Evening star., 1902-08-05
BREAD AND BUTTER
IT'S WHoLESoMENEss AND ECON.
oMY COMMENDED.
Frequent Reference in Sacred and Pro-
fame Literature to This
Frugal Food.
From the London Globe.


one of those familiar axioms which we are
In the habit of accepting as truths more
or less welcome, but in any case incontes-
table. In our childhood we have heard Ii
urged as an argument for preferring bread
ano butter to cake, while in our riper
youth 1t connected itself with the indig-
nant astonishment Of our elders that young
people provided with good bread and but
ter could form a wish for more stimulat-
ing articles Of diet. Neither Of these as
sociattons Is precisely Of an endearing kind,
but times revenges come round in this
matter as in others. The mature man.
sometimes even the mature woman (though
such decadence is less common in the fe-
male SEX, turns with distaste from mullins
anu plumcake, and pathetically asks for
pain, wholesome bread and butter" The
lndiHerence or aversion of earlier years is
converted into respectful appreciation.
Wholesomeness.
Wholesomeness is the attribute which we
most commonly assign to bread and butter,
and doubtless this accounts for the varying
degrees of affection with which it is re-
garded by the young and the middle aged.
respectively, an unwritten law of thought
seeming to rule that what is wholesome
cannot De specially dainty. But further, It
ls recognized as setting, so to speak q
standard of living below which only the
very poorest can sink without loss of self
respect. res Nothing but bread and butter
LOT breakfast, complains the school boy
or girl Nothing but bread and hutter
TOT my supper boasts the apostle of plain
living. The me plus ultra Of simplicity
ana economy Is in both cases held to have
oeen attained. 1t was not ever thus 81
know what's what; know upon which side
my bread is buttered," says Ford in his
Lady's Trial" plainly demonstrating that
in the year 1889 buttered bread was CON
ht,f lev,
desired and striven for
Lines by Lowell.
And Lowells immortal lines:
The bread comes back in many days
And buttered, too, for sartin,
are obviously an echo of this byeone state
OF things, for no 'pious editor would now
consider bread and butter an adeouate re.
ward for his ingenuity in making the hest
OF both worlds. Addison. again, writing
early In the eighteenth century. tells a
story OF some young ladies who in order to
save the price of The Spectator, proposed
20 the1r father to give up bread and butter
fer to give up bacon
From such scattered hints as these we
are le1t 10 construct as we can the history
of of pIead n ana butter The name and date
OF that inventive genius who first be-
thought himself to spread the one upon
the other, and thus combine two constitu-
ents INTO an organic whole is lost in the
twilight of the past.
Butter in the Bible.
Butter is frequently mentioned in the
Old Testament, but not in close connection
with bread. Commentators, indeed. are
of opinion that the butter which washed
the feet of Job and was served in a lordly
dish to Siseria must have been much of the
consfstence of cream, and unsuited for
spreading on bread Probably this was
the case in all ancient nations. Buttermak-
ing was not among the original arts of
either Greece or Rome. The Greeks learn
ed 1t finally from the Scythians, and gave
to the substance produced the name since
adopted In all languages, Bourupov. from
,'S9st neus.eo"' ana rupos-cheese), derivation
which accounts for the seemingly weird
forms. buttyr and butyr, not unknown
among us even within the last hundred
years. The Romans, in their turn, were in
structed In the mysteries Of dairy work by
the ''barbarous' Germans But in both the
great nations of antiquity, though a pious
opinion obtained concerning butter as a
pleasant food and possible substitute for
Oil in cookery, it was practically used for
medical and cosmetic purposes only.
Toast and Butter.
This preference for oil has survived in
southern Europe even to our own days In
more northern regions, the Teutonic tradi-
liou iloiulliS Dutter IN n1Sn esteem, prob
ably kept its ground during the middle
ages. One of the towers of Rouen Cathe-
dral, built early in the sixteenth century
was known as ia tour au beurre'' be-
cause it owed its existence to money paid
for dispensations permitting the use Of
butter dn cookery, probably throughout
Lent Falstaffs scornful allusion to his
recruits as ''toasts in butter seems to
imply that buttered toast, at any rate, was
known in the days of Elizabeth. But what
desolate prospect is opened up by the
thought of buttered toast without tea!
What wonder the name had no pleasing as
sociations for Falstaff, and merely sug-
gesteN something undesirably soft and
slippery! 1t is, indeed, only upon the in
PRODUCTION Of tea, and it's cognate bever-
ages, coffee and chocolate, that bread and
butter comes into general use, supplying
want unfelt so long as all the world break
tasted, dined and supped on beef and beer
The parting of the ways is indicated by
Lockes remark in his treatise re-education:
"A good piece of wel-made and well-baked
brown bread, sometimes with and some
times without butter or cheese, would be
often the best breakfast for my young
master" Imagine any educationalist now
proposing cheese or dry bread as equally
desirable alternatives to bread and butter
for child's breakfast! A few years later,
in the days of Swift and Addison, the revo-
luton has been completed, and bread and
butter and tea are fairly established as the
fashionable morning meal.