Why Is There A Notch In A Butter Knife?

There are plenty of kitchen items that are common in many households. My household is no exception as I deal with the preparation of meals for my family.

I ensure to use the best of kitchen items to serve fresh and tasty foods for my family. Early in the morning, I serve my children some bread spread with butter. They seem to enjoy it very much.

Recently, while I was preparing bread for them, I noticed something. The butter knife had a notch that I had not realized before.

It aroused my curiosity on the various reasons as to why the butter knife has it. I did my research and got to know that the notch on a butter knife is there to serve two purposes.

For those of you who are as curious as I am, I hope that after reading this article I have helped answer the question behind why there is a notch on the butter knife.

The main reasons for a notch on a butter knife include:

1. The first purpose is to be helpful as you try to get butter, that is, it is non-cutting.

2. The second purpose is to allow quick reference visuals to the broad edge.

In this article, I will be discussing the butter knife and try to explain the purpose of the notch.

I came across articles that say that the purpose of the notch may be to distinguish between a butter knife that cuts pats of butter from the dinner butter spreader knife.

Another reason given for the notch was that it may just be for decorative purposes. There is no known reason as to why there is a notch on the butter knife.

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What is a butter knife?

A butter knife, which may also be referred to as a master butter knife, is a non-serrated table knife. It has a sharp point, a saber shape, and a dull edge.

A master butter knife serves the purpose of serving out butter pats from the main butter dish to individual plates.

This is done to prevent the remaining butter in the butter dish from getting contaminated before the next butter pat is served.

The butter knife is the smallest knife that you can find in a formal table setting.

What is a notch?

Before I continue with my discussion, I realized that you probably may not know what a notch is.

Well, a notch is that part of a knife that is between the tang and the grind. The reason why you may find a notch in a butter knife or rather any other knife is that the notch’s primary purpose is to show the edge’s border.

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What is the difference between a spreader and a butter knife?

You may probably be wondering how to differentiate the two. I may be able to help with that.

As compared to butter knives, the butter spreaders tend to have ends that are rounded.

The purpose of this is to assist in applying butter to the bread once it has been placed on the plate. It also helps in avoiding the butter spread to bite the bread.

Another difference is that, unlike butter spreaders, butter knives have sharp edges which make slicing through the butter be easy.

The butter knives are what you should use when you want to add butter to your bread plate.

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Why Does A Butter Knife Have A Notch?

As I conclude, I would like to do a brief summary of what I have talked about. As I have stated earlier, the notch on the butter knife is there mainly to serve two purposes:

• To notify us where the edge is.
• To prevent the butter from touching the handle.

Aside from these known facts, the notch is there simply for decoration. It is also there to help you be able to differentiate between the dinner butter knife and the master butter knife.

Just to remind you, you should always ensure that the master butter knife is always on the bread plate. Never use the master butter knife to spread butter on the bread.

This is because when you do this, you will be contaminating the remaining butter left on the butter dish.

Also, the main difference between a master butter knife and a butter spreader is in its features. The butter spreader has rounded ends.

Another difference between the two is that a butter knife’s edge is sharper as compared to that of a butter spreader.