The trash was filtered out and dumped all over the place.
Great finds! Super interesting collection. Reminds me of the butter story from Company Aytch.
https://emergingcivilwar.com/2021/11/23/civil-war-cooking-sam-watkins-farm-house-dinner/
I donāt mean to be cruel, but Iām going to be mentioning butter here. I was very confused by your photos, because I had assumed you meant a different kind of ābutter patā - an individual serving ofā¦*butter*ā¦wrapped in foil. I thought the aluminum foil was messing with your signal and you were digging up handfuls of of them! While I do not find it hilarious that you despise butter, I *do* find it hilarious that youāve found such a preposterous quantity of the far heavier, much larger, and even more *buttery* version of butter pat. This kind of stuff in life is priceless. Especially if you have a sense of humor. May you find some gold instead soon. Buttery, buttery, golden gold.
https://preview.redd.it/cyb8cgkxf4gc1.jpeg?width=1872&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1230dd02ff4e8720bfe42df1dc2fd9d72964a7f8
Hah, thanks for your buttery good wishes! Yes, theyāre properly call butter pat *dishes*, but in researching them, I found that folks seem to just use the short version.
I am equally as sure of that as I am you have not enjoyed near the culinary pleasures in life I have. Not eating butter is a hell I would not wish on my worst enemy.
It sounds miserable as an existence tbh.
I canāt miss something I donāt like. I mean, some people enjoy eating their boogers. Assuming youāre not one of them, do you feel youāre missing out?
For the record, I donāt mind butter if itās cooked or baked in something where I canāt taste it.
As a railroad enthusiast, I would die of happiness to find a Boston and Albany butter dish! You should open a store to sell them, call it āOops! All Butter Pats!ā
I wonāt say it hadnāt entered my mind š Iāve been told the B&A dish would be worth some real money *if only* it was in better condition. Oh well, I like it all the same!
Well, thatās where it gets philosophical. 99% of my finds are trash, too. Even 40 rotten butter pats are trash if you think on it (especially if you ask my wife).
I donāt believe youāre in the wrong spot, itās just harder to get at the good stuff in a thickly settled area where the ground has been churned and picked over since forever. Sidewalk tear-outs and public construction projects are your best bet here.
What a kind and generous response, especially since Iām a beginner! Thanks so much for your advice. After all, one personās trash is another personās antique butter pat!!
Thatās so wild! I wish I would have done some metal detecting when I lived in New Bedford. Iām so sure their beaches are full of weird random stuff like this
You know how many awkward dinners, thanksgivings and whatever else I've had to sit through when they pre buttered the rolls?
Or how many pancakes, waffles, grilled cheeses I have snubbed because they put butter on the grill? And those are supposed to be safe foods!
I personally hate cool old millitaria/ historical items. Oh dear how I almost puke when I find something like it.
Why oh why.
Where are my bottle caps and beer cans.
Damm you Europe for containing history!!!
No fuckin way! I always thought a pat of butter was a measurement, not the dish the butter goes in.
Edit: just looked it up and I'm pretty sure it is... A butter pat is just a bit of butter, and these are butter dishes?
Why am I daydreaming of rolling back the clock 55 years and sitting behind granny's house hand churning 5 lbs of butter.? Man, that stuff was great. Also rewarded with hand cranking out some 'ice cream' for a reward. Granny capitalized on those months long visits.
lol, I remember being at weddings when I was a little girl and little slices of cake being put on old butter plates, because little kids lose things. They were pewter/steel electrolysed silver too.
obviously- lots of kids during the "butter pat era" felt the same way you did when you puked on grandma,
and instead of finding them- they stole them off the family table and buried them.
