A paean to carbs and fat
August 1, 2017 12:33 PM   Subscribe

Ode to the Buttered Roll, That New York Lifeline. New Yorkers (but no one else, apparently?) love their buttered rolls for breakfast. "I loved and relied on them when I was very broke and young and coffee still only came from a cart or a deli,” the chef Gabrielle Hamilton said. “I was always annoyed that they didn’t spread the butter evenly, so you had to eat a dry outer ring until you got to the center, where you got a gross mouthful of too much butter — if it even was butter. Still, it was a lifeline.” posted by holborne (170 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
My brother, who lives in Brooklyn, told me about this. It didn't really register. Rolls...buttered. 'kay, then.

Still seems odd, honestly.
posted by Caxton1476 at 12:37 PM on August 1, 2017


Buttered HARD-rolls. ( aka kaiser... )
posted by mikelieman at 12:44 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


I have a friend. His usual breakfast when on the go is a buttered roll from (seriously) 7-11. He was visiting some friends in Maine and had no idea what to do when he couldn't get a buttered roll for breakfast.

I can't remember the last buttered roll I ate, and I take my coffee black these days, but just thinking the phrase "buttered roll" gives me the sensation of airy commercial bread, greasy nondescript spread, and sweet, milky coffee, not too hot, all mingling in my mouth, the bread soaking up the coffee, the spread and cream making the whole thing slick. It's the damndest thing.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:47 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


SInce I moved away from the NYC metro area 17 years ago, my visits back are mostly food nostalgia tours. Pizza, eggplant parm, and bagels were first on my list. But a few years ago my redeye got in to Newark and the only food I could grab before my ride showed up was a buttered roll. I forgot how much this food was part of my childhood. So simple, so delicious, so ubiquitous. I now make sure I have at least one every time I visit.
posted by munchingzombie at 12:48 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Oh! This sounds really good to this Californian. The buttery softness of it combined with a hot drip coffee sounds delicious. It's a good, classic food.

Reminds me a lot of how my mom told me that she would eat hot steamed multi-grain bread with sesame paste for breakfast in the mornings when she grew up in Beijing. It's that same kind of feeling of high impact, portable, tasty comfort.
posted by yueliang at 12:49 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


These are great as long as you add two additional minor condiments: egg and cheese.
posted by gwint at 12:50 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


I'm only half kidding when I say that the best part about traveling in whole parts of Europe is the widespread availability of good buttered hard rolls for breakfast. A proper Kaiser roll simply does not exist in my part of the U.S., much to my never-ending chagrin.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 12:51 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


This made me recall Child's Butter Cakes, a famous staple NYC food way back when. I wonder if the fondness for butter cakes transformed over time (after the closing of the restaurants) into a fondness for buttered rolls?
posted by Lunaloon at 12:51 PM on August 1, 2017


Ted's served buttered hard rolls back in the day, and they were delectable. I want one very badly, now. hrrrnnngh
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 12:54 PM on August 1, 2017


Buttered HARD-rolls. ( aka kaiser... )


It's just not the same outside of the City.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:54 PM on August 1, 2017


oooh I'd forgotten about these (too long in California!) soooo good. (and yes, with egg and cheese even better. and some taylor ham!!!)
posted by supermedusa at 12:54 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


The only thing wrong with buttered rolls is the lack of Nutella spread on top of the butter.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:55 PM on August 1, 2017


I'm a New Jerseyean by birth and buttered rolls have always been staple breakfast here too.
posted by defenestration at 12:55 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


It strikes me that a deep analysis into why the butter roll is so popular may be overthinking it: most likely, it's the cheapest thing on the menu, and most of us here are broke. And we really aren't that anal about coffee here (unless you're talking about the hipster places).

But yeah, don't fuck with the egg-and-cheese-and-whatever-on-a-roll sandwiches.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:55 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


I see that TFA notes that though — oops. Never called it a roll with butter. Heh.
posted by defenestration at 12:56 PM on August 1, 2017


It really isn't the same outside the city. You can't get Kaiser rolls worth a damn. I have family in CT who are from NYC, they have to settle for something called "bulky rolls." The rolls suck, but they tell themselves they're good bc otherwise why go on?
posted by nevercalm at 12:57 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


the best part about traveling in whole parts of Europe is the widespread availability of good buttered hard rolls for breakfast

Absolutely. Even better to me is the buttered pretzel, split in half and sandwiched with so much salted butter that the pretzel doubles in thickness.

I just wish they were more filling, I always end up hungry by like 10:30. I guess that's where the mid-morning coffee (and another roll) comes in.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:00 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I know somehow morningtime changes things, but It can be hard to explain the appeal of a buttered roll sounds like peak "only in new york" parochialism.
posted by The Gaffer at 1:01 PM on August 1, 2017 [18 favorites]


As a Bavarian, I have to say Butterbrezn, buttered pretzel, all the way. I've had several bavarians ask me how I even raise kids in California - without buttered pretzel? It's the go-to snack available at every bakery and when we go there, it's pretzels every day!

Two details: no salted butter. We don't salt our butter in Germany, because the bread (or pretzel) already has plenty of salt. The English and French do have salted butter though because...their bread sucks? No I'm not gonna say that, because it's still way way better than American bread...or as we call it, 'Bauschaum' (construction foam).

Also: No margarine on the pretzel. Margarine will get you into a fistfight or at least a lawsuit. Yuck.

Those NY rolls look kinda sad but I get the appeal.
posted by The Toad at 1:09 PM on August 1, 2017 [10 favorites]


Obviously being in California this doesn't help, but a really good bagel is an awful lot (but not quite) like a pretzel (also, I don't know if this is standard, but I saw a place in Munich offering "Philadelpha" pretzels, i.e., with cream cheese).
posted by uncleozzy at 1:15 PM on August 1, 2017


NYC: Ah, this food thing. There's nothing like this New York food thing. You probably don't know anything about it.

EVERYBODY ELSE: no we have that thing here

NYC: Well, the thing is better here. And we appreciate it on a deeper level than you do.

EVERYBODY ELSE: that's cool

NYC: I mean, no offense or anything, but try getting the thing somewhere in YOUR city, it's just not the same, you don't make it the right way and it doesn't taste as good, and that's IF you can find one! Ha!

EVERYBODY ELSE: I'm eating the thing right now, it's not bad

NYC: [patronizing chuckle] You poor deluded soul.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:16 PM on August 1, 2017 [183 favorites]


This whole time I thought "buttered roll" was a euphemism for some strange form of sexual congress, because: New York.

