Set of 3 French Silver-Plate Butter Knives with Scalloped Handles

"There's nothing better than buttering toast or corn on the cob," Patricia says — and at Chanteduc, her farmhouse in Vaison-la-Romaine, butter has always had its place at the table: always salted, organic, and French.

These three silver-plate butter knives are each cast in a single piece, the flat paddle blade flowing without interruption into a slender handle that widens slightly at the base into a scalloped, decorative heel.

Food journalist Waverly Root famously argued that France was divided in two — butter country in the north, olive oil country in the south. Patricia, who uses more olive oil for cooking but keeps good salted butter on hand always, lives happily across that line. A set of butter knives like these belongs on any table where bread is taken seriously: laid beside a linen napkin, a crock of salted butter, a good loaf. They are the kind of thing that makes an ordinary breakfast or a simple lunch feel like something special.