How do you use a butter knife?

[EscherEnigma]

Depends on the sandwich. Back when I was trying to eat breakfast I would make fried egg sandwiches in which I would butter toast, later a fried egg and cheese slice, and top it with another slice of buttered toast.

Back when I was working fast food we buttered all the buns/bread for sandwiches.

But for your typical cold-cut lunch sandwich no, you will not butter it. You'll use mayo, mustard, or something like that.

 

[Morrus]

As tux indicates, it varies. It also depends on the sandwich. From my own observations:


For plain toast, people would use butter.

For grilled cheese sandwiches, butter goes on before you grill it. (I have seen Jelly put on top after cooking, but that's uncommon)

For peanut butter sandwiches, I've seen with/without butter.

For peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, no butter generally.

For deli meat (ex ham) and cheese, mayonaise is very common, butter almost never.

For a hamburger, mayo is common, butter only if the bun is grilled (for lightly toasting)

For a sub (subway, quiznos, Jimmy Johns) no butter in sight.

Ah, it might simply be a terminology thing. Burgers and subs aren't sandwiches in my lingo. Jelly is jam, right? And you combine that with peanut butter? I think the whole sandwich arena isn't just a pavement/sidewalk difference, It's a whole broad language subset which doesn't translate at all.

I just bored myself into a stupor typing that post. Please don't interpret it as a request for fascinating American sandwich language definitions! My interest in your sandwich terminology is probably about as interesting as yours is in mine!

 

[EscherEnigma]

I dunno, if your sandwich terminology is full of little things I could sprinkle into my daily lingo to confuse and baffle my co-workers, it might be pretty fun.

 

[JediSoth]

This is the kind of butter knife I'm talking about: http://m.crateandbarrel.com/couture-butter-knife/s253618

 

[jonesy]

This is the kind of butter knife I'm talking about: http://m.crateandbarrel.com/couture-butter-knife/s253618

If someone had shown me that without telling me what it was for I'd have had no idea.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I am presently living in the Philippines.

A butter knife is used as a flathead screwdriver (the screwdriver is likely being used as a makeshift padlock).

A spoon is used for buttering bread, although weird meat-flavored mayonnaise-like substances are more popular on the odd occasions that bread is eaten. (Spoons are also used for cutting meat on your plate.)

My wife hides our knives when her family visits just in case.

 

[EscherEnigma]

This is the kind of butter knife I'm talking about: http://m.crateandbarrel.com/couture-butter-knife/s253618

Oh! I think I have one of those in the back of my silverware drawer. I have never used it. I just cart it from house to house, wash it when I first move in and put in the silverware drawer, where it gathers dust and regrets. The butterknives I use when I'm not using daggers are: http://images2.makefive.com/images/...d-be-your-weapon-of-choice/butter-knife-7.jpg

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Ah, it might simply be a terminology thing. Burgers and subs aren't sandwiches in my lingo. Jelly is jam, right? And you combine that with peanut butter? I think the whole sandwich arena isn't just a pavement/sidewalk difference, It's a whole broad language subset which doesn't translate at all.

I'll respond if only to give you a post to help you get to sleep at night.

While we'd probably all agree that a sandwich could technically be "any food crammed between two bits of bread", most Americans treat burgers (anything with a large meat patty or chicken breast, rather than thinly sliced or chopped meat) as a separate category of food.

Some sandwiches get categorized by the type of bread they're on, so the "long roll" sandwiches are examples (known regionally as subs, torpedoes, hoagies, or grinders). But then there's buns, rolls, flatbread, pita, slices of various loaves.... One think I've found separates the UK sandwiches I've had from US is we tend to put more stuff, especially vegetables, on ours. A UK cook prepping sandwiches for our unit would slap two slices of bologna between two buttered slices of bread, which caused a revolt until we got him to grok that we preferred may and mustard to butter, and expected lettuce and tomato in addition to meat.

Jelly is a variety of jam, as is preserves. The lingo is usually used interchangeably, though I think there is supposed to be a difference in the amount of real fruit parts versus the gellatin portion, with jelly (least real fruit)<jam<preserves (most real fruit). Marmelade fits in there somewhere.

Oh, heck, I've even bored myself. If you're just dying for more.

 

[Bagpuss]

This is the kind of butter knife I'm talking about: http://m.crateandbarrel.com/couture-butter-knife/s253618

Erm... But that is a Fish Knife... No wonder you are having trouble. A butter knife has less of a curve than a normal knife in so cases none almost like a palette knife.

 

[Janx]

This is the kind of butter knife I'm talking about: http://m.crateandbarrel.com/couture-butter-knife/s253618

I always thought that was a canape knife. Which i got no clue what its for. The knife i think most of us call a butter knife and tend to have in equal number to spoons and forks in the drawer looks like this:
http://www.knife-depot.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/butter-knife.jpg

I'm sorry morrus is all bored by this topic, i am finding it entertaining and educational. I suspect many of us are on the cusp of learning. What that funny knife is for, and discovering more to the invention of that famous Earl.