With the way you guys are talking about it, I'm still not convinced that it isn't.
posted by loquacious at 1:18 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


Has the New Yotk Times never heard of the continental breakfast? It's really quite popular.
posted by w0mbat at 1:22 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


And i thought that Buttersemmel is unique to the traditional Wiener Kaffeehaus (Vienna coffee house). Although i must say the ones pictured in the article look beyond sad and more like they came from the bottom of my son's school bag. The ones in the Kaffeehaus are generally made fresh to order and lovely and crunchy.
Together with a Häferlkaffee (coffee with lots of milk but no foam) truly the perfect breakfast.
posted by 15L06 at 1:24 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I just want to say that though I've never had one of these NYC buttered rolls (but will definitely make a point of seeking one out next time I'm in NYC), I'm really enjoying the Proust-ian recollections some people are having of eating them.
posted by mhum at 1:27 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


I would like to triple thank nevercalm for reminding me that my New England family calls them "bulky rolls".

re: What does "regular coffee" mean in NYC - "Coffee, regular" said in any Boston (or surrounding city) Dunkin Donuts will get you coffee w/ cream and sugar.
posted by Constant Reader at 1:29 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


NYC: I mean, no offense or anything, but try getting the thing somewhere in YOUR city, it's just not the same, you don't make it the right way and it doesn't taste as good, and that's IF you can find one! Ha!

Dude. I get it, but you are not going to tell me that except for Montreal, you can get a decent bagel anywhere outside NYC. Hell, it's getting hard to find a decent bagel in NYC.
posted by holborne at 1:30 PM on August 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


My brother, who lives in Brooklyn, told me about this. It didn't really register. Rolls...buttered. 'kay, then.

Still seems odd, honestly.
posted by Caxton1476 .


To an outsider, it seems like New Yorkers spend a lot of time trying to convince others that ordinary things in NY are extraordinary, and/or that NY is the only place that appreciates ordinary things.
posted by agregoli at 1:34 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


To an outsider, it seems like New Yorkers spend a lot of time trying to convince others that ordinary things in NY are extraordinary, and/or that NY is the only place that appreciates ordinary things.

It is their bread and butter.

edit: i joke because i love
posted by The Gaffer at 1:36 PM on August 1, 2017 [27 favorites]


"The buttered roll is a distinctly local phenomenon in the New York metropolitan area."

Yeah, no.
posted by agregoli at 1:36 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Uncleozzy, that may be true. I've never had a decent bagel though...the ones in my (Berkeley) neighborhood taste nothing like bavarian pretzels. We have, however, found a neighbor of swabian heritage who makes pretty good Bavarian-style pretzels in his home kitchen and sells them. Not an everyday thing at $4 a pop, but they get us through the years when we can't go to Munich...
posted by The Toad at 1:37 PM on August 1, 2017


Butter? ON BREAD!? Must be New York thing!
posted by cyphill at 1:38 PM on August 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


Most rolls sold at delis and coffee carts come from a few large distributors; New Yorker, a distributor based in Astoria, Queens, provides about half of the rolls sold by vendors. A manager there estimated the output at about 700 dozen rolls a day, five days a week.
So, 0.2% of NYC the population eats this on any given day? That's pretty high for something I've never heard of. Neat!

On the other hand, I've learned my lesson several times over when ordering genuine New York coffee. It's only palatable if you use it as the water with which to brew actual coffee. (This is, of course, hardly unique to New York.)
posted by eotvos at 1:38 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think we all understand that other cities understand and implement the concept of butter spread on a roll. Roger that. The point of the article is that it's a bit unusual for people in other cities to walk into a deli/coffee shop/bodega/diner and order "coffee and a buttered roll" for breakfast.
posted by holborne at 1:41 PM on August 1, 2017 [11 favorites]


yeah the rolls are actually different in this case, manufactured in NYC and not sold much outside. this bread is the same reason people get worked up about the egg sandwiches.

it actually is different and imo better, it's not just the view from 9th avenue.
posted by vogon_poet at 1:42 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Even tho the article spent a lot of time talking about how many of these rolls suck now?

Regardless, the preciousness is too much for me. NYC doesn't have a monopoly on delicious bread.
posted by agregoli at 1:43 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


We are here at New York, where we've secretly replaced the fine foods they usually serve with Flyover Brand substitutes. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference!

Flyover Brand substitutes... food rich enough to be served in New York's finest restaurants.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:44 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Even if you're in NYC, if they can tell you're a tourist and they can they give you inferior rolls because they know that your benighted bread-hole won't be able to tell the difference.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:46 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


I recently went back to a small town that I spent several years in as a child, and that had a downtown bakery that I used to stop in when I was a kid, not for cookies or donuts as you might expect, but for their dinner rolls; they weren't buttered, but buttery, in a way that I've not really experienced since except with well-made challah. I used to treat myself to one or two when I was running my paper route.

You probably saw this coming: the bakery is now closed, and not that long ago, either. A little part of me died upon hearing the news.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:47 PM on August 1, 2017


ok you know what, hows about you haters all go ask the guy at the coffee cart on *your* block in *your* city how many dozen buttered rolls they sell per day.

ah thats right, you dont have coffee carts that sell buttered rolls

or coffee carts

or live in an actual city
posted by windbox at 1:47 PM on August 1, 2017 [19 favorites]


That fucking coffee article doesn't even list the "proper" way to get black coffee. Which I imagine is just "black coffee," but still, the assumption that milk and some amount of sweetener are going into the coffee by default means that the author frequents some shitty coffee joints. I'm not going to look down my nose at coffee *drinkers* who put stuff in their coffee. But places where milk/cream and sugar are default are places where the taste of the coffee they're serving needs to be covered up.
posted by explosion at 1:51 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


we also don't have blocks or questions or days

we may not actually exist
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:52 PM on August 1, 2017 [27 favorites]


I can't even tell if windbox is joking, that's how bad this city boasting has gotten.
posted by agregoli at 1:54 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


It's weird, the block I work on in Northern Virginia features both coffee carts and multiple corner stores that sell buttered rolls. I didn't realize we had been officially absorbed into NYC.
posted by cyphill at 1:55 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


we also don't have blocks or questions or days

we may not actually exist


brb editing chronicles of amber so corwin says 'only in new york!' every couple pages
posted by The Gaffer at 1:57 PM on August 1, 2017 [12 favorites]


yeah but did you actually ask any of these sub par northern virginia coffee carts how many buttered rolls they sell?

BET IT AINT AS MANY AS NEW YAWK, BABE-EEY

#1

posted by windbox at 2:03 PM on August 1, 2017


In Chicago, mid 70s, my mom and grandmother referred to "hard rolls" which to me were like crusty hamburger buns.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:04 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


oh my god thank you so much for reminding me of my vow to post with relentless frequency as many nyc-based posts as possible, you have done a great thing my friend.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:04 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


i'm doing the ed lover dance just thinking about it
posted by poffin boffin at 2:05 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


ok you know what, hows about you haters all go ask the guy at the coffee cart on *your* block in *your* city how many dozen buttered rolls they sell per day.

ah thats right, you dont have coffee carts that sell buttered rolls

or coffee carts

or live in an actual city
posted by windbox at 4:47 PM on August 1
[3 favorites +] [!]


