Devon butter pats 575

Exactly. People having e.g. a cream tea, use their knife to cut the butter, then they cut the scone in half and some cut a portion off that. They spread it with butter and they put some of it in their mouth. Then they cut some more butter and use the knife to put it on a bit of scone into which they have bitten and so on. Or perhaps, horrors!, they lick their knives, or they drop them on the ground and pick them up and use them again and so on. And of course, they use the knife to spread the jam and the cream and then they put that knife back in the butter...... One thing experience has taught us is that people vary hugely in their use of butter. Strange but true. Some will use lavish amounts on a roll with e.g. soup, some will use none at all because they don't like the flavour combination. Some will use none with a cream tea, some will use 4 or 5 pats with 2 scones, some will use one pat and spread it thinly on 2 scones and so on. But because they have it in mind to have a proper cream tea as a treat, ALL will use up the jam and cream to almost the last scrape. It's extremely rare to throw out either of those. I had no idea until I married my husband 6 years ago and it's really rather interesting. ;-) And you absolutely cannot re-use a pot of anything that has been to the table of a previous customer. Big, huge, enormous no-no. So - we could cut up a pot full of butter and find that none of it is used or a tiny scrape is taken from it and we have to throw it ALL away, anyway. I don't think I have a germ phobia but I loathe those food displays where plated up cakes, salads, etc. are waiting to be picked up by the pbutting customer. Anyone can cough or sneeze over them and they all have that 'tired' look at the end of a day. Yeuch. And - back to the butter, on hot days when customers are served in the garden we already throw away any butter pats which have gone soft in the heat, obviously, so dishes of butter being wasted through lack of use or rendered unhygienic really are out of the question in a comparatively small place like this. It's not a hotel or restaurant working to a large profit margin and we ARE generous with the portion sizes but as I said upthread, hygiene comes first and wastage absolutely has to be considered. -- Sacha www.hillhousenursery.co.uk South Devon