Having grown up in Pennsylvania German country, I cannot deny my love for butter nor my fascination with the history and superstitions about the yellow goodness that drowns my vegetables.
For this article, I’ve collected several facts and fancies about butter.
1. Offering to the Goddess
The oldest written reference to butter comes from a tablet found in the Sumerian city of Uruk.
Sumerians used butter as an offering to the Goddess Inanna.
2. Ancient Greeks
The ancient Greeks made butter out of warm milk, but it was not a common food item. Instead, butter was used as a base for medicine.
3. Beneath the Romans
Ancient Romans, however, considered butter as the foodstuff of barbarians. Butter was beneath them, just as beer and animal fats were also too lowly to consume.
4. Salt Offering
There are numerous butter superstitions, but before we begin to churn, we must first make an offering.
Superstition tells us that we must throw a pinch of salt into the fire as an offering to the fire gods/spirits.
Failure to make the offering will prevent the butter from forming.
5. Ring of Rowan
A superstition from Ireland tells us that putting a twig ring from the rowan tree around the handle of the churn will protect the butter from “witches.”
6. Fairies
Butter makes an excellent offering to fairies, although my Serbian grandfather insisted that fairies preferred sugar cubes.
7. Undone
Finally, an odd superstition among the Pennsylvania Germans tells us to only churn butter in one direction. If you change the direction of your churn you will undo what you did.
