How do you slice the butter?

Do you scrape a thin slice off the top, letting it curl around the knife as you go? Or do you cut straight down at the end of the block? Maybe you chip at the corners, whittling the pat away like an intricate cubist carving. Or perhaps you're one of those shameful people who just hack at the stuff anyhow, leaving behind toast crumbs, marmalade or honey stuck to the block.


I like to carve from the end. Always with a clean knife - crumb-encrusted butter is an abhorrent thing. For toast, a thick slice can be left unspread for a few tens of seconds, to allow it to soften and melt into the bread. I also like a good slice in my porridge as it's cooking, rather than adding salt. An opened packet of butter never returns to the fridge in my house. It lives in a yellow butter dish on the kitchen counter - even in mid summer the temperature's never high enough for it to go rancid before it's finished, not up here in the mountains. There's no point trying to spread it on fresh bread, but piled thick onto an old bit of sourdough crust is nice. You don't need to add anything to that. Just chew and enjoy.


Nutritionists will try to tell you that butter is the devil's semen. It's full of saturated fats and all manner of nastiness. But really it's just cream and salt. Have you any idea what shit goes into margarine?