*WoodyHarrelsonWipingTearsWithMoney.gif*
posted by leotrotsky at 2:11 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm very tempted to post an FPP of the Wikipedia page for New York. The title would be, "Apparently this is a place near New Jersey?"
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:11 PM on August 1, 2017 [17 favorites]


I miss hard rolls so much. I love my city but in thirty years here, I've never found a place that bakes a decent roll.
posted by octothorpe at 2:12 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm very tempted to post an FPP of the Wikipedia page for New York. The title would be, "Apparently this is a place near New Jersey?"

What? I thought this was a thread about bittered trolls?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:14 PM on August 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


yes good your hatred sustains us like the delaware aqueduct
posted by poffin boffin at 2:15 PM on August 1, 2017 [16 favorites]


I love New York and I loved living there (until I didn't), but its elitist boosterism is a coping mechanism for dealing with the day-to-day garbage fire that is living in New York.
posted by Automocar at 2:16 PM on August 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


Sometimes including literal garbage fires
posted by Automocar at 2:17 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


The frustrating thing about being a (former) New Yorker in New York food threads are all the people who inevitably wanter in to insist that no, we have bread too.

A buttered roll isn't a roll with butter. It's not a generic term for bread product + dairy product. It is a specific thing, as specific as a Cronut or a Krispy Kreme or whatever. They happen to be available in many many places, but the hard rolls in NYC are all from a couple of bakeries making a specific product that in my experience no one else in the US makes.

I mean it is not surprising that in an age where basically nothing is legitimately local-only, and you can get anything from anywhere in the world wherever you happen to be, that there would be disbelief that there are still some things that are truly only done a certain way, in a certain place.

Like, isn't it lacking a little self confidence to leap to assuming that people talking about something you've never had are surely just making it all up to feel superior to you. Like I promise, no displaced NYer who is missing hard rolls (or pizza or bagels) were ever thinking about you or your what-I'm-sure-is-awesome hometown.
posted by danny the boy at 2:18 PM on August 1, 2017 [18 favorites]


yes good your hatred sustains us like the delaware aqueduct

No hate from me. I enjoyed my one trip to New York very much. It was a nice town. The food was good.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:18 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Like, isn't it lacking a little self confidence to leap to assuming that people talking about something you've never had are surely just making it all up to feel superior to you. Like I promise, no displaced NYer who is missing hard rolls (or pizza or bagels) were ever thinking about you or your what-I'm-sure-is-awesome hometown.

Because nobody but locals have ever been to New York and discovered that they serve... food.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:20 PM on August 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


look, I know what I'm talking about, I flew to New York City on a jet aeroplane and have eaten their Pizza Pie
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:22 PM on August 1, 2017 [10 favorites]


Yeah but the tone of these articles is always so breathless. NY seems to push their uniqueness to the brink, like no other city has anything close. It's really weird. I love my city, you love yours, great. The superiority claimed in these articles feels forced, to me. That we've gotten to bread and butter being the focus of this treatment is pretty amusing, though, so I guess I enjoyed seeing it.
posted by agregoli at 2:23 PM on August 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


You're reading an article in a NYC newspaper about food in NYC. And complaining that it's so NY-centric and that other cities are good too.
posted by danny the boy at 2:23 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


No, that's not what I'm talking about.
posted by agregoli at 2:25 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Obviously being in California this doesn't help

Well, yes, we in California put "poor man's butter" on our bread, aka avocado toast.
posted by FJT at 2:26 PM on August 1, 2017 [15 favorites]


But the thing with the "in New York we have crusty rolls like unto no other rolls found anywhere in this great nation" narrative is that it can't exist outside the perpetual 'New York is the bestest most sophisticated place in the whole country forever'" bit.

If I were to say look, here is this thing we have here in Minneapolis, not only would people almost certainly jump in to talk about how it's actually gross/bland/better elsewhere, but it would not be a conversation that was taking place on top of a thick layer of buttery "we are the smartest and life here is the richest".

And how do I know that people smack down any talk of tasty food in flyover country? Long experience. "Oh, we have really good hippie pizza here, it's not like Neapolitan pizza but it's good because reason-reason, also you can eat it at Local Historically Important place" is just met with "that's shitty pizza, the only good pizza is the kind you get in New York". Or how I'm constantly assured that the chocolate, bread, meat, vegan food, Chinese regional cuisine, etc, here is so inferior to what is found elsewhere that I shouldn't talk it up. And listen, I've been elsewhere - you can plausibly say that we don't have good bagels, yes, but we do have lots of other good stuff, and except for the fact that our produce just literally can't be as good as you get what fresh in California, a lot of it is quite tasty.

Also, I live in a large house and my entire mortgage payment would be barely enough to rent a room in NYC, but the whole narrative is "why would you bother with a lot of space in flyover country? A week living in an unventilated closet full of mealworms in New York is better than a lifetime in a spacious Victorian in the midwest".
posted by Frowner at 2:28 PM on August 1, 2017 [30 favorites]


a "California bagel" is just a bunch of almonds arranged in a ring shape
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:29 PM on August 1, 2017 [21 favorites]


Really --"elitist boosterism"? "Superiority"? The article is very explicitly about an ordinary, cheap, and often not very good food item. It's not making any great claims for this deliciousness of the buttered roll, just saying that it has a certain connection to this area. It's not urging everyone from around the world to come and eat our rolls.

As someone who grew up in NYC and still lives here, I guess I'm reading a very different article than others here. There's not much about NY that's very distinctive anymore. It's pretty much like every other American city, only bigger. So there's a certain sad charm in focusing on a weird, humble little bit of regional particularity that's still left. That's all. That's the joke.
posted by neroli at 2:30 PM on August 1, 2017 [30 favorites]


That's a fair read, neroli. A lot of these comments are responding to other comments rather than the article. This is basically a continuation of every other New York-centric FPP conversation we've ever had.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:32 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Fair enough. That comment made me sad, neroli!
posted by agregoli at 2:34 PM on August 1, 2017


I don't think they understand that THIS is the one true tri- state breakfast food. And I grew up in NJ , ran away to NY quite a bit in my teens (always returning to NJ, cause who can park in NY overnight? )
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 2:39 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


that better be pork roll
posted by poffin boffin at 2:40 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


It's just not the same outside of the City.

I will fight to the death anyone who says Rockland Bakery doesn't count.

