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Bless the Buttie!

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When autumn arrives, trees turn shades of ochre, orange and scandalous scarlet, scents of wood smoke waft on the suddenly chill air, and I am annually reminded of my first trip to Ireland. It was October, and after landing at Shannon, I rented a car and headed for my lodging, a country estate in County Sligo. As I drove, I smelled something burning. Figuring I was passing through an industrial area I gave it no heed, but as I moved into the countryside, the smell persisted. Finally, I pulled into a gas station, sure that the car was on fire. The attendant looked the motor over thoroughly, gave me a bemused look, assured me there was nothing wrong, and waved me on my way. 

But the smell persisted. When I arrived at my destination and entered the house, I was hit with a fresh wave of the same burning odor. There in the fireplace before me lay my first encounter with a turf fire. Only then did I realize that all along I had been smelling the pungent aroma of burning peat coming from a multitude of home hearths.

My embarrassment at mistaking the smell of peat for a fire in my vehicle was assuaged by the arrival of my hostess, who carried in a tray loaded with a steaming pot of tea, slices of butter-slathered bread still warm from the oven, and wild blackberry preserves. The following morning, the kitchen was all abuzz.

Guests were enjoying hearty Irish breakfasts and the household’s children were being hustled off to school, each with a packed lunch of crisp juicy apples from the family orchard and thick slabs of buttered wholemeal brown bread sandwiching slices of the previous night’s dinner, a fine roast beef. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I slipped several decades back in time and remembered all the wonderful sandwiches I had enjoyed in grade school.

My lunch was always more interesting than what my classmates had brought. Except for Paulette who sometimes had a thermos of soup, all the other girls only ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My lunch, however, was rarely the same two days in a row as it almost always consisted of what my dad called ‘butties’ – basically anything at all sandwiched between two slices of buttered bread. His personal favorite was baked beans, but they didn’t travel well.

The ‘butties’ I took to school were almost always made with dinner leftovers and ranged from roast beef, lamb, pork or chicken to Thanksgiving turkey, Easter ham, meatloaf or Italian meatballs. Meatless Fridays required a different approach, and on those days I had tuna fish salad or hard-boiled eggs with sliced tomatoes. One thing remained constant regardless of the filling: the bread was always buttered. Many years later, while on a food foray in Northern Ireland, I discovered that a Fried Potato Buttie is a popular antidote to the wobblies one gets after an all-night pub crawl.

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