Bantha butter

Bantha butter
Food specifications
Type	Butter
Physical description	Blue-hued butter with a mellow flavor
Animal-based ingredients	Blue milk
Edible by	Humans
Dishes	Bantha-butter pancake Dumplings

"…have you ever tasted sautéed Trandoshan liver with bantha butter—?"
"You bit off…more than you can chew!"

―The human pit fighter Tasu Leech, to a group, and the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk'wassak'Cradossk, presumed by Leech to be frozen

Bantha butter, or blue butter, was a blue-hued butter made with the blue milk produced by banthas. The mellow butter tolerated heating and was useful for cooking foods, such as dumplings and bantha-butter pancakes, but the results could be bland in flavor. On Starlight Beacon, it was served with yellow chime fruit preserve on seed bread. The human Tasu Leech suggested pairing sautéed Trandoshan liver with bantha butter.

Description

Bantha butter, also known as blue butter, was made with blue milk produced by banthas, a type of creature that was native to the planet Tatooine. The milk gave bantha butter its blue hue. A common variety of butter, its mellow flavor and tolerance for being heated made it useful for cooking.

History

Republic and Imperial Eras

Banthas produced the blue milk used to make bantha butter.

While the Starlight Beacon space station was in operation in 231 BBY, the kitchen droids in its dining facility served foods that included freshly baked seed bread with thick blue butter and yellow chime fruit preserve. During a visit to the station, the human Jedi Padawan Reath Silas got that bread.

In 3 ABY, the Devaronian executive chef Torro Sbazzle was asked by Lando Calrissian, Baron Administrator of the gas mining colony Cloud City on the gas giant Bespin, to prepare food while under occupation by the Galactic Empire. Calrissian's involuntary "guests" included the Sith Lord Darth Vader, who Sbazzle presumed was human like most Imperials. When Sbazzle chose to make dumplings, she considered using bantha butter to cut her midnight-hued pastry flour because it was less likely to burn than zaffa oil and had less flavor. As it might have been the last meal she ever cooked, she decided she would not die for bland dumplings and chose the oil instead.

In the same year, the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk'wassak'Cradossk, known as Bossk, appeared to have frozen on the ice planet Jekara before he was discovered by a group that included the human pit fighter Tasu Leech. After Leech suggested to his companions that they abandon or kill Bossk, he asked if they had ever tasted sautéed Trandoshan liver with bantha butter, at which point the Trandoshan leapt up, put a knife to Leech's throat, and threatened to flay the human. In 4 ABY, the musician Jess ate pieces of haroun bread smeared with bantha butter for breakfast in the palace of the crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure.

Later times

"In addition to serving as benign beasts of burden, they produce a distinctly blue milk that can be consumed directly or used as an ingredient in foods like butter, yogurt, or ice cream."

―Ardis San Tekka, in her journal

Bantha butter was served aboard the Halcyon (pictured).

In 34 ABY, aboard the Halcyon, an MPO-1400 Purgill-class star cruiser, spiraled discs of blue bantha butter were part of a pastry board available to cruise guests during breakfast service in the Crown of Corellia Dining Room.

Bantha-butter pancakes were a flat food that the pirate Hondo Ohnaka once compared with the result of a turlossus stepping on something with its gigantic foot. He witnessed that scenario on the moon Dhandu 3 when two Pakiphantos members of Trunc Adurmush's gang got flattened by a turlossus. At some point no earlier than 35 ABY, Galactic Society of Creature Enthusiasts' Director of Creature Cartography, Ardis San Tekka, mentioned bantha butter in her journal within an entry about banthas.

Behind the scenes

"When a bantha gives blue milk, you get blue butter."

―Recipe for Bantha Blue Butter Sandwich Cookies

Cover art by Annie Wu for Pirate's Price, in which bantha butter was first mentioned

Bantha butter was first mentioned in the current Star Wars canon in Pirate's Price, a 2019 novel by Lou Anders. It first appeared in "But What Does He Eat?," a short story by S.A. Chakraborty published in the 2020 anthology book From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. On February 22, 2021, StarWars.com previewed the Bantha Blue Butter Sandwich Cookies recipe from the cookbook Star Wars: Galactic Baking; the recipe first identified blue butter as an alternative name. The cookbook, which Insight Editions published on May 4 of that year, referred to the substance as both "Bantha butter" and "blue butter."

A StarWars.com preview of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser that was published on November 17, 2021 mentioned blue bantha butter as one of the foods inspired by Star Wars storytelling. The immersive experience at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida opened to the public on March 1, 2022, and had its final voyage from September 28 to 30, 2023. Guests could consume the butter during breakfast in the Crown of Corellia Dining Room.

In the Star Wars Legends continuity, bantha butter was first mentioned in the short story "Soup's On: The Pipe Smoker's Tale," written by Jennifer Roberson and published in the 1995 anthology Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. Unlike the canon version, the Legends version of bantha butter was described as green in the comic book Legacy 4, which was written by John Ostrander and published by Dark Horse Comics on October 11, 2006. In Legends, blue butter was first mentioned in the 2002 Star Wars: The New Jedi Order novel Rebel Stand, which was written by Aaron Allston as the second book of the Enemy Lines duology, but it was not explicitly associated with banthas.

Appearances

• The High Republic: Out of the Shadows (and audiobook)
• "But What Does He Eat?" — From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (and audiobook) (First appearance)
• Bounty Hunters 16 (Mentioned only)
• "Dune Sea Songs of Salt and Moonlight" — From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi (and audiobook)
• Pirate's Price (and audiobook) (First mentioned)
• Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser — Crown of Corellia Dining Room

Sources

• Go on a Journey of Deliciousness with the Galactic Baking Cookbook on StarWars.com (backup link) (First identified as blue butter)
• Star Wars: Galactic Baking
• 31 Things We Learned in an Exclusive Preview of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser on StarWars.com (original link is obsolete)
• 10 Things We Loved About Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser on StarWars.com (original link is obsolete)
• Star Wars Bestiary, Vol. 1: Creatures of the Galaxy