( Their delivery truck passed me at 5:45am this morning.. )
posted by mikelieman at 2:40 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


If anyone is up for a real New York Breakfast Ordering Challenge, by the way, try entering any busy deli on a Monday morning and getting an egg and sausage on a roll without cheese. About 2/3rds of the time you'll get cheese anyway. It's like a nervous tic. I have to watch the grill guy like a hawk.
posted by phooky at 2:42 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


It's not urging everyone from around the world to come and eat our rolls.

Ohhhhh. Well, to those still curious you can get New York rolls delivered directly to you for under $20.

Those are authentic New York City prices, right?
posted by FJT at 2:42 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


(This thread clearly needs a "TW:NYC" at the top)
posted by phooky at 2:43 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


Two details: no salted butter. We don't salt our butter in Germany, because the bread (or pretzel) already has plenty of salt. The English and French do have salted butter though because...their bread sucks? No I'm not gonna say that, because it's still way way better than American bread...or as we call it, 'Bauschaum' (construction foam).

Also: No margarine on the pretzel. Margarine will get you into a fistfight or at least a lawsuit. Yuck.

Those NY rolls look kinda sad but I get the appeal.


The corresponding NYC variant would be a Salt Stick
posted by mikelieman at 2:44 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mod note: One comment deleted. Folks, if you haven't had these rolls or whatever, that's fine, and if you don't like NYC that's also fine. But so skip the thread -- let's not make this about everyone's broader pent-up feelings about NYC; it's like a recipe for a pointless repetitive fight.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:45 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


OOOH- you can get pork roll delivered-saves me a journey back to the motherland Pork Roll for ALL! OMG- they have scrapple too....
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 2:47 PM on August 1, 2017


I know "NYC is a bunch of coastal elitists" is all the rage right now, but I'd like to remind folks that ~45% of NYC residents live at or near poverty [cite] and nearly 1 in 4 children in NYC experience food insecurity [pdf cite].
posted by melissasaurus at 2:48 PM on August 1, 2017 [11 favorites]


There's not much about NY that's very distinctive anymore. It's pretty much like every other American city, only bigger.

The universe tends to route 17 in northern NJ...
posted by mikelieman at 2:49 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


oh man a buttered roll and black coffee is the instant memory shorthand for "I'm going to be lifting, hauling, ir shouting ALL DAY TODAY."
posted by The Whelk at 2:50 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


FJT, forget the kaiser rolls at that link: "Every order comes with some of our Drakes Cakes Coffee Cakes a New York Snack Food"! Hmm, scrolling further, it's a link-fest of NYC-themed food shipping -- Drake's, Locatelli cheese, bagels, and then... gambling? The ideal customer for this site never actually left the city.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:51 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


So you're saying: Leave the cannoli?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:55 PM on August 1, 2017


<3 pork roll
posted by defenestration at 3:02 PM on August 1, 2017


There's no such thing as "a gross mouthful of too much butter".
posted by jonathanhughes at 3:05 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


When I stop in a convenience store in a state I'm driving though, I enjoy the local differences. I used to live on Long Island, and a buttered roll or a bagel with cream cheese was cheap enough and filling enough to be a regular breakfast on the way to work. I was sad to discover that other states didn't have this. But I was delighted to discover that West Virginia convenience stores had pepperoni rolls, and I can't imagine why this isn't the national breakfast.
posted by acrasis at 3:06 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Metafilter: a pointless repetitive fight
posted by KHAAAN! at 3:18 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


Really --"elitist boosterism"? "

To be clear, I am referring to the broadness of the boosterism (New York rules, Cleveland drools) not the subject of the boosterism, which is completely irrelevant. Say to a group of New Yorkers "man, I just got back from a trip to DC, and their subway is falling apart" and you will have started a three-hour long conversation that will consist entirely of people trying to convince themselves that no actually the MTA is the literal worst.

It's completely charming in its own way and is one of the things I miss about the place, because no one else loves their city like New Yorkers (turns to camera, grins, credits roll)
posted by Automocar at 3:20 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Nah, lots of other people love their city like New Yorkers do. But generally, other folks don't get angry at them for it.
posted by neroli at 3:35 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Look, I've eaten a lot of bread, okay, in a lot of different places. I've had TWO continental breakfasts, in actual France, and in actual Italy, and the bread they gave me was harder and had a different flavor. In Massachusetts the closest I could get was an English muffin. In Philly, the rolls didn't have the same tang. And from a chain like Panera, the rolls are almost always sweet. I liked all of those different breads! because I like eating bread! I'm not breadshaming! All bread is good bread, but not all bread is the same, and a roll with butter on it is not the same everywhere you go.

I grew up with these rolls from New York, and I really didn't expect them to be anything special, but they are! I don't even like them that much! But they are a little bit unique!

I think it's easier to find them in areas with German heritage, or Jewish, or Eastern European? But it's not like I know anything about bread. I just like eating it.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 3:44 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


and AS FOR BAGELS, those are off topic and I will not discuss them but I will say that Panera gets them really, really, really, really wrong.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 3:45 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


... West Virginia convenience stores had pepperoni rolls ...

I'd eat that.
posted by Bruce H. at 3:49 PM on August 1, 2017


There's no such thing as "a gross mouthful of too much butter".

Hurf durf buttered roll eaters.
posted by The Bellman at 3:50 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


New York is literally the only place on earth where you can get a particular type of roll with a particular type of butter on it from a particular cart on the particular corner of Whatever and Whocares between particular months, which is the best cart-butter in the whole world, because of immigrants and history and whatever. The more I hear about New York the less I like it.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:52 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


everything at Panera tastes like it was reverse-engineered to approximate good food by aliens who only had pictures or oral traditions to go by
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:53 PM on August 1, 2017 [19 favorites]


I lived in northern New Jersey for awhile, and got into the city just often enough to feel like I was starting to know my way around.

Now I live back in Michigan, where I grew up. In our city, we have ONE decent bagel place. ONE place that serves bagels that aren't soft and sweet. I live in terror of it shutting down.

I was interested in the article because I certainly can't think of a place around here where you could just grab a buttered roll as part of your quick-on-the-move breakfast. I'm sorry the rolls aren't any good anymore, and the butter isn't real, because there is not much I like better than a really good roll with actual butter.

Listening to people talk about the bread and bread-related foods they've enjoyed in different parts of the world makes me want to travel. I would totally go on a Bread Tour of the World. Philadelphia soft pretzels really are better, I learned a few years ago. Now I have a little fantasy about enjoying pretzels in Germany. I'm not actually much of a traveler, at least in that way, so it won't happen. But I like the idea of it very, very much.
posted by Orlop at 3:58 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm pretty sure you could find this kind of roll in Chicago and Detroit, too. It's not that special. But it is a little bit special.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 4:04 PM on August 1, 2017


Brötchen with unsalted butter and raspberry jam. Food of the Götter!
posted by Oyéah at 4:09 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


oh my god thank you so much for reminding me of my vow to post with relentless frequency as many nyc-based posts as possible, you have done a great thing my friend.

