Holloware For Butter: You Can Stay Pat or Pass it Around

How one offers butter on the table depends upon the general configuration of the other holloware pieces on the table.  For example, if there are individual salt & pepper shakers for each setting, continuity would suggest that there be other holloware pieces of an individual nature as well.  In the case of a table with specific individual holloware pieces, butter should be offered on a butter pat with a butter pick to transfer the pre sliced butter squares to the bread plate or dinner plate.  The advantage of having the butter precubed and transferred with a butter pick is the lack of marring on the butter pat.  The repeated strokes downward on the butter pat from the butter knife will scratch the sterling. 

In the finest dining establishments, Mr. Bowen has seen butter sliced in cubes piled in a custard bowl with a seafood fork to transfer the cubes.  This is then passed around the table (hopefully in a counter clockwise fashion) with the bread basket.  Sometimes the butter is served as prepackaged individual cubes in a bowl or a couple of cubes are laid on the bread plate.  This results in a pile of wrappers.  Mr. Bowen has yet to see a waste bowl offered anywhere on the table these days.  Not very tidy indeed.  The advantage of having an individual orientation is that there is less traffic around the table.

If the table is set up for the various holloware pieces (bread tray, salt & pepper shaker, vegetable bowl etc.) to be passed around, than a covered butter dish with a master butter knife would fit in well with this mode of operation.  Covered butter dishes come with a glass or ceramic insert to prevent marring from the knife. 

Mr. Bowen only mentions all this to do about butter to remind the reader when one is constructing their table to be aware that some holloware pieces are specifically sized for the individual and others for the whole table.  Constructing a table properly requires forethought and correct use of the holloware pieces.