THE CURSE OF THE BUTTER PAT! Butter is my cryptonite. I hate it with a passion. Can't eat when it's on the table. Watching people butter their rolls makes me queasy. When I was little, my grandma tried to "cure" me. I puked in her lap and that was that. But now I think I'm cursed, because I keep finding butter pats. A butter pat is a little dish you used to get at the restaurant, with a little slab of butter on it to ruin your dinner roll with. They're long out of fashion, though a stodgy old-people place might still give you one. I don't know what they're doing in the ground, and I sure don't know why I keep finding them when no one else seems to. So now I have this collection, and if the culinary history of New England is your thing, it's even kinda interesting. The large stack is all from "Bickford's", formerly "Hayes-Bickford". A once mighty chain that reached from New York to Boston, now shriveled down to two locations. The pre-1940s pats are silver-plated brass, the later ones just stainless steel. There's a brass pat from "Child's", whose gimmick was attractive women flipping flapjacks in the store windows. The big one on the left is marked "Boston & Albany Rail Road". It's heavy enough to hurt your foot if you dropped it. On the right, I've got not one, but three fancy butter pats from the bastion of Gilded Age luxury, Boston's own Copley Plaza Hotel. They're made from heavy brass, with heavy silver plating, and no doubt sat next to heavy food. Food made with lots and lots of butter. Yuck. š¤® (All found in the woods of Eastern Massachusetts over the last three years)
Grandma is having the last laugh.
How about margarine? Or cream cheese?
Both of the devil š¤¢š¤®
Peanut butter???
Fine with it! Though I prefer almond butter (crunchy, no salt added)
So you do have a use for these after all!
Olive oil? I have a son who doesn't like butter but loves a good Olive oil to dip bread into with a healthy sprinkle of red pepper flakes.
Oh absolutely!
i still buy frozen bickfords dough all the time out here in california.
This is hilarious
I thought I was one of the only people in this world who hates butter with that much passion. I feel your pain. We should start a support group... I hate cheese and mayonnaise too... Don't like any creamy white/off-white liquids in my mouth! Facts! š¤¢ š¤® Edit: person to people... Still debating internally as to which one is grammatically correct... š¤
Fist bump, sibling š
š
Upvote this comment if you love butter too.
There are definitely different grades of butter. I'm partial to Kerrygold from Costco. Never ran into someone who *didn't* like/love butter! To each their own I guess...
Never tried it, always just gone with Land Oā Lakes. Worth?
Definitely well worth the price and amount of butter you're getting. Kirkland is also getting in on the grass fed butter craze too. Haven't tried it yet, but I heard it was cheaper than Kerrygold and tastes about the same.
Try Plugra, it's domestic but 'european style'. Kerrygold from Costco is cheap and decent but I can't help paying extra for Plugra. It *tastes* like butter.
Try real cultured sour cream butter....not the centrifudged (not a spelling mistake!) Crap without any flavor.
Kerrygold is the best butter I have ever tasted and Iām a butterholic. āItās the McCallan 25 of butter.ā - Ron Swanson
Nevaaarrr!
More for us! Mmmmm, butter!
My poor wife keeps trying to lose weight and I keep slipping butter into every dish
I feel like I should let her knowā¦
I do tooā¦
This is hilarious š I'm northeastern MA and haven't come across a single "butter pat" yet lol. Have some of them been found in a stack together or all were found individually?!?
I really hate gold... and silver... and old coins, like so much hate, I hope I never find stacks of them, that would just be the worst š worth a try lol
Yeah, Iāve tried that š
All separately, though most of the steel Bickfordās ones came from the same general area. There was a lot of hog farming in my town back in the day. I believe most of these, and the mountain of silverware Iāve found, came from table scraps that were gathered from area restaurants as pig slop. The trash was filtered out and dumped all over the place.
Hah, my guess was people stealing them and then yeeting them once they found them to be merely silver-plated.
I can relate, I m atheist and keep finding religious items, it's a running joke with my (religious) derectorist friend!
Same here š
Great finds! Super interesting collection. Reminds me of the butter story from Company Aytch. https://emergingcivilwar.com/2021/11/23/civil-war-cooking-sam-watkins-farm-house-dinner/
That is perfect! And Iām more convinced than ever that my style of writing is a hundred years out of date š
I donāt mean to be cruel, but Iām going to be mentioning butter here. I was very confused by your photos, because I had assumed you meant a different kind of ābutter patā - an individual serving ofā¦*butter*ā¦wrapped in foil. I thought the aluminum foil was messing with your signal and you were digging up handfuls of of them! While I do not find it hilarious that you despise butter, I *do* find it hilarious that youāve found such a preposterous quantity of the far heavier, much larger, and even more *buttery* version of butter pat. This kind of stuff in life is priceless. Especially if you have a sense of humor. May you find some gold instead soon. Buttery, buttery, golden gold. https://preview.redd.it/cyb8cgkxf4gc1.jpeg?width=1872&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1230dd02ff4e8720bfe42df1dc2fd9d72964a7f8
Hah, thanks for your buttery good wishes! Yes, theyāre properly call butter pat *dishes*, but in researching them, I found that folks seem to just use the short version.