I've been sitting on a half-finished Golden Krust post ever since I learned that no, it's not nearly so ubiquitous outside of NYC
posted by Itaxpica at 4:10 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Ohhhhh. Well, to those still curious you can get New York rolls delivered directly to you for under $20.

I was just thinking the other day about how long it had been since I'd had a sandwich on a really good poppy seed Kaiser roll. You used to be able to get half-decent Kaiser rolls around here, at bakeries or in the bakery section of the grocery store, and then the only ones available were packaged and too soft, and then even those disappeared. I guess people's preferred breads have changed.

In other words, I'm totally ordering some of those Kaiser rolls.

Also, it is absolutely impossible here to get an egg bagel. So I might have to order some of those as well.
posted by Orlop at 4:12 PM on August 1, 2017


A big Oh Wow on the pepperoni rolls!
posted by Oyéah at 4:14 PM on August 1, 2017


I am happy for NYC and the love they have for a roll and butter. Sometime ago, someone moved south and said "F*ck That!" and we now have biscuits and gravy. Poor New Yorkers. The king of cheap and yummy is this.
posted by shockingbluamp at 4:18 PM on August 1, 2017


i will grant that biscuits and gravy are gr8 but you can't eat em standing up on the subway
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 4:20 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


u can if you have a beard
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:21 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Of course you don't eat biscuits and gravy on the subway. You eat them while driving.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:37 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


The more I hear about New York the less I like it.

Good, stay home. We have more than enough tourists already.
posted by borges at 4:41 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


How do they taste? Best anywhere?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:42 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I love this thread, truly. I mean, think about it. How many things are left that can bring people of all nationalities and walks of life together, any more? Great music? The plight of a beached whale?

But reactions to New Yorker food exceptionalism will do it every time.

I also love the New Yorker food exceptionalism, though. I get it, although I don't share it. There's a certain joy in it, and when it's nastily snotty instead of joyful, it becomes much easier to mock.

On the topic of generic bread-with-butter-as-breakfast, the localized properties thereof, I can only say that when I started studying Portuguese with Duolingo, I figured there must have been a reason why pão com manteiga is one of the first food items it teaches about, and when I eventually went to Rio de Janeiro for a conference, I found out that I was right.

But where I'm from, street breakfast is simit with white cheese if you're being fancy, and a glass—not cup—of tea—not coffee—if you can sit down somewhere for five minutes. I guess you can say we're on the pretzel side of the Force, since that's the closer cousin—Wikipedia says "Turkish bagel," but I find the pretzel texture to be more similar.
posted by seyirci at 5:19 PM on August 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


Of course you don't eat biscuits and gravy on the subway. You eat them while driving.

what if you could get cheesy grits in a gogurt tube though
posted by poffin boffin at 5:26 PM on August 1, 2017 [16 favorites]


There's a lot of point-missing in this thread, first and most importantly, buttered rolls aren't good. They're satisfying, and can offer a Proustian hit to those who have done the goodbye-to-all-that move west, but artisanal pretzels and biscuits and gravy (and bagels) are foods that are actually good, so not a great comparison. The same goes for the delightful and not weirdly sugary breads of Europe.

sincerely,

A Californian
(who believes that avocado can substitute for butter)
posted by betweenthebars at 5:33 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Re: "bulky rolls"

The Yiddish word for a bread roll is בולקע
Polish: bułka
Russian: булка

They're all pronounced something like "BUL-keh" and I'm pretty sure that this must have been the origin of your term "bulky roll", much as the Yiddish word ״חלה״/"khallah" is often pronounced "kholly" in the USA.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:41 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


Forget New York. The most important point in this thread is I found out that in Germany they call pretzels with cream cheese Philadelphia pretzels despite the fact nobody in Philadelphia eats pretzels with cream cheese.

When I first went to Europe and told people I was from Philadelphia they would always say "where the cheese comes from!" The first few times I looked confused and said "what, like provolone?" Finally, I realized they meant Philadelphia cream cheese. Why it took me so long to figure that out I don't know.
posted by interplanetjanet at 5:44 PM on August 1, 2017 [12 favorites]


Michael Stern is crazy. I remember them growing up in Chicago in the 60s and 70s. They were called Kaiser rolls. We usually ate them for breakfast on Sundays. Not because they were anything special, but because you had to buy them the same day, and Sunday was the only day there was time to go to the store before breakfast.
posted by Pararrayos at 5:50 PM on August 1, 2017


what if you could get cheesy grits in a gogurt tube though

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:59 PM on August 1, 2017 [6 favorites]


YEAH WHERE IS THIS? I MENTALLY ORDERED MINE LIKE RIGHT AFTER YOU MENTIONED IT AND IT HASN'T ARRIVED YET!!!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:05 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


The frustrating thing about being a (former) New Yorker in New York food threads are all the people who inevitably wanter in to insist that no, we have bread too.

A buttered roll isn't a roll with butter. It's not a generic term for bread product + dairy product. It is a specific thing, as specific as a Cronut or a Krispy Kreme or whatever. They happen to be available in many many places, but the hard rolls in NYC are all from a couple of bakeries making a specific product that in my experience no one else in the US makes.


Honestly though this is a failure of two things: naming, and rhapsody.

First of all, you can't name your unique breadstuff with literally the most generic term for a round piece of bread with butter on it and then get all huffy when people assume that's what the term means. That would be like me saying "Ah, a glass of water. Only in Yokohama do people appreciate a glass of water!" when what I really mean is that Yokohama tapwater has a distinctive taste and all the restaurants use the same 60s-design glass to serve it in. You'd rightly object that there's no way to get there from what I said.

Second, TFA completely fails to explain that a NYC "buttered roll" is something unique. It specifically just calls it a round roll slathered in butter, not to mention poo-pooing any talk of alchemy! How are we supposed to deduce the uniqueness if no-one will actually mention it? (Remember, we aren't supposed to use alchemy.)

It's 100% a recipe for people saying "No we have those too" and then getting pissy when the comments fill up with other people going all Humpty Dumpty or maybe Laozi about how "buttered roll" doesn't actually mean "buttered roll".

(Just to be clear, I'm not actually trying to start a fight and I appreciate you speaking up for local foodstuffs. But I think that the article brought the eye-rolling on itself.)
posted by No-sword at 6:08 PM on August 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


*WoodyHarrelsonWipingTearsWithMoney.gif*

I'm just going to assume this is another midwesterner.

