Lincoln,

Yes, I remember the butter pat well. My family used to go to a restaurant that brought out hot pumpernickle bread on a butter pat along with actual 'butter pats' and a knife to cut it with. My mother, the clever woman she was, asked for another loaf since there were six of us and we devoured what we had in less than five minutes. The waitress brought out another loaf atop another butter pat. At the end of the meal guess what was in her purse? Yep, one of the butter pats. The worse spanking I got with it was mouthing off foolishly before bathtime and then having mom come in, stand me up and work me over on my wet butt. OUCH!!!!

It's certainly a unique implement and rather hard to obtain these days I'm sure. I'm sure the ridged side would have been excruciating.

A fascinating account - thank you. I remember the butter pat being referred to by teachers at my school as an implement that had been used in the past.

Nice to see something quite unusual getting a mention, I don't remember hearing of any of my contemporaries being "patted" in this way, but I remember the older generation referring to it. I imagine lots of homes would have had these in the days when more people made their own butter. Knowing you were going to get the butter pat must have given you a "churning" feeling. (Sorry!)

Butter pat is such a lovely title. Resonant of buttocks and whack. It was widely talked about at my school although they used a hairbrush in fact. Something very similar (especially as the serrated side was not used) is a square cut cheese board with a handle; very much available all over the place. Call it a butter pat rather than a cheese board and add it to your collection of implements. Not for the faint hearted though. A good blow will bruise immediately.

Thank you for the lively account. I never heard about that implement before. Living and learning...

Yes I remember seeing a butter pat being put to legitimate use by an aunt who ran a boarding house in a sea-side town. Never imagined it being used as an instrument of correction however. You've given me an idea....

Rare you hear about the butter pat but can speak from experience that it was put to regular use at my prep school in England in the 1980s.

I didn't know that this is a butter pad in England. We are using it to make our famous "Spätzle", a kind of noodle. I never heard about other purposes of the "noodle-pad", but as nearly every household in the south west is possessing one, it's quite likely also used for padding.

Lincoln, thank you for sharing this very fascinating account of your spanking history. The butter pat looks a very formidable and very effective implement indeed...I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of the serrated side..ouchies!

Is this the same thing as a butter paddle? My Grandmother had a couple of those. I had always thought they were intended to be used to stur cream and tuen it into butter. But they looked similar to the description you gave of the butter pat. As I never inquired about their intended purpose, I could be mistaken.

They are quite common in antique stores. Most are too flimsy for my hard ass but I did find one that worked quite nicely. It hasn't been used so much for discipline but I can easily see how it could be! Thank you for these memories.

Very well done, this kitchen item reminds me of the cutting boards, some were huge, but a few were usable paddles. Never felt one but a girl in junior high use to laugh about getting the cutting board for mouthing off.

I have a thick wooden spatula that is a larger, heavier implement. It has the same general shape and is quite a paddle! Ouch.

I remember the butter pad from the time, when butter was not packaged from the dairies but delivered in kegs too the shops, where the keg in Denmark was opened in the top. When a customer wanted butter, the butter pad was taken from a jug with water, it was used to make the paper waiting on the scales wet and to take take the wanted amount of butter from the keg. Then the butter was battered until it had the wanted shape and packed. In England the keg was taken into pieces, so that the butter stood for all to see. The butter pad was not used in the homes.

I've never seen a butter pat but it sure sounds effective.

I'm a little bit torn with this story. I like that the article put a spotlight on an unusual spanking instrument - although I was a little bit disappointed that the article was way shorter and less descriptive as I had hoped.

When I was growing up we visited a boarding house in the area where the hot homemade bread and butter were brought to the table by one of the pretty waitresses with shapely bottoms in tight black slacks. They stayed there while attending St. Andrews. Boy, that Butter Pat sure revved my fantasies.

Years ago I was going through things in our garage and found two of them in a box of some of my paternal grandmother's things. Naturally I tested them later on and they do provide a real sting. Also in the box was an oval ivory colored hairbrush. Owww!
These were my go-to implements for self spanking.
Oddly, my father never mentioned getting spanked by his mother, though it could have occurred back then. He did mention a spanking from his father with a switch on the bare once when he was a young lad. Yikes!