Form over function

[vakkotaur]

I'd like to get a new (to me) butter dish. What I am thinking of is a two-piece (tray & cover) thing made of transparent heavy glass, more rectangular than curved, and with some simple design on the cover to aid grip and perhaps make it seem not so plain as just a chunk of glass. This is, to me, a fairly standard butter dish. It's what I grew up with. And, evidently, it's now hard to find at a sane price. Instead there are expensive opaque things, often with a knob of a handle atop the cover. Or, some poorly thought out curved thing that has three problems. One is that the curved glass with no design makes the stick of butter look odd due to the distortion of refraction. Another is that the cover isn't tall enough and contacts the stick of butter (was this intended as a means of centering, or was it just thoughtlessness?). But worst of all, it's smooth curved glass and thus unless it and your hand are both perfectly clean, it's hard to grip and can easily slip away.

It seems the curved abomination is the most commonly available design now. It's cheap. Oh, it might also be inexpensive to purchase, but really it's just cheap. It's crap. I'd rather have glass than plastic for this, but the dollar store plastic design is better. It mimics the glass design that works right. What bugs me is, how did that curved crap become the current standard so many places? What fool thought, "Hey, this looks neat." without evidently giving even a moment's thought to its actual use? This is another one of those problems that were solved long, long ago, but some twit had to break the design and others went along with the idiocy. Now the good design is hard to find or expensive and gets the label "Vintage." Huh?!

Comments

[kiwihunter8.livejournal.com]

I gave up. Now I put all my sticks of butter in sandwich bags and slowly unwrap them out of their original wrapping (keeping the original wrapping so I can pick up the butter).

Then if I have guests or need butter on the table, I cut a chunk off and put it on a small plate to soften.

I even have a butter bell and that doesn't work that fantastically either.

There are millions to be made in a better butter solution!

[malterre.livejournal.com]

I bought mine at Williams Sonoma years ago-not sure if that fits your financial parameters..
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/search/results.html?activeTab=products&words=butter+dish&cm_sp=OnsiteSearch-_-GlobalNav-_-Button&type-ahead-viewset=ecom

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

With the least expensive at $19.99, you're right it is pricey stuff for me. Also, they seem not to have the non-knobbed transparent glass I really desire.