I actually sort of like this sort of thing? New Yorkers can talk about having food options and convenience I don't have, although I can get delivery Thai now here in Omaha and that's pretty cool. In response, I can talk about how I live alone in a two-bedroom apartment and right now the second bedroom is doing nothing but storing cardboard boxes I'm too lazy to break down to take outside, and I have a garage, and I'm on the first floor, and I pay under $1k for this.

And everybody can walk away feeling like they've got a pretty good deal where they are and those poor suckers don't understand. Isn't that the dream? A conversation where the grass is always greener on your own side of the fence.
posted by Sequence at 6:48 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Metafilter: a thick layer of buttery "we are the smartest and life here is the richest".
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 6:49 PM on August 1, 2017


There's honestly been so much bullshit in this thread it would take me weeks to unpack it all.

All the hostile comments are not reactions to the article, or anything anyone actually said in this thread--they're people taking the opportunity to grind the axes they've had long before this post went up.

Number of times the article claimed NY is better than everywhere else: 0
Number of times NYers in this thread claimed NY is better than everywhere else: 0
Number of times people in this thread preemptively responded to claims that NY is better than everywhere else: A BILLION

The absolute icing on this poo colored cake is Frowner basically saying, "yeah no one is saying anything like that in the article or the thread, but I'm going to get on my soapbox anyway because I JUST KNOW how shitty they would've been!" You know, in the universe where that actually happened.

So instead of a thread about this thing a lot of us grew up with, which is as much a cultural practice as it is foodstuff, that millions of people of all ethnic and economic backgrounds have had in common for decades, we get to hear once again just how much New York sucks.

It's so boring.
posted by danny the boy at 6:49 PM on August 1, 2017 [15 favorites]


Number of times NYers in this thread claimed NY is better than everywhere else: 0


yuhuh.
I don't know what thread you skipped over, but before you first entered this thread, we had already seen these comments:

It's just not the same outside of the City.

It really isn't the same outside the city. You can't get Kaiser rolls worth a damn. I have family in CT who are from NYC, they have to settle for something called "bulky rolls." The rolls suck, but they tell themselves they're good bc otherwise why go on?

you are not going to tell me that except for Montreal, you can get a decent bagel anywhere outside NYC.

....or live in an actual city
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:58 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


TFA literally claims that the origin of a roll with butter on it is "cloaked in mystery".

Butter on bread?! Tell us more of this new learning!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:02 PM on August 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


Also, I'd like to clarify a statement from earlier. Biscuits and gravy on the morning commute is more of a thing elsewhere in the South. As I'm sure you all know, in Memphis we eat a rack of dry-rub BBQ ribs while driving to work each day.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:04 PM on August 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


Only vaguely related, this thread has taught me that I have a much stronger doubletake reaction to “Götter” than to English “gods”. I can only guess it's the Lutheran upbringing, where German means here comes Serious Business.
posted by traveler_ at 7:06 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


i will grant that biscuits and gravy are gr8 but you can't eat em standing up on the subway

I was recently on a multi-week backpacking trip. This exists and is actually very, very good. Pair with a sunrise over mountains for maximum enjoyment.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:08 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


the agents of KAOS: Are you kidding me? You picked quotes that say "I can't find this thing outside the place known for making that thing" as evidence that we think we're better than you? Seriously?

Do you really not have anything local that you can't get elsewhere?
posted by danny the boy at 7:18 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh butter brudda.
posted by jeremias at 7:32 PM on August 1, 2017


I remember telling my Bronx native mother that I couldn't get hard rolls in Pittsburgh and she didn't believe me. The idea was just so far out of her understanding that she couldn't process it. "How could you live without a roll and butter?"
posted by octothorpe at 7:39 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


New York City has became a MetaFilter version of Milkshake Duck.

"Here's a story about a senior citizen who rescues injured squirrels and nurses them back to health..."

"Awww..."

"...in her apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan."

"Fucking New Yorkers bragging about animal rehabilitation. Ooh, so special. What, they think other places don't have old ladies or squirrels? Assholes."
posted by neroli at 7:56 PM on August 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


I was recently on a multi-week backpacking trip. This exists and is actually very, very good.

No, see, that is a camping preparatin that you need to add hot water to and serve in a bowl or something.

What we need is something that has already been pre-prepared and assembled, in a hand-held container so we can eat it while holding on to subway poles with one hand and flipping off the Wall Street Dudebros who block the aisles with the other.

Ready-to-eat one-handed food is what your average working-schlub New Yorker eats. Stuff like *cough* a roll with butter already on it so you don't have to put it on yourself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:10 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


u: im tired of posts about nyc
me: okay
posted by poffin boffin at 8:13 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


My first comment in this thread was mild snark.

My second: I'm hungry and want a buttered roll.
posted by Caxton1476 at 8:22 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


interplanetjanet Yup, I'd say a lot of Germans probably are only vaguely aware that Philadelphia is even a city. I know I wasn't, as a kid, before that Tom Hanks movie came out...and I still have that 'Phila-delll-phi-aaaa!' Jingle stuck in my head from German TV ads in the 80s. Most Germans will be able to recite it for you.

mikelieman Oh that 'salt stick' actually looks very similar to a very specific baked good I remember from swabia/Germany, 'Seelen'. They are allegedly called 'souls' because they used to be given out to the poor on All Souls Day (Allerseelen). Anyway, they are super tasty. Want to try those salt sticks now! I bet they are related.
posted by The Toad at 8:44 PM on August 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


This has been the worst thread in the world and also tomorrow im going to get a buttered roll and black coffee from the place that has the cat I think is blind but purrs loadly when you scratch it,
posted by The Whelk at 8:58 PM on August 1, 2017 [13 favorites]


No, see, that is a camping preparatin that you need to add hot water to and serve in a bowl or something.

What we need is something that has already been pre-prepared and assembled, in a hand-held container so we can eat it while holding on to subway poles with one hand and flipping off the Wall Street Dudebros who block the aisles with the other.


No, you eat it out of the bag. Loop an arm around the pole. Shovel and flip. Easy Peasy.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:00 PM on August 1, 2017


Never had a buttered roll, but when I left NYC after about a decade, I missed the bodega/street-cart bacon-egg-and-cheese on a roll (with ketchup, because I'm a savage) like crazy. Seattle has lots of nice breakfast sandwiches, but nothing quite the same (or as reliably cheap). But now that I'm back here, I spent a lot of time whining about how much I miss Seattle-style teriyaki.

And seyirci, there's a reliable supply of simit in NYC now, which is good because I miss a proper kahvaltı spread more than just about anything else. There's an honest-to-god Simit Sarayı branch in Midtown, plus the local (kinda gentrified/fusiony) Simit & Smith chain, as well as the Turkish bakeries on the outskirts of Brooklyn. Of course, it's said to be better in New Jersey, and none of it's quite as good as in İstanbul, and if I were to say as much there I'd get a firm lecture about how the simit in İstanbul is only a pale imitation of the platonic ideal that is Ankara simidi, and so on it goes.
posted by karayel at 9:09 PM on August 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


buttered rolls in israel and palestine with declawed cats
you are also eating the declawed cats in addition to the buttered rolls. gotta be circumsized first
posted by hleehowon at 10:36 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Has the New York Times never heard of the continental breakfast? It's really quite popular.

