A co-worker of mine is from California and, until today, she did not know what a buttered roll was. Not a dinner roll with butter on it but a big, soft in the inside, chewy on the outside roll. Usually eaten in the morning with a cup of coffee. Regular*. Another co-worker confirmed that when she was in Georgia she asked for a buttered roll and they looked at her as if she told them she was sticking them up.
So now the question. Do you know what I’m talking about? Where are you from?
*a regular coffee has milk and sugar in it. This, I’ve learned, is a New York thing. I’m still not convinced a buttered roll is, though. Like my co-worker said to the guy in Georgia, “A roll with fucking butter on it!”
I’m in the midwest (Wisconsin) if someone asked me for a buttered roll, I’d be curious as to why they can’t put butter on their own roll. Come to think of it though, I’ve heard of a Better Butter Roll, but that’s just a roll (like a hamburger bun) that has a lot of butter in it. I don’t think that’s the same thing though. It’s not something you’d eat alone.
As for a regular coffee (it should be known that I’m not a coffee drinker), I would have assumed that a regular coffee was black.
Does this buttered roll have actual butter in it? Or is the consistency something that is being described as “buttered.” And is this a yeast roll? I confess that I don’t get it at all.
Talk biscuits and I’m on firmer footing, so to speak.
That sounds like some sort of danish, bear claw or perhaps an apple fritter. Hard to tell without a picture or a better description of the flavor. As for butter roll, I would assume it’s a dinner roll served with a pat of butter on the side.
I’m still not sure what you mean by a roll but not a dinner roll. There are cinnamon rolls and kaiser rolls and crescent rolls, but a plain adjective-less roll always means a dinner roll to me. It would be odd to eat one for breakfast, and you can put your own butter on it. If there’s a specific kind of roll that goes by the name “buttered roll” that presumably has butter already in it, I’ve never heard of it. And if you do mean a kaiser roll like Biggirl suggests, then yes, that would be about as odd as asking for a buttered hamburger bun for breakfast. Kaiser rolls are for sandwiches.
A buttered roll is as standard a breakfast as, well, as a bagel with butter. Never thought of it as a NYC thing but maybe it is. It should be obviously less chewy than a bagel. (There’s been a distressing convergence of consistency between coffee cart bagels and their bread rolls.) They’re sold pre-buttered and wrapped in plastic wrap just like the bagels with butter or cream cheese are pre-slathered. The bagels are cut in half and wrapped, the rolls usually just as a big kaiser roll (uncut).
These are typically coffee cart items only, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone order a buttered roll at a diner or something. That’s probably a part of this story - it’s an on-the-go food sold to pedestrians from non-permanent, outdoor points of sale. In other words, it could only really exist in a dense urban area where storefront real estate is expensive.
It’s also the same reason that a “regular” coffee means milk and sugar. That’s how most people take it, and it’s easier to be handed a cup from a guy at a cart window that you immediately start drinking instead of something where you have to find somewhere to put the cup down on to add the sugar. Especially in the winter when you’re wearing gloves.
I remember the distinct culture clash from about 10-12 years ago when I went into a Starbucks type place to get coffee for the first time, and found that I had to do all the milk, sugar, lidding, etc., adding myself at another station. I was like, “isn’t the point of getting coffee to GET MY COFFEE AND WALK AWAY DRINKING IT?”
So it’s a bit more like a baguette than a dinner roll. I was born & raised in the mid-atlantic and I don’t think I ever heard the term or saw anybody eating such a think at breakfast.
I didn’t know what a buttered roll and I live in the Boston area. However, “Coffee- Regular” also means with a normal amount of milk and sugar in it in the Boston area (especially if you order it from Duncan Donuts).
I’m a lifelong west coast resident, and hadn’t heard of the “street food” definition of the phrase “buttered roll”. I’d have thought dinner roll myself.
You can walk in to any 7-11 in the morning and they’ll be pre-made on the counter wrapped in plastic wrap right next to the pre-cut and buttered bagels.
I am truely surprised that this is a New York thing.
This was a shock to me when I ordered “two regular coffees to go” the first time I visited Boston. They put the lids on them and I didn’t realize there was milk and sugar until we’d left the shop. Bleah! I learned to be specific. Black coffee, no sugar.
It’s hard to tell from the picture what size that roll is and what the consistency is. Possibly because the url indicates that it’s fake, which explains why it looks vaguely like it made out of foam rubber. It doesn’t have the kind of crust that I’d expect on a kaiser roll, nor does it have seeds on it, which makes it look like it could be some kind of sweet roll. But I assume it’s meant to be something like a kaiser roll or a sandwich bun, since it says “sandwich roll” in the url. But again, a sandwich roll would be for sandwiches, not something an ordinary non-New Yorker would eat for breakfast. I mean, if I worked in a bakery and you came in for breakfast and said, I’d like one of those sandwich rolls, and I’d like it toasted with butter," I wouldn’t think twice, but if you just said “buttered roll” like that was a “thing” I’d ask you what you were talking about.
It must be because I’ve never seen it. I’ve also never seen (that I can recall) pre-buttered bagels (especially not at a 7-11). Are the bagels toasted? Don’t tell me you eat untoasted bagels in New York!
It’s basically a kaiser roll without seeds, yeah. Same shape, size and consistency minus the seeds.
In fact the picture that goes with the Wikipedia article for kaiser roll is seedless and exactly what I’d expect to be the “buttered roll” in question (with butter, of course), and which is described as “always plain”. So it’s the seeded variety that’s the offshoot.
