[indrora]

Even regional differences in things.

If you say "one bar of butter", "one stick of butter", and "one pat of butter", these can all refer to three different things or the same thing, depending on where you are located. East Coast and West Coast US butter are sold in different size blocks (though both are "8 tbsp") however sometimes you'll find 4tbsp sticks on the west coast that look like 1/2 an East Coast stick that I've heard called pats.

Then Europe comes along and all the fancy European butters are made in 250g blocks, which are bigger than the 110g sticks but smaller than the package of 4 of them! This always confused my European friends when I'd say "oh I'll toss in a stick of butter" because they thought I was adding a quarter kilo of butter.

[tavavex]

Meanwhile, here in Canada I've never seen "sticks of butter", only the large bricks. They're the same size as American ones, and labeled as 454g, but I only recently found out that in some places in the US, they cut them in fours. Before that, the phrase didn't mean anything to me, and I thought it referred to throwing the whole brick in. The smaller 250g packages also exist, but they're rare.

I can't guarantee that the sticks don't exist anywhere, but I've lived in several cities all over the country and I've never spotted anything like that

[bregma]

The 250 g half-bricks are very common. It's how the foo-foo frilly butter is sold ("cultured" butter, imported French butter with 94% fat content, butter made exclusively from milk squeezed from grass-fed cows, etc) because no one is willing to pay $15.00 for a pound of butter but they'll pay $8.00 for a half pound.

[inferiorhuman]

  I only recently found out that in some places in the US,
  they cut them in fours

That's pretty much the standard in the US. It's common enough that there's a bit of an east/west divide as to how the quarters are shaped. When I worked in a grocery store we'd also sell individual quarters (but I never actually saw anyone buy them as such).

[jandrewrogers]

Some American butter is wrapped in wax paper as regular sticks with measurement markers on it so that it is easy to measure. Plenty of large bricks though.

[guappa]

And here we use the markers to know how many grams that part is… how silly of us!

[xav0989]

I’ve seen them in stores in Canada, but they’re usually more expensive than the 454g blocks. Expensive enough that it’s usually better to buy the block and portion it as needed.

[philistine]

Typical Americana. Cutting up and packaging in extra foil what could simply be sold as a larger brick.

See also, milk bags.

[syncsynchalt]

Bricks won't fit in our butter trays. And it'd be an ordeal to open a brick, quarter it, then put the opened 3/4 of the brick back into cold storage until needed again.

Our butter isn't wrapped in foil, each stick is wrapped in wax paper and the whole thing is boxed in thin cardboard.

[unsnap_biceps]

fancy butter is sometimes in foil, https://www.kerrygoldusa.com for example

[antonyh]

Here in the UK, there's a trend of selling 200g blocks for certain brands that ruin recipes. We have to be careful to avoid those and stick to the 250g ones. Yes, I know we could cut 50g of another block but then we'd need to measure, and we'd have an open brick to keep. It steals part of the joy of baking, forcing us to think instead of feel.

[kruador]

Blame the European regulators who decided that it was no longer necessary to have standard pack sizes.

Pack sizes were regulated in 1975 for volume measures (wine, beer, spirits, vinegar, oils, milk, water, and fruit juice) and in 1980 for weights (butter, cheese, salt, sugar, cereals [flour, pasta, rice, prepared cereals], dried fruits and vegetables, coffee, and a number of other things). In 2007, all of that was repealed - and member states were now forbidden from regulating pack sizes!

I think the rationale was that now the unit price (price per unit of measurement) was mandatory to display, consumers would still know which of two different packs on the same shelf was better value. But standard pack sizes don't just provide value-for-money comparisons, as this article shows.

[antonyh]

Ironically it seems (from memory, I've not researched it deeply) that continental butter has not changed from 250g, whereas the British brands have moved first to 200g. I could understand if they switched to 225g as essentially a half-pound block, but 200g isn't any closer to an useful Imperial measure than 250g.