This whole time I thought "continental breakfast" was a euphemism for some strange form of sexual congress performed in a small room attached to the lobby of a hotel.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:49 PM on August 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I like this thread, and I liked the article. I like to imagine myself living in a city sometimes.

I can totally relate to the love of a morning routine. Can't relate to being OK with just butter on a plain roll for your entire breakfast, though. I'm a breakfast lover, and I used to eat a bacon-egg-cheese everything bagel regularly on the way to class / lab for the years and years I was in school.

Now I live out past city limits, of a small city, and it'd be a weird thing to drive 15 minutes to the nearest place for a morning snack (plus it's just a Starbucks), especially because I'd just have to drive right back to my home office. On the upside, no subway eating logistics. I can have whatever mess I want to cook - (Migas, sure!), but there's definitely something comforting in sharing a routine with everyone else on their way to work…

PS, if you're collecting local breakfast specialties, that was a favorite part of my time in Central Texas - I used to hit up the Ranchero Kolaches at Kolache Factory - a soft, sweet roll stuffed with scrambled eggs and salsa. And the various breakfast tacos, from simple and foil-wrapped to elaborate piles in a basket. And finally migas, which I only bought once but have made many times, it's great.
posted by mmc at 11:24 PM on August 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


To be fair, I'm just mad because NYC gave DC Donald Trump and refuse to take him back.
posted by cyphill at 6:13 AM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


This whole time I thought "continental breakfast" was a euphemism for some strange form of sexual congress performed in a small room attached to the lobby of a hotel.

You're thinking of Continental Congress. I think. Actually, I slept through that part of history class. And most of the other parts. And most of my other classes. But I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
posted by The Bellman at 7:08 AM on August 2, 2017 [3 favorites]


To be fair, I'm just mad because NYC gave DC Donald Trump and refuse to take him back.

Damn STRAIGHT. If building a wall around the city perimeter and recruiting Jon Snow to save us from the Orange Walkers would help, we'd do that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:10 AM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


the agents of KAOS: "And Jesus Christ, if you're claiming Kaiser rolls as a local New York dish you really need to get out more."

They're not Kaiser rolls. Kaiser rolls are soft and squishy and horrible.
posted by octothorpe at 7:17 AM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


cyphil: For what it's worth, he list every borough in NYC except Staten Island (which doesn't count as part of the city anyway.) We knew Trump was a shifty motherfucker before he became a national disgrace.
posted by SansPoint at 7:17 AM on August 2, 2017


much as the Yiddish word ״חלה״/"khallah" is often pronounced "kholly" in the USA.

Time for me to put on my Yiddish hat: 'challah' is actually a Hebrew word (it first appears in the book of Numbers in discussion of a specific sacrificial offering of dough), and was borrowed in to Yiddish like a lot of Hebrew words. "Kholly" is an artifact of what my Yiddish teacher calls Ashekno-Hebrew, the dialect of Hebrew as spoken by Ashkenazi Jews up until the 20th century (though 'accent' is probably more accurate than 'dialect' since the vocab wasn't all that different) - a distinct pronunciation of Hebrew words heavily inspired by Yiddish phonemes, especially noticeable around the vowels, that you'll still sometimes hear from older Ashkenazi people, and from chassids.

Ashkeno-Hebrew pronunciation was almost entirely replaced by the more Sephardi-accented version we tend to think of as "Hebrew" over the last fifty-ish years for a wide variety of reasons (not least of all of because of the fact that Sephardi Hebrew is the version most widely spoken in Israel), but it lives on in a handful of words (like food words) that have been absorbed directly in to English without going through Sephardi Hebrew first (see also the fact that a lot of American Jews still refer to saying the birkat hamazon by the Yiddish-based word "benching" rather than the Hebrew-based "davening").

Tl;dr the melange of languages spoken by American Jews and how they've evolved over time is eternally fascinating.

(/takes off yiddish hat)
posted by Itaxpica at 7:52 AM on August 2, 2017 [7 favorites]


I got yer money ri'cheer! Cheezy grits waffle cone, with sausage. The driver's deluxe breakfast.
posted by Oyéah at 8:00 AM on August 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mod note: A few comments deleted; again let's not just crank over the same old fight about NYC-in-general vs elsewhere.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:03 AM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


The pictured roll looks a little sad. But the "smaller, cornmeal-bottomed pastry with an open crumb and a shatteringly crisp crust" that is described sounds delicious. Where I live it is impossible to get decent bread and I miss it more than I miss almost anything else about big-city food. (It's not that there aren't fancy local artisanal bakeries here—there are. But they sell bread so awful—soft, thin, dry, and flaccidly-crusted—at such inflated prices that they clearly stay in business only by selling to people who've never tasted really good bread.)
posted by enn at 8:13 AM on August 2, 2017


much as the Yiddish word ״חלה״/"khallah" is often pronounced "kholly" in the USA.

I was once at a diner in New Jersey and the server told me that they made their french toast with "holly bread." I honest to god had no idea at first what she was talking about; I was imagining french toast garnished with parts of leftover Christmas wreaths or something.
posted by holborne at 9:16 AM on August 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


My high school cafeteria, back in the early 70s, had fresh baked (soft) rolls available a la carte with a pat of margarine for 5¢. Half pints of milk were also 5¢. Together they made a not terrible lunch for only 10¢. Better than the nasty chicken finger type junk they serve in schools now, anyhow.

So, I can see the appeal of this as a breakfast. Quick, cheap and portable.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:36 PM on August 2, 2017


Elementary School, call it late '70's, they made real biscuits. That was back in the day when there were kitchens in each school, as opposed to District Catering Kitchens...
posted by mikelieman at 1:21 PM on August 2, 2017


Not being able to get a decent hard roll is one of the drawbacks of calling Georgia home. The closest one can get is the "Chicago" style rolls at Publix, but it's just not the same.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:38 PM on August 2, 2017


"Kholly" is an artifact of what my Yiddish teacher calls Ashekno-Hebrew, the dialect of Hebrew as spoken by Ashkenazi Jews up until the 20th century

I'm pretty sure this is a specifically American thing, and probably more typical of Jews from longer-established communities. Yiddish-speaking Jews in Australia (predominantly of Hungarian and Polish origin) don't say "kholly", and that pronunciation doesn't even work with the word's orthography. I mean, you don't talk about a "sefer torry" or call Kushner a "shandy".

