That's a LOT of butter!

While doing my best to procrastinate recently I came upon a clearly well-cherished tradition that I have thus far been completely unaware of. This great tradition is in fact the art of butter sculpture. I did some wikipedia research on the matter and apparently butter sculptures have been around for a very long time. In the US they can be traced back to the late 1800s at which time the first cow was sculpted out of butter at a state fair. Ever since butter sculpting can be found at many such fairs across the country. For example, at the Minnesota State Fair there is a tradition that the 12 finalists of the "princess kay of the milky way" contest are sculpted out of butter. I found this article about this practice from the wall street journal.

The best part of this article, in case you're not up to reading the whole thing, is when they talk about how after the finalists are sculpted, their heads are taken home and stored in the fridge for any future butter needs such as eating pancakes and baking cookies.

And just in case you want to look at some more butter sculptures

you can see many by clicking here.