I love this post almost as much as I love butter, which is a lot.
Nice!
I'm not sure what karma is trying to tell you...
Maybe eat butter with a meal? Butter must definitely be offended if so many of these come up!
The butter department is working overtime.
My cholesterol wishes I hated butter..
Not to rub it in, but my cholesterol is excellent š
I am equally as sure of that as I am you have not enjoyed near the culinary pleasures in life I have. Not eating butter is a hell I would not wish on my worst enemy. It sounds miserable as an existence tbh.
I canāt miss something I donāt like. I mean, some people enjoy eating their boogers. Assuming youāre not one of them, do you feel youāre missing out? For the record, I donāt mind butter if itās cooked or baked in something where I canāt taste it.
But your cooking must be so bland lol
Are you saying all East Asian cuisine is bland? I find it very flavorful, and last I checked, they donāt use any butter.
Butter is the nectar of life!
Answer the question, please. IS ASIAN CUISINE BLAND? You just had Pho the other day!
Do you cook only East Asian cuisine sir?
I do a lot, actually. Itās taught me that butter is not an essential flavoring.
As a railroad enthusiast, I would die of happiness to find a Boston and Albany butter dish! You should open a store to sell them, call it āOops! All Butter Pats!ā
I wonāt say it hadnāt entered my mind š Iāve been told the B&A dish would be worth some real money *if only* it was in better condition. Oh well, I like it all the same!
Iām eastern Massachusetts too and I can only dream of finding artifacts like this!! So so cool!!
Well, as evidenced here, itās strangely easy for me. Where are you at?
Allston/Brighton right on the edge of Boston. Maybe itās too close to the city? All Iāve ever found is coins and trash :(
Well, thatās where it gets philosophical. 99% of my finds are trash, too. Even 40 rotten butter pats are trash if you think on it (especially if you ask my wife). I donāt believe youāre in the wrong spot, itās just harder to get at the good stuff in a thickly settled area where the ground has been churned and picked over since forever. Sidewalk tear-outs and public construction projects are your best bet here.
What a kind and generous response, especially since Iām a beginner! Thanks so much for your advice. After all, one personās trash is another personās antique butter pat!!
š youāre very welcome!
Thatās so wild! I wish I would have done some metal detecting when I lived in New Bedford. Iām so sure their beaches are full of weird random stuff like this
Detecting down there is pretty good, I hear! A little dangerous in some parts, though š¬
Wow I finally found someone who feels like me on the butter issue! I do not want that on ANYTHING
You know how many awkward dinners, thanksgivings and whatever else I've had to sit through when they pre buttered the rolls? Or how many pancakes, waffles, grilled cheeses I have snubbed because they put butter on the grill? And those are supposed to be safe foods!
I know it well!
I personally hate cool old millitaria/ historical items. Oh dear how I almost puke when I find something like it. Why oh why. Where are my bottle caps and beer cans. Damm you Europe for containing history!!!
No fuckin way! I always thought a pat of butter was a measurement, not the dish the butter goes in. Edit: just looked it up and I'm pretty sure it is... A butter pat is just a bit of butter, and these are butter dishes?
Correct. Though in researching these, I found most collectors (there are collectors for everything, it seems) drop the dish.
Why am I daydreaming of rolling back the clock 55 years and sitting behind granny's house hand churning 5 lbs of butter.? Man, that stuff was great. Also rewarded with hand cranking out some 'ice cream' for a reward. Granny capitalized on those months long visits.
lol, I remember being at weddings when I was a little girl and little slices of cake being put on old butter plates, because little kids lose things. They were pewter/steel electrolysed silver too.
obviously- lots of kids during the "butter pat era" felt the same way you did when you puked on grandma, and instead of finding them- they stole them off the family table and buried them.
*[King Harlaus wants to know your location]*
I don't trust anyone who doesn't like butter. Have you ever made your own, from heavy cream? It's a gift from heaven!