How deliciously Charles Dickens treats such a quotidian thing as serving up bread-and-butter. In his Great Expectation, the young Pip and his brother-in-law Joe have differing approaches to snaffling the stuff, and each is concerned that the other does not bolt the food down so quick that he needs to be purged. But look at the way Pip's sister prepares the meal:
My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread-and-butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib - where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaister - using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaister, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.
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