Bread and butter. They go together like, well, bread and butter. 

In my childhood home, they were a staple with every noon and evening meal. At most sit-down restaurants today, they are an expectation. But why? What makes bread and butter an integral part of so many meals?

It all started with the invention of bread, which is up for debate. Even so, most historians agree that bread is an ancient food that dates back at least 22,000 years when scientists found evidence of humans processing wild cereal grains in a grinding stone in what is now modern-day Israel.

And butter? Well, according to butterjournal.com, it is as old as Western civilization. The site states: “In ancient Rome, it was medicinal — swallowed for coughs or spread on aching joints. In India, Hindus have been offering Lord Krishna tins full of ghee  — luscious, clarified butter — for at least 3,000 years. And in the Bible, butter is a food for celebration, first mentioned when Abraham and Sarah offer three visiting angels a feast of meat, milk and the creamy yellow spread.”

The site admits that butter’s origins are likely humbler and that a nomad probably made the first batch by accident when tying a sheepskin bag of milk to his horse and, after a day of jostling, discovered that churned milk fat solidifies into something amazing. 

But who was the first to spread butter on bread? Now it gets interesting. One largely discredited theory is that it was the work of Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer who first stated that the earth travels around the sun.

According to thedailybeast.com, Copernicus had soldiers who were subjected to a bout of the plague. Copernicus, who had also been trained in medicine, noticed that only the soldiers who ate bread were getting sick. Realizing that the bread was carried up several flights of steps from the kitchen and was often dropped on the way, his solution was to coat the loaves in a thin layer of churned cream, making it possible to see which loaves had been dropped. The plague was curbed, and the bread-and-butter combination was born.

Maybe. Maybe not. But who really cares? Just keep passing the bread… and butter.

Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707