Tantalizing Trivia: Bread & Butter

When I was growing up, my mother put bread and butter on the table every night for supper.  Butter she kept in a butter dish in the cupboard.

That’s right. Not the refrigerator. The cupboard.

The bread was usually the unhealthy white stuff the bread man delivered twice a week (when I was really young) or was purchased at the supermarket. But my mom baked her own bread, too, and it was fabulous.

But we ate bread and butter with every meal.

When you go to restaurants, you’re usually served bread/rolls and butter before your meal. There are a lot of theories as to why this is.

Breaking bread is a sign of hospitality
In the past, tavern owners served one meal at one time, so people ate bread and butter to tide them over until meal time
Eating bread and butter gives patrons something to do while waiting for their meal
Bread (a simple carb) actually makes one hungrier.

The phrase bread-and-butter is also an idiom meaning livelihood, the source of one’s food.

Bread is found in every culture because it’s a basic food that supports life. To butter someone up is to flatter them. So butter just makes bread better.

But I no longer eat bread and butter with every meal. I think it was a calorie/carb/fat decision.