DEAR MISS MANNERS: I know that dinner rolls and butter are not traditionally part of a formal dinner service, but if I do want to serve butter at the dinner table, how should I do so?
I have a collection of antique butter pats in various patterns that I would love to use, but I am wondering exactly how these were traditionally used. When I have tried to search online for “how to use butter pats,” most of the results refer either to slices of butter from a stick, or to implements for making and shaping butter -- not how to use these tiny plates.
GENTLE READER: Did you bookmark the link about shaping butter? Not if it’s about sculpting a chicken out of butter as a centerpiece, that is. But it may be useful if it has to do with making tiny shapes -- roses or pleated balls, for instance -- to put on those little plates, confusingly themselves called butter pats, which are for serving individual portions of butter.
You can just whack squares from a butter stick, of course. But such plates were generally forgotten, or pressed into humiliating service as inadequate ashtrays, and Miss Manners presumes you would like to make them proud again.
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)