Butter dish

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A butter dish is a specialised dish in which butter is served. It would normally have a base with a separate fitting lid with its own handle. A typical measurement is 8 inches by 5 inches. Buttered dishes are commonly made of stainless steel, silver or porcelain. The metal examples tend to have within them a glass base to protect the metal from the corrosive effects of salt within the butter.

You might also consider the French "Le beurrier", also known as a "French Butter Dish", which is a French invention dating from the 1500's, consisting of a pottery dish designed specifically for the purposes of storing butter out in the open and usually on top of a kitchen table, without the benefit of refrigeration. This way the butter is soft and available at room temperature for spreading. The French beurrier achieves this purpose by keeping air from oxidizing the butter and thus making the butter turn rancid. For quite a long time the availability of a French beurrier was limited to obtaining it from curio emporiums and flea markets or even better....when you visited France, for with the advent of refrigeration, it was relegated to just a curio item outside of France. Now there are a number of American pottery artists who make them, and one of these particular artists has created an "improved" model over the original French design. The improvement on this American potter's model (James Sloss) comes from the inclusion of a series of holes made into the bell of the jar which many other manufactured designs lack. This particular American design makes it possible to have a perfect seal in spite of the butter being used up and thereby risking not having a perfect seal with the water in the jar at any time. One note.....if you use one of the French style beurrier, you should pour and mix salt into the water that covers the butter to prevent mold growth. Likewise it seems recommended that the water should be changed on a regular basis of at least every third day, more so on hot days when the water might evaporate faster and risk breaking the seal inside the butter dish. The butter is packed into the usually cone shaped lid of the French beurrier when it is semi-soft, but not when it is too soft that it will not grip the inside of the bell jar of the pottery dish. Do not store in direct sunlight and try to keep it cool with ice in the water if out of doors on a particularly hot day.