"Miss Child is never bashful with butter"
About this Quote
A line like "Miss Child is never bashful with butter" works because it sounds like praise while quietly staging a whole worldview: abundance as personality, indulgence as virtue, and taste as something you perform in public. Donahue, the daytime talk impresario, knew how to turn a small observation into a character reveal. "Never bashful" isn’t really about dairy; it’s a moral descriptor dressed up as kitchen chatter. It frames Julia Child (the obvious referent) as boldly unembarrassed by pleasure, a woman whose confidence shows up not in speeches but in the decisive extra tablespoon.
The phrase also flatters the audience. Butter is shorthand for a certain aspirational comfort: not health, not austerity, not moral panic. In the late-20th-century American media landscape that Donahue helped shape, food was becoming identity content before we had that language. To call Child unbashful is to grant permission. It’s a wink that says: you can stop apologizing for wanting things to taste good.
There’s gender subtext, too. "Miss" is both affectionate and faintly patronizing, the old-fashioned label that keeps a powerful adult woman in a social box. Child escapes it anyway, by being larger than the box: big voice, big gestures, big flavors. Donahue’s compliment lands because it catches that contradiction - a culture eager to domesticate women, confronted with a woman who makes domesticity loud, sensual, and unapologetically public.
The phrase also flatters the audience. Butter is shorthand for a certain aspirational comfort: not health, not austerity, not moral panic. In the late-20th-century American media landscape that Donahue helped shape, food was becoming identity content before we had that language. To call Child unbashful is to grant permission. It’s a wink that says: you can stop apologizing for wanting things to taste good.
There’s gender subtext, too. "Miss" is both affectionate and faintly patronizing, the old-fashioned label that keeps a powerful adult woman in a social box. Child escapes it anyway, by being larger than the box: big voice, big gestures, big flavors. Donahue’s compliment lands because it catches that contradiction - a culture eager to domesticate women, confronted with a woman who makes domesticity loud, sensual, and unapologetically public.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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