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PA Dutch Amish Maple Butter Pat Press w/ Teaberry Sprig
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PA Dutch Amish Maple Butter Pat Press w/ Teaberry Sprig
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This is a butterpat press made of maple wood with a teaberry sprig press design. Mint condition and unused. Found in an early Amish wish or wedding trunk. Measures 3 1/4 inches tall and 1 5/8 inches across. 's some interesting dairy butter and butter mold history: The emergence of dairy butter. Dairy work included milking, making cream and butter, and also the sophisticated art of making cheese. In Europe it was always done by women. The word "dairy" is from Middle English dey ‑ a female servant. The dairy was associated with the house as opposed to the lands; "inside" has always been female in the Western imagination, and "outside" male, so that the man's place was in the public eye while the woman's was at home. Also, milk was perhaps considered self‑evidently a woman's affair. History records that a primary object of keeping cows was to supply the needs of the family for milk and butter. Butter was produced almost universally in olden times because it was more essential in the diet of most people, although it was several centuries before the consumption of fresh butter became established custom. The art of making butter, tfore, originated in the home. As communities expanded and frontiers were pushed back with the growth of nations, many families were gradually forced to procure their supplies of milk and butter from farmers located in their vicinity. Then, as populations became more congested, and as cities sprang up, butter making on farms became more and more important. As our larger cities developed, important tracing areas also developed resulting eventually in the establishment of Boards of Trade and later in Mercantile Exchanges in New York and Chicago , for example. The farm production of butter began to assume definite shape at least as early as 1791 as Willard stated in 1871 that "Orange County located 50 miles north of New York City had for 80 years devoted its chief attention to butter making and the production of fresh milk for the New York City Market." "Dairy butter," as this product made on the farm was called, made up for sale was oftentimes collected as "pats," "balls," "rolls" and even "prints." Butter stamps and molds, carved in various styles and patterns, were used in dairies to decorate blocks or rounds of butter. This was particularly true in the Philadelphia market which long enjoyed high reputation for fine dairy butter. It was not uncommon for such " Philadelphia butter" to sell at a dollar per pound and even higher w the prevailing market prices were around 20 cents per pound or less. This fine Philadelphia butter was defined as: "Our idea is that butter -- such butter as would give a man an appetite to look at, to smell of and taste of -- is as far removed from an oily, fatty, or tallowy substance as possible... a firm, fine- grained article, of rich golden color, sweet, nutty aromatic smell and unctuous taste, put up in pound or half-pound lumps, whether square or round, and which, when opened out from its moist, then white linen wrapper, invites both the senses of smell and taste." In the late 19th century, marketing butter was thought to be the easiest part of the whole process, or the least important, judging by the manner in which it was done. If the maker was near a market, it was often put into half-pound or pound lumps, and printed or stamped with some emblematic device, such as a sheaf of wheat, a cow, a beehive, or the maker's initials. After the final working, a lump is cut off with the clapper, placed upon the scales, and either added to or taken from, always being sure to give rather over than under a pound. It is then taken from the scale by one clapper (roughly a spoon) in the right hand, and with the other clapper in the left, it is worked over into a ball by a few expert touches; and while held on the left-hand clapper, the right-hand one having been exchanged for the stamp-mould is dipped in cold water to prevent its sticking to the lump, and then pressed firmly upon it, then withdrawn, leavin...
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