Maybe the non-stressed vowel at the end got assimilated into a more typical English "-y" sound? Maybe it's a non-Yiddish diminutive? Maybe (and this is a bit of a stretch) the phrase "khallah bread" was influenced by a mental association with "holy bread"?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:07 PM on August 2, 2017


This morning, I stopped at a cart to buy a bagel, but somehow the words 'buttered roll' came out of my mouth. It was not good, yet it took me back to being nineteen and wandering around Washington Square while scribbling earnestly in a notebook so there's that.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:48 PM on August 2, 2017 [7 favorites]


Okay, look what you people made me do: I went a couple mornings ago to get some croissants before work and used that instead of my usual healthy crispbread I eat avocado with. It tasted GREAT with coffee, and now I'm on Yelp trying to find out which bakeries are open at 7 am so I can drop in before work and get a couple of fresh breads (croissants, bollilos, baguettes, etc. are all available around here)
posted by FJT at 9:09 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Maybe the non-stressed vowel at the end got assimilated into a more typical English "-y" sound? Maybe it's a non-Yiddish diminutive? Maybe (and this is a bit of a stretch) the phrase "khallah bread" was influenced by a mental association with "holy bread"?

I've heard older American Jews interpolate the "y" sound into Hebrew for sure. When I was bar mitzvahed back in the 19th century or so (ok, well, 1979), one of the men at the synagogue, a guy probably in his late 50s or early 60s, would give a speech to the bar mitzvah kids and he was always end it with, "And you should marry a nice Jewish boy/girl under a chuppah!" But he definitely pronounced it "chuppy." I have a very distinct recollection of this because my friends and I thought it was hilarious. This guy was originally from Eastern Europe, but had emigrated many years previously.
posted by holborne at 9:26 AM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


The buttered roll and coffee just isn't the same now that you don't get a free newspaper with it.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:46 AM on August 3, 2017



"Kholly" is an artifact of what my Yiddish teacher calls Ashekno-Hebrew, the dialect of Hebrew as spoken by Ashkenazi Jews up until the 20th century

I'm pretty sure this is a specifically American thing, and probably more typical of Jews from longer-established communities. Yiddish-speaking Jews in Australia (predominantly of Hungarian and Polish origin) don't say "kholly", and that pronunciation doesn't even work with the word's orthography. I mean, you don't talk about a "sefer torry" or call Kushner a "shandy".


It may be a purely New York/American Yiddish thing, but I've definitely heard both of those and more. The spelling we're using here isn't doing it justice, though - it's less a strict 'y' and more a sound somewhere between 'eh' and 'y'. So "kholly" doesn't quite rhyme with holy, though it's a lot closer to it then "khallah" is.

Lemme do some youtube digging and see if I can find a recording.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:59 AM on August 3, 2017


It's also worth mentioning that I've never heard the eh/y drift in Hebrew from anyone under like 70 years old - while chassids of all ages in my experience will speak Yiddish with a similar accent, their Hebrew is much closer to classic Israeli/Sephardi Hebrew.

This is all also in New York, my experience with Yiddish-speaking communities elsewhere is basically zero.
posted by Itaxpica at 12:03 PM on August 3, 2017


(Quick update: trying to find youtube examples of older Ashkenazi Hebrew speakers got weirdly anti-Semetic weirdly fast, so I gave up on that, but I was able to find this wikipedia page on Ashkenazi Hebrew, which suggests that the common use of the [oi] phoneme is a feature of Polish/Galician Hebrew specifically.

And now I'll stop before I derail the buttered roll thread any further with discussion of Yiddish phonology)
posted by Itaxpica at 12:16 PM on August 3, 2017


For all this talk that New York is special and everything we have here you can get everywhere else..
I still have yet to taste actual pizza outside of New York.
There's lots of signs with those five letters but what they're selling just isn't pizza.

So, no.. maybe you don't have buttered rolls where you are, because you definitely don't have pizza.
posted by yonega at 3:57 AM on August 4, 2017


For all this talk that New York is special and everything we have here you can get everywhere else..

I think that only applies to "New York attitude", which we currently have a huge surplus of.
posted by FJT at 9:33 AM on August 4, 2017


You're reading an article in a NYC newspaper about food in NYC. And complaining that it's so NY-centric and that other cities are good too.

A lot of the comments in this thread are like people who follow J.K. Rowling on Twitter and then complain when she posts pictures of her nieces saying, "Aren't they the cutest?!"

NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR KIDS THEY AREN'T CUTER THAN ANYONE ELSE'S WHY AREN'T YOU TALKING ABOUT RONBLEDORE
posted by straight at 4:14 PM on August 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


That question can be addressed to anyone.
posted by asperity at 9:50 PM on August 4, 2017


> I found out that in Germany they call pretzels with cream cheese Philadelphia pretzels despite the fact nobody in Philadelphia eats pretzels with cream cheese

How about Philadelphia rolls?
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:46 AM on August 5, 2017


And how do I know that people smack down any talk of tasty food in flyover country? Long experience. "Oh, we have really good hippie pizza here, it's not like Neapolitan pizza but it's good because reason-reason, also you can eat it at Local Historically Important place" is just met with "that's shitty pizza, the only good pizza is the kind you get in New York".

True. I am near Minneapolis and have a friend from New York. His praise of Cossetta's pizza (and I don't mean that ironically--it is a compliment): "it doesn't suck."
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 5:11 PM on August 7, 2017


So this summer, WNYC (New York's public radio station) is running a series they call "the low-stakes debate" where they pick some small issue to debate once a week.

This week they've chosen to debate the buttered roll, in response to this article. So far they're coming down on the side of the article's detractors, for pretty much the same reason eveyrone in here is. If you want to weigh in, they're using the hashtag #MyWrongOpinion on Twitter.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:21 AM on August 8, 2017


In case you want to read people actually agreeing with the premise without sourpusses bitching about New York exceptionalism, the Straight Dope message boards have your back. 2012 was a simpler time.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:57 AM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Sadie Stein responds to the whole contretemps: Buttered Roll Redux: A Lowly Breakfast Food Begets High Drama
posted by neroli at 8:21 AM on August 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


Pair with a sunrise over mountains for maximum enjoyment.

Pogo_Fuzzybutt, thank you for alerting me to the existence of freeze-dried biscuits and gravy! I am about to take a cross-country Amtrak trip and am stupid excited about bringing a few along for when I don't want to deal with the dining cars.
posted by yeahlikethat at 11:38 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah, there was a lot of that bitching on another forum that the article came up in. A lot of people pretending it was about dinner rolls and how dare NYCers say we don't know about buttering rolls. When the simple fact is that a buttered kaiser roll is not a standard breakfast item in most places, so it is indeed a bit of local culture.
posted by tavella at 11:39 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


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