[vidarh]

> but then we'd need to measure

Most butter here (and in a number of other countries) have measuring lines on the pack itself in 50g increments, so while I agree with you it's a nuisance to have an open one to deal with, the measurement part is usually a matter of using a knife along the marked line...

If the "certain brands" you refer to don't have those measuring lines, though, then a pox on them...

[antonyh]

I'm not sure about that, I've resisted buying those brands and it seems poor form to open them in the supermarket just to check.

[account42]

Do people here not always have an open pack of butter in their fridge?

[antonyh]

We have salted butter for the table, and unsalted for baking. We don't bake often enough to want unopened packs if we can avoid it.

[account42]

Pre-salted butter is another weird American thing that's completely unnecessary. Butter is also great for cooking and you can keep it for months in the fridge without issues.

[detaro]

It's not really an American thing. It's a pretty wild mix which regions use which how much all across the world (well, across places that commonly use butter obviously)

[rkomorn]

Salted butter is a weird American thing?

It's much easier finding unsalted butter in the US than in Portugal.

In fact, unsalted butter has been the default everywhere I've lived in the US.

Edit: not to mention, say, salted butter being a point of pride for Britany.

[antonyh]

It's about 50/50 here in the UK. Not at all weird, it's butter for different purposes.

[vidarh]

For my part: Only around christmas-time, as it's the only time I bake.

[dolmen]

Another dimension we have in France: most butter in 82% fat, but if are not careful you might buy so-called butter with much lower fat. Awful taste on morning toasts, ruined pastries.

[antonyh]

82% seems the norm here too, good to know this. Anything lower is labelled 'spread' (based on a very quick search, maybe not always true here). Oddly specific, so maybe there's regulation at play. We prefer French butter for the quality and because it comes in the correct size.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

>bigger than the 110g sticks

There are four 110g sticks per package because each one is one quarter of the classic one pound (454g) package of butter, rounded down.

The European equivalent is a 125g package, which is flatter and wider than your square-profile 110g sticks.

[Freak_NL]

The 125 g package tends to be exclusive for more expensive brands though, or special stuff like salted butter. 250 g is the basic European packaging unit of butter, with the occasional 500 g for margarine.

[0xffff2]

> If you say "one bar of butter", "one stick of butter", and "one pat of butter", these can all refer to three different things or the same thing, depending on where you are located. East Coast and West Coast US butter are sold in different size blocks (though both are "8 tbsp") however sometimes you'll find 4tbsp sticks on the west coast that look like 1/2 an East Coast stick that I've heard called pats.

Wat. Never in my life have I seen butter in the (mostly western) US sold in anything other than 1/4 lb sticks. There are long, skinny sticks and short, fat sticks, but they're always 1/4 lb. If you say a "pat" of butter, you're getting roughly a 1/2 Tbsp of butter from me. Definitely not half a stick!

[nerdsniper]

Midwest, East Coast, and South I've seen some 1/2lb or 1lb blocks for fancier butters sometimes. But a pat of butter was definitely 1/4-1/2 tbsp of butter in the midwest - depending on if for toast (less) or for baking (exactly 1/2).

I've not heard "pat" used as a serious unit of volume since childhood though. In fact I rarely hear the word pat in relation to butter at all anymore.

[unwind]

I'd say (from northern Europe) that 500 g [1] is a standard pack of butter, even though they've also added the smaller "half packs" of 250 g. For professional use, there's also the full kilogram. Whoa that has got to be expensive these days.

[1]: https://www.arla.se/produkter/svenskt-smor/

[saalweachter]

One recipe in my family calls for butter "the size of two walnuts".

[davidinosauro]

In Italy this is a fairly common expression.

I've typically (only?) seen it on savory recipes though. For cakes and cookies you'd have quantities in grams.

[nerdsniper]

Also the tbsp and fluid ounce differ by 4% in the UK vs USA. This offsets the nominal 25% difference in pints, with UK pints having 20 oz and US pints having 16, closing the gap a bit to an actual 20.095% between the pints.