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For some of us, it’s not a question of whether we have a favorite daily bread, it’s the fact that we have bread daily. I’m being hospitable on a Southern scale with my use of the word “bread” here, including not only loaves, but rolls, biscuits, cornbread, crackers, grits, rice, and all the starchy things that bring us joy and satisfaction. No matter how we slice it, I’m betting much of it is buttered. Yes, a river of golden, glistening butter runs through it, ferrying boatloads of flavor.

Butter was likely an accident rather than an invention, possibly the by-product of transporting milk in sheepskin that sloshed and churned as someone carried it. But people found the results worth repeating and soon came up with ways to create butter on purpose. The spread became so valued that it once served as currency in some parts of the world. Even today, I pay a pretty penny for “fancy” butter, yet clearly come out on the better end of that deal because all I have to do is buy it and fetch it home. No sheepskin required.

The wooden churn and decorative mold are heirlooms that were passed down to the writer by her grandmother, who used them in Watauga County. photograph by Alex Boerner

photograph by Alex Boerner

I begin my prized baking recipes by setting butter out on my counter to soften. My pie pastry persuades me to stash cubed butter in the freezer until it’s as cold as a Blue Ridge winter before cutting it into the flour. I’ll keep a watchful eye on a saucepan of butter as it slowly melts, separates, and browns, releasing a nutty, toasty aroma that whispers delicious promises. Yet, the handmade wooden churn and butter mold that I inherited from my grandmother are decorative items at my house, not tools of my culinary trade. She raised 11 children on butter made with that churn. Her recipes started with milking a cow and working a dasher, yet she took the time to press the yellow bits lifted from the buttermilk into a patterned mold, just because it was pretty. If that wasn’t butter of great worth, I don’t know what is.

When it comes to baking and cooking, good butter hums along. When it comes to eating, it sings. I am not alone in this appreciation. A couple of years ago, there was considerable kerfuffle over a social media post from a young blogger who acted as if she had invented buttered crackers. Invented them! She’d never heard of topping crunchy saltines with soft butter, so she mistakenly assumed her first small bite was a giant leap for all mankind. Bless her heart.

I fondly recall my favorite after-school snack: a full sleeve of saltines with softened butter. I ran the deckled edge of each cracker along the full length of the butter dish, leaving behind racked tracks like a wee Zen garden. I used to read a storybook to my little girl about a young bear who held buttercups under his friends’ chins. If they saw a yellow glow, it meant they loved butter. When she and I played this game, butter love always shone brightly, to our delight.

Bread and butter are so essential as a duo that we use the term to acknowledge value and appreciation, as in, “See that good fellow over there? He’s worth his bread and butter.” People worth their bread and butter are worth knowing and should be treated right. We ought to fix a plate for them and one for ourselves. Pass them a hunk of warm bread ready to receive its butter blessing. We’ll patiently, gratefully wait for melting golden butter to settle into every nook, cranny, and crumb. It’s our suppertime communion.

photograph by Tim Robison

Butter Swim Biscuits

Not everyone can craft perfect yeast rolls or biscuits on the first try, but anyone can bake great Butter Swims from the get-go. They require neither the patient proofing and shaping of yeast rolls nor the delicate rolling and cutting of biscuits. Just stir up the dough, pour it into a trusty skillet, cut it so that streams of melted butter can run through, and place it into a hot oven. Voila! Intensely buttery, warm, homemade bread in minutes. Each piece has a biscuit-like center wrapped in a golden-brown crust from having baked in butter.

Butter Swims were once a boon for time-strapped cooks. This is the type of recipe that many home chefs would keep near the front of the recipe box or taped inside a cabinet door, assuming they didn’t know it by heart.

Makes 8 servings.

2½ cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 cups buttermilk
½ cup salted butter, cut into pats

Heat the oven to 450°.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl until well-combined. Add buttermilk and, using a silicone spatula, stir to make sticky dough that absorbs all the dry ingredients.

Put the butter in a 10.5-inch cast-iron skillet and place into the oven to melt.

Remove skillet from oven. Pour in dough and gently spread to the edges. Using a knife, cut through dough to make 8 strips, wedges, or rough squares, separating edges to let melted butter bubble up between pieces. Because the dough is sticky, the cuts won’t be smooth and they’ll close up, but you’ll be able to separate the pieces along those lines once baked.

Bake in center of oven until tops are puffy and a deep golden brown, about 25 minutes. Let stand for 3 to 5 minutes before serving warm.