Butterbrot
Encyclopedia
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
with butter
Butter
Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
) describes a slice of bread topped with butter. The words in formal and colloquial German and the different dialects for butterbrot (different from "belegtes Brot" - with cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
, sausage
Sausage
A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat , mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made...
s etc.), simply "Brot" (bread), "Butterstulle", "Stulle", "Schnitte" (all three Northeast/Berlin dialect), "buterbrodas", "Bütterken" (Rheinland dialect) to "Bemme" (Saxon dialect) or "Knifte" (Ruhr dialect). Russian adopted the term "Butterbrot" to refer to sandwiches in general, see . Although it is increasingly replaced by other food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
s, it remains a common staple food
Staple food
A staple food is one that is eaten regularly and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a diet, and that supplies a high proportion of energy and nutrient needs. Most people live on a diet based on one or more staples...
in Germany. Since 1999, the last Friday in the month of September was made the day of butterbrot by the Marketing Organization of German Agricultural Industries.
Comparison with sandwiches
A butterbrot is commonly a single slice of bread and one "ingredient" on top of the butter or margarineMargarine
Margarine , as a generic term, can indicate any of a wide range of butter substitutes, typically composed of vegetable oils. In many parts of the world, the market share of margarine and spreads has overtaken that of butter...
. For breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work...
, this ingredient tends to be sweet and can be marmalade
Marmalade
Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits, boiled with sugar and water. The benchmark citrus fruit for marmalade production in Britain is the "Seville orange" from Spain, Citrus aurantium var...
, jam, honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
, chocolate spread
Chocolate spread
Chocolate spread is a chocolate-flavoured paste which is eaten mostly spread on breads and toasts or similar pastries such as muffins and pitas.Chocolate spread is a product favored mainly by children and serves as a prevalent spread on their sandwiches....
, hazelnut spread
Nutella
Nutella is the brand name of a chocolate spread. Nutella, manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero, was introduced on the market in 1963. The recipe was developed from an earlier Ferrero spread released in 1944. Nutella is now sold in over 75 countries....
, peanut butter
Peanut butter
Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanuts, popular in North America, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and parts of Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia. It is mainly used as a sandwich spread, sometimes in combination as in the peanut butter and jelly...
, sprinkles
Sprinkles
Sprinkles are very small pieces of confectionery used as a decoration or to add texture to desserts—typically cupcakes, cookies, doughnuts, ice cream, frozen yogurt, and some puddings...
, vlokken
Vlokken
Vlokken is a commonly used sandwich topping in the Netherlands. One vlok is made of chocolate and is curved, its size is about 0.5 cm x 2 cm x 0.1 cm....
, or muisjes
Muisjes
Muisjes are a traditional Dutch open-faced sandwich topping, very similar to nonpareils. While customary on bread, their most typical use is on beschuit, or rusk. Muisjes are made of aniseed sprinkles with a sugared and colored outer layer...
. For dinner
Dinner
Dinner is usually the name of the main meal of the day. Depending upon culture, dinner may be the second, third or fourth meal of the day. Originally, though, it referred to the first meal of the day, eaten around noon, and is still occasionally used for a noontime meal, if it is a large or main...
(German-speaking countries traditionally eat only one cooked meal per day) or as boxed lunch, and often also for breakfast, the butterbrot is eaten with something savory, usually a single slice of cold meat or cheese, or sometimes spreads etc. Boxed lunch butterbrot can be folded for easier handling and as such resembles the sandwich
Sandwich
A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...
. In Austria butterbrot only refers to a slice of bread with butter. If a topping is added it is named after the topping (e.g. käsebrot "cheese bread", wurstbrot "sausage bread").
The derivatives of the British sandwich and the butterbrot of the German-speaking countries differ in some ways: The butterbrot is usually made from the typical bread types of German-speaking countries, which are much firmer than English bread. One popular type is Graubrot (grey bread), which has a sour taste, due to the use of sourdough
Sourdough
Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of biological leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast...
as a leavening agent
Leavening agent
A leavening agent is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action which lightens and softens the finished product...
, and contains rye
Rye
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...
. As Graubrot requires the culture of rye, which implies sourdough, and widespread dairy farming
Dairy farming
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...
, most south-/western-European countries came to prefer other kinds of (mainly white) breads (baguette
Baguette
A baguette is "a long thin loaf of French bread" that is commonly made from basic lean dough...
