Italian Butter

We never used real butter in our family. Mom always bought margarine. She considered real butter too expensive, a luxury we didn't need and couldn't afford. I also think her memories of food rationing during World War II played a part in the fact that we never had real butter available. Mom usually purchased sticks of Blue Bonnet and any number of different varieties of the soft margarine in a tub. But no matter what type of margarine she had, we always called it butter.

One of our family traditions was that mom would make your favorite meal on your birthday. Dad usually liked any kind of meat with “home fries” – potato wedges fried in vegetable oil with lots of onions mixed in. My brother always asked for meatloaf and Brussels sprouts and I always asked for lasagna. When it came time for mom’s birthday, we took her out to dinner.

We hardly ever went out to dinner, maybe just a few times a year, so it was a treat for all of us. Mom’s favorite food was Italian and her favorite restaurant was Colacci's, an old-timey Italian restaurant located in a small community between Denver and Boulder. You know the kind of place, red-and-white checkered tablecloths, great big jugs of Chianti on the table, homemade spaghetti noodles so thick you could not possibly eat an entire plateful, and lots of freshly baked bread.

One time during mom’s annual birthday dinner at Colacci’s, my brother asked if someone would “Please pass the Italian butter.” This confused everyone! After questioning, it turned out that Ted was just asking for one of the little individual servings of real butter. Since we never had it in our house, the only place he experienced real butter was in this restaurant. Naturally, he assumed that made it “Italian” butter.

To this day our family teases my brother about Italian butter. Tomorrow I’m having Thanksgiving dinner at Ted’s house with his family. And most likely when it’s our turn, each of us will say, “Please pass the Italian butter!”