Where Have All The Butter Mints Gone?
Bette Davis once said, "Old age ain't no place for sissies". I'll add to that by saying that I have never seen a sissy go near the process of making old fashioned honest-to-goodness homemade pulled butter mints, either - which probably explains why they are about as rare as phone booths these days.
If you are a younger person reading this post, you don't even know what I'm talking about. It isn't your fault, though - so don't go beating yourself up.
The type of confection we're talking about used to appear at every reception, tea, shower, and church gathering in even the smallest of Southern towns. The mints were made by boiling a syrupy mix of sugar and butter and water, then pouring onto a marble slab, then cooling and pulling, until finally being clipped into short nubs of tender candy that melted in your mouth. Not only did every TOWN have a "butter mint lady" - when I was growing up, nearly every CHURCH in every town had one. I always assumed it was some kind of a requirement.
And then one day, sometime in the 1980's if memory serves, I went to a baby shower and found a platter of impostors sitting where the butter mints used to be. These interlopers were made with cream cheese and powdered sugar and had been pressed out into some kind of a little flower-shape using a mold, I guess to hide the fact that they were short-cuts. I was almost embarrassed for the hosts.
Gradually after that, those little cream cheese things became the norm, and we lost our butter mint way. The butter mint ladies all died out, and their daughters (and I count myself among the guilty here) just did not have the time to pick up the legacy and move it forward, and now here we stand.
Butter mints are hard to make. If she was still with us, Bette Davis would agree. One can easily burn a hand trying to pull the mixture too soon, and the art of pulling is not for the weak-armed.
Still, I hold out hope. One of these days, maybe my Christmas doorbell will ring and there will be Miss Jean or Miss Vassie with a metal tin full of the most delicious candy God ever ordained, and all will be right with the world.
If you're interested, here is a link to the recipe and the process. One look and you will understand why the world pivoted to the cream cheese version, but in my humble opinion there will never be an acceptable substitute for the real thing.
Wow!!! Yes, I have missed them too. Yes to the church ladies with the butter mints side hustle. With only Protestant and mostly Southern Baptist weddings in my growing up cultural experience, they were the treasure on the wedding reception serving table: dry tiny tea sandwiches, cheese straws ( didn’t like them then; another local lady likely made them) , mixed nuts which were always devoid of pecans by time I got there, and cake squares, not reunion worthy. I did love the fizzy lime sherbet punch in the center so those two made it. It’s been a while and this was a delight to read.
Vignettes like these bring back so many happy memories of growing up in a small county seat in the northern piedmont of NC many years ago in a time now gone like last night's dream. A collection of these stories would make a wonderful book for those of us dinosaurs who still prefer reading them over Kindle, etc. I sure hope a certain someone will take heed and consider such a project! Bless you.