Monday, May 08, 2006
Update: Butter
Commenting on my previous post, MT and Lena both ask something to the effect of "what does butter sound like?"
Do you remember Mike Meyer's SNL routine where he impersonates his Jewish mother-in-law and repeatedly uses the catch phrase "it's like butter"? (Since she has a New York accent, she says "buttah.") It was her catchall word to mean "excellent," "nice" "elegant" or "high quality."
Meyer's Jewish Mother in Law probably descends from the same eastern European peasant stock that I do. In my ancestors' diet of potatoes and, if you're lucky, maybe a beet or two, they had too little animal fat. Maybe a little bit of chicken fat sometimes. Lard over in the goyim village. In this dietary context -- a world away from our high fat society -- butter was the Cadillac of animal fat.
I suppose the nearest thing to "like buttah" in current slang would be "like money."
Oh, and by the way, butter sounds smooth and creamy.
Do you remember Mike Meyer's SNL routine where he impersonates his Jewish mother-in-law and repeatedly uses the catch phrase "it's like butter"? (Since she has a New York accent, she says "buttah.") It was her catchall word to mean "excellent," "nice" "elegant" or "high quality."
Meyer's Jewish Mother in Law probably descends from the same eastern European peasant stock that I do. In my ancestors' diet of potatoes and, if you're lucky, maybe a beet or two, they had too little animal fat. Maybe a little bit of chicken fat sometimes. Lard over in the goyim village. In this dietary context -- a world away from our high fat society -- butter was the Cadillac of animal fat.
I suppose the nearest thing to "like buttah" in current slang would be "like money."
Oh, and by the way, butter sounds smooth and creamy.
Comments:
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GOTCHA! I just got this icky visual of butter being smeared on your windshield and thought "now, that just can't be right..."
I miss Mike Myers on SNL, it's just not the same without him...
... now I'm a little verklempt.
I miss Mike Myers on SNL, it's just not the same without him...
... now I'm a little verklempt.
# posted by 
: 3:37 PM, May 08, 2006
: 3:37 PM, May 08, 2006
Actually (if you will pardon the utter food-nerdiness of the note), our shtetl-dwelling ancestors relied on goose fat. At least according to Claudia Roden's magisterial The Book of Jewish Food.
It's a fascinating book. Like buttah.
It's a fascinating book. Like buttah.
So how did the eastern European peasants sound? They said not"'buttah" or goose grease but "?".
tvenyvvw
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tvenyvvw
# posted by : 10:36 AM, May 09, 2006
: 10:36 AM, May 09, 2006 Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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