Is butter a condiment?

[skipper]

Just now, Daniel said:

I think the definition of 'butter' goes on for 20 pages...

Oh dear. After the topping display, I have no doubt about that.

[Daniel]

Butter:

[Daniel]

More butter:

Butter 'is one who butts'

[Daniel]

If I post anything else, I will have to ban myself for spamming.

[skipper]

Butter-pat would be used to condiment (v) something on the table, fairly applicable.  “Second skimmings of milk” under toppings is fairly close to butter. I declare a stalemate. 😂 also I need one of those dictionaries...

edit: upon further investigation TIL “one of those dictionaries” is 20 volumes!! I see why...

Edited April 28, 2021 by skipper

[KBOzzie59]

All depends on how you use it...

[Fishdude]

You guys this has to get resolved tonight or I won't be able to sleep. I feel like we need someone from ACO to weigh in and give us a final decision.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Fishdude

[Kirsten]

I'm going out on a limb and saying no, even though it's used as flavoring/flavor enhancement on popcorn, pasta, cooked vegetables, bread, and seafood. Because it's really just a fat. It makes food tasty because it adds fat. A condiment is a sauce that adds a wide variety of flavors, like ketchup, mustard, mayo, bbq sauce, relish. In the same way that sea salt or a lemon wedge isn't a condiment, it's just the final seasoning to taste.

[lefty o]

i say we take a vote to ban the person who would dare ask such a silly question! 🙈

[ChemBob]

If the argument is it has to add flavors, I would present flavored butters. My brother in law is a chef, and he has made a number of butters. Pepper butter, cinnamon butter, honey butter. Not to mention apple butter, nut butters, etc. These types of butter add the savory fat as well as flavor. 

[Ken]

The way I eat butter it's a food group. I often have some mashed potatoes with my butter, or biscuits or cornbread with my butter. Sometimes something green.

During the sail era of warships butter was allocated as part of an individuals rations. Supper was sometimes butter and hardtack.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

This is the most flavorful "rabbit hole" if jumped down in quite a while. You can do nearly anything with butter, a bottle of Tabasco, duck tape and paracord.

[NetBelleAnie]

[Fishdude]

10 hours ago, Kirsten said:

I'm going out on a limb and saying no, even though it's used as flavoring/flavor enhancement on popcorn, pasta, cooked vegetables, bread, and seafood. Because it's really just a fat. It makes food tasty because it adds fat. A condiment is a sauce that adds a wide variety of flavors, like ketchup, mustard, mayo, bbq sauce, relish. In the same way that sea salt or a lemon wedge isn't a condiment, it's just the final seasoning to taste.

So you're saying that most of my body is seasoning rather than condiment?

Better yet, when I finally get in to see my doctor after a year I'm going to tell him I just gained a lot of seasoning during the pandemic.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Fishdude

[TheDukeAnumber1]

16 hours ago, Daniel said:

Agreed, perhaps we can agree on definitions? According to my trusty OED:

I take no exceptions to those definitions, they seem reasonable.

Woah a 12 to 12 vote split so far! After some thought and internal deliberation I  fall on the side of no, butter is not a condiment. Although I have not fully completed the thought, I don't believe butter contains the necessary properties to be considered a condiment, (how @Kirsten explained it)

That being said it is possible that butter can be "not a condiment" and "used as a condiment" at the same time. An analogy would be momentarily using a wrench as a hammer, using it as a hammer does not make it a hammer.

I think we should further explore what the necessary properties of a condiment are.

[Daniel]

I

22 hours ago, Kirsten said:

I'm going out on a limb and saying no, even though it's used as flavoring/flavor enhancement on popcorn, pasta, cooked vegetables, bread, and seafood. Because it's really just a fat. It makes food tasty because it adds fat. A condiment is a sauce that adds a wide variety of flavors, like ketchup, mustard, mayo, bbq sauce, relish. In the same way that sea salt or a lemon wedge isn't a condiment, it's just the final seasoning to taste.

 

As we learn from the OED and nicely summarized by @Kirsten a condiment is a "pickling fluid, seasoning or sauce used to give relish to food. The Latin condimentum "spice, seasoning or sauce" comes from com "together" + dere "put" meaning to put together or store hence the emphasis on pickling, or putting fruits in vinegar or wine or spice. But usage trumps etymology when it comes to determining meaning.

Would anyone say mayonnaise is not a condiment? And yet mayonnaise is merely an emulsion of oils, egg yolk and acid really not that very different from butter. 

As @TheDukeAnumber1 seeks to learn what "necessary properties of a condiment are", I would say that condiments have those properties as implied by common everyday usage amongst ordinary people. Case in point is the video helpfully posted by @TheDukeAnumber1 where Cory uses butter and mayonnaise when providing examples of condiments. And why those 2 condiments? Easy because both butter and mayonnaise complimented the flavors of the food to which they were being added to in a most condimental way.

And to show this is not some 21th century degeneracy of the language I submit this 1837 recipe for a ham sandwich from Directions for Cookery by Miss Leslie in which butter and mustard are both used as spreads on bread to enhance the flavor of the ham sandwich. Are there any serious objections to classifying mustard as a condiment?

It would seem clear from Cory's (explicit) and Miss Leslie's (implied) usage of butter as a flavor enhancing compliment to spice up a simple, dreary meat and bread combination that the people at large and throughout history have voted decisively for butter as a condiment.

[Celly Rasbora]

I asked my husband if butter is a condiment. His response?

”Can be.”

[lefty o]

lubricant!

[Tanked]

10 hours ago, lefty o said:

lubricant!

My second thought was the memory of my little brother getting his head stuck between the spindles on a neighbor's handrail.  Her husband  said to get a stick of butter and grease up his head...   Thanks for the memory.

[Trish]

I use it to get pitch off my hands, in that case it wouldn't be a condiment! 

In my family we make butter roses for special occasions... too pretty to eat.

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Trish

[Fowler]

It's a condiment like a hot dog is a sandwich or cereal is soup

[Fishdude]

1 hour ago, Fowler said:

It's a condiment like a hot dog is a sandwich or cereal is soup

Whoa whoa whoa, now you're just trying to start a fight.

[Daniel]

Even after all of this discussion the question of butter's condimental status seems to be an unresolved paradox.

It looks like the Black Hole Information Paradox may be resolved before this one is.

[lefty o]

7 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Even after all of this discussion the question of butter's condimental status seems to be an unresolved paradox.

It looks like the Black Hole Information Paradox may be resolved before this one is.

only because the question wasnt asked about it being a lubricant! LOL

[Lemon]

9 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Even after all of this discussion the question of butter's condimental status seems to be an unresolved paradox.

It looks like the Black Hole Information Paradox may be resolved before this one is.

I helped now butter is a condiment is winning