In the summer of 2020, I bought myself a new butter knife. I purchased it at a popular household, garden and office supply store here in Sweden.
I was browsing the kitchen utensils section of the store for a new potato peeler – and that's where the butter knife, or smörknivet, caught my eye. It was utilitarian looking: a chunky plastic handle that fit comfortably in my palm, and a broad, thin metal blade, with a shallow serrated edge.It felt light in my hand. The handle, imprinted "Made in Sweden", had a large hole at the top to hang off a hook.
I didn't need a new butter knife. I owned several traditional Swedish wooden butter knives, all of which worked fine. Wooden smörknivar are ubiquitous throughout the country. I have grown to appreciate their simple design in the more than decade that I have lived here. They're affordable but beautiful-looking, natural, unpretentious and practical – a distillation of Swedish design.
Along with knäckebröd, a flat, hard crispy bread, wooden smörknivar are one of my favourite gifts to give when I visit South Africa every few years – Swedes in general make great value-for-money knives, such as the cult Morakniv, the brand of choice of many knife enthusiasts around the world.
I mostly use my wooden smörknivar to spread margarine, but also various spreads-in-tubes such as Kalles Kaviar, the iconic Swedish fish roe sandwich paste. I, additionally, use them as makeshift spatulas when scrambling or frying eggs – their dull edges don't damage non-stick pans.
Still, despite being satisfied with my wooden knives, I decided to buy this plastic and metal variant. I reasoned that it was cheap and, besides, one more butter knife in the drawer couldn’t hurt.
At home, I was impressed by the flexibility of the blade, which was something you didn't get with the wooden knives. This flexibility, which made spreading easier, combined with the width of the blade, turned my new, bought-on-a-whim, butter knife into the star of my kitchen within days.
I began using it for all manner of tasks – its intended uses of buttering bread and spreading spreads, of course – but I also used it as a spatula, palette knife, a ruthlessly efficient scrapper of the bottom of nearly-empty peanut butter, mayonnaise and sambal jars, and for cutting sandwiches. I even used it to scoop up masala from my spice dabba when I was too lazy to grab a teaspoon.
It was, in short, a kitchen-counter workhorse – much like my tomato knife.
If I had to put it plainly I would say that using this very basic object has made me happy in a tiny way. It has made humdrum tasks seem less humdrum.
After asking around I found out that this type of butter knife is sometimes known in Sweden as a "lilleman" or "little guy". So, I thought I would write these 500 words for you, little guy, in return for the pleasure you have brought me.