, ciabatta
Ciabatta
Ciabatta is an Italian white bread made with wheat flour and yeast. The loaf is somewhat elongated, broad and flattish. There are many variations of ciabatta.Ciabatta in its modern form was developed in 1982...
, toast
Toast
Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...
etc.). Graubrot exists in dozens of varieties with respect to taste, shape, color, etc. Another popular bread type is Schwarzbrot (black bread), which is even firmer and of darker color; again many different varieties exist.
Possibly even more important are differences with respect to what is eaten on top of a butterbrot or in a sandwich. Although exceptions exist, a butterbrot is commonly not expanded the way sandwiches are. One slice of cheese and one or (in case of thin slices) maybe two slices of cold meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
are commonly considered sufficient; adding lettuce
Lettuce
Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...
or even onions, ketchup
Ketchup
Ketchup is a sweet-and-tangy condiment typically made from tomatoes, vinegar, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup and an assortment of...
etc. is virtually unheard of. Also the ratio of bread and "topping" is relatively constant; thick sandwich fillings have almost no equivalent for the butterbrot. If more than one topping is added then it is called belegtes Brot/Brötchen ("topped bread"). These are common at buffet tables.
German speakers differentiate between the German-style butterbrot and the British-style sandwich by using the English word "sandwich" for the latter. As the English language does not contain both words, English speakers commonly describe both butterbrot and sandwich with the word sandwich.
Decline
The butterbrot has been replaced gradually in the last 40 years by muesliMuesli
Muesli is a popular breakfast cereal based on uncooked rolled oats, fruit and nuts. It was developed around 1900 by Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients in his hospital...
, breakfast cereals or toast
Toast
Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...
for breakfast and take-away
Take-out
Take-out or takeout , carry-out , take-away , parcel , or tapau , is food purchased at a...
bakery products during daytime. Some younger people in Germany eat a butterbrot rarely, if at all.
Nonetheless, it remains a common staple food among many Germans. In addition, for many Germans, especially families, it remains popular in the evening. It is also eaten a lot on hiking trips. In many parts of Germany the butterbrot is still very common for second breakfast at school or work (much more often eaten than, for example, fast food
Fast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...
).
Usually in September every year, the Central Marketing Society for German Agriculture (CMA, the agricultural industry's lobby group) declares a "day of the German Butterbrot". The 8th Butterbrot day's motto in 2006 was: "Re-Experience Enjoyment". The celebration is one of many "Days of..." and not very well known in Germany.
Urban legends
Butterbrots and their variants are said to always fall to the floor with the top side downwards (see: Murphy's lawMurphy's law
Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". - History :The perceived perversity of the universe has long been a subject of comment, and precursors to the modern version of Murphy's law are not hard to find. Recent significant...
). A common explanation is that the top side is usually heavier than the bottom side. This applies more to Nutella
Nutella
Nutella is the brand name of a chocolate spread. Nutella, manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero, was introduced on the market in 1963. The recipe was developed from an earlier Ferrero spread released in 1944. Nutella is now sold in over 75 countries....
/jam breads than cheese/meat breads. The subject has been researched by various sources, e.g. the famous children's series Die Sendung mit der Maus
Die Sendung mit der Maus
Die Sendung mit der Maus is a highly acclaimed children's series on German television that has been called "the school of the nation". The show first aired on March 10, 1971...
, and the scientific TV German series Quarks & Co. It is often joked about what would happen if you tie a butterbrot to the back of a cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
, in the same manner that hypothetical buttered toast attached to the back of a cat is sometimes joked about, with it being debated whether the feline would still honour the popular axiom, that a cat "always lands on its feet", or if the butterbrot would be "stronger", making the cat fall on its back - alternatively, it is sometimes humorously suggested that the cat would simply levitate, as it would be unable to satisfy both criteria for landing.
External links
- German Food Guide: Das Butterbrot, The German Sandwich
- The butterbrot experiments and the different lines of thought (German)
- Resume of the experiments in Quarks & Co (German)
- Cartoon Translation: "Cats always land on their feet and butterbrots always land on the top side, what could be more interesting than strapping a Butterbrot on top of a cat and let them fall together." – "Poor butterbrot." This experiment refutes the claim that butterbrots always land on the top side.
