Butter, Butter, Butter!!!....1 story, 2 recipes and 2 poems

Brer Rabbit Nibbles the Butter
African-American Tale

There was a time when all the animals just kept on getting more and more familiar with one another, until by and by it wasn't long before Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and Brer Possum got to sort of bunching their provisions together in the same shanty.

After a while the roof sort of began to leak, and one day Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and Brer Possum assembled to see if they couldn't kind of patch it up.

They had a big day's work in front of them, and they fetched their dinner with them. They lumped the vittles up in one pile, and the butter that Brer Fox brought, they went and put it in the spring-house to keep it cool, and then they went to work.

It wasn't long before Brer Rabbit's stomach began to sort of growl and pester him. Brer Fox's butter sat heavy on his mind, and his mouth watered every time he remembered it.

Presently he said to himself that he would like to have a nip at the butter.
So commenced to figurin' out a plan.

First thing you know, while they were working along, Brer Rabbit raised his head quickly and flung his ears forward, and hollered out, "Here I am! What do you want with me?" and off he went, like something was after him.

After he made sure that nobody was following him, he bounced into the spring-house, and there he stayed until he got a helping of butter. Then he sauntered on back and went to work.

"Where have you been?" said Brer Fox.

"I heard my children calling me," said Brer Rabbit, "and I had to go see what they wanted. My old woman has gone and taken sick," he said.

They worked on until by and by the butter tasted so good that old Brer Rabbit wanted some more. Then he raised up his head, he did, and hollered out, "Alright! Hold on! I'm a-coming!" And off he went.

This time he stayed a good while, and when he got back, Brer Fox asked him where he'd been.

"I've been to see my old woman, and she's sinkin' ," he said.

Directly Brer Rabbit heard them calling him again, and off he went, and this time, he got the butter out so clean that he could see himself in the bottom of the bucket. He scraped it clean and licked it dry, and then he went back to work.

"How's your old woman this time?" said Brer Fox.

"I'm obliged to you, Brer Fox," said Brer Rabbit, "but I'm afraid that she's real bad off now," and that sort of made Brer Fox and Brer Possum feel bad for Brer Rabbit.

By and by, when dinnertime came, they all got out their vittles, but Brer Rabbit kept on looking lonesome, and Brer Fox and Brer Possum, they sort of rustled around to see if they couldn't make Brer Rabbit feel better.

Brer Fox and Brer Possum rustled around, they did, getting out the vittles, and by and by Brer Fox, he said, "Brer Possum, you run down to the spring and fetch the butter, and I'll set the table," he said.

Brer Possum, he loped off after the butter, and directly he came loping back with his ears a-trembling and his tongue a-hanging out.

"Brer Fox!" he hollered out.

"What's the matter now, Brer Possum?" he said.

"You all had better run, folks" said Brer Possum. "The last drop of that butter is gone."

"Where did it go?" said Brer Fox.

"It looks like it dried up," said Brer Possum.

Then Brer Rabbit, he looked sort of solemn, he did, and he up and said, "I suspect that the butter melted in somebody's mouth," he said.

Then they went down to the spring with Brer Possum, and sure enough, the butter was gone. While they were talking about the mystery, Brer rabbit said that he could see tracks all around there, and he pointed out that if they would all go to sleep, he could catch the chap that stole the butter.

They all lay down, and Brer Fox and Brer Possum, they soon dropped off to sleep, but Brer Rabbit, he stayed awake, and when the time came, he got up real quiet like, and smeared Brer Possum's mouth with the butter on his paws.

Then he ran off and nibbled up the best of the dinner that they had left lying out, and then he came back and woke up Brer Fox and showed him the butter on Brer Possum's mouth.

They woke up Brer Possum and told him about it, but of course Brer Possum denied it to the last.

Now Brer Fox, he's kind of a lawyer, and he argued this way: that Brer Possum was the first one at the butter, and the first one to miss it, and more than that, there were the signs on his mouth.

Brer Possum could see that they had him jammed up in a corner, and then he up and said that the way to catch the man that stole the butter was to build a big brush heap and set it on fire, and everyone would try to jump over it, and the one that fell in, that would be the chap that stole the butter.

Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, they both agreed, they did, and they whirled in and built the brush heap, and they built it high, and they built it wide, and then they touched it off.

When it got to blazing up good, Brer Rabbit he took the first turn. He sort of stepped back, and looked around and giggled, and over he went, just like a bird flying.

Then came Brer Fox. He got back a little further, and spit on his hands, and lit out and made the jump, and he came so close to falling in that his tail caught fire.

(Next time you see a fox, you look right close and see if the end of his tail isn't white. To this day all foxes bear the same mark.)

Well, next came Old Brer Possum.
He took a running start, he did, and he came lumbering along, and he lit -- kerblam! -- right in the middle of the fire.

Now ya know that til that day Possums used ta have nice bushy tails but that fire burned the hair right off old Brer Posssum's tail.
And from that day to this, possums have hairless tails.

based on story by Joel Chandler Harris in Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings...first published in 1880....retold by LLL,Storysinger



Betty Botter bought some butter,
But, she said, the butter's bitter;
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter,
But a bit of better butter
Will make my batter better.
So she bought a bit of butter
Better than her bitter butter,
And she put it in her batter
And the batter was not bitter.
So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.



Come, butter, come,
Come, butter, come;
Peter stands at the gate
Waiting for a butter cake.
Come, butter, come.



Recipe to make Easy Homemade Butter

You will need whipping cream and a glass jar with a lid.

Place the cream in the jar. Cover with the lid.

Now, Shake, shake shake and shake!

Keep shaking till the cream turns into butter.
You may want to have friends help you shake, cause this may take a while!

You can also use a food processer to make butter.
It's basically the same process. Just put the cream in the processer and turn it on.

Yield: About half as much butter as the amount of cream you started with.





Butter Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted or stirred before measuring
dash salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preparation:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add vanilla. Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder.
Stir dry ingredients into butter mixture; mixing until well blended.
Shape dough into small balls.
Place on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake butter cookies at 300° for 20 minutes, or until just lightly browned.
Makes 5 to 6 dozen butter cookies.