"Though of course bread and butter are eaten all over, the buttered roll (or roll with butter, as it is known in parts of New Jersey) is a distinctly local phenomenon."

"Mention its name outside the New York metropolitan area and you would very likely be met with blank incomprehension."

From "Ode to the Buttered Roll, That New York Lifeline," by Sadie Stein (in the NYT).

I know this article is getting mocked — as if it's typical New York cluelessness about the people who don't live in New York, but I think the mockers are not really getting the way New Yorkers experience the buttered roll. My understanding is premised mostly on my experience working in midtown Manhattan offices in the 1970s, where a bell from the coffee wagon broke up the morning's work. Something about the small array of items got me tracked into eating the completely nondescript buttered Kaiser roll that came in a waxed paper sandwich bag. (Stein calls it "wax paper." I'm not that much of New Yorker. I say "waxed paper," since it's real paper with wax on it, not paper somehow composed of wax, but I'm not going to fight about it, because I'm not a native New Yorker. I don't like to fight for the sake of fighting. I'm just saying it's not "wax paper." I also don't say "piece fruit," for "piece of fruit," but I've lived around New Yorkers who did.) Anyway, in my experience, the buttered roll in New York is a specific thing and a weird thing, precisely because it is too ordinary to be considered a specific rather than a generic thing, but it really is. I think elsewhere people would look at this as an empty sandwich, a failure to add baloney or cheese or something. What is this?

And why is a Kaiser roll called a Kaiser roll?

Kaiser rolls have existed in a recognizable form at least since 1760. They are thought to have been named to honor Emperor (Kaiser) Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830–1916). In 18th century a law fixed retail prices of Semmeln breadrolls in the Habsburg Monarchy. Allegedly, the name Kaisersemmel came into general use after the bakers' guild had sent a delegation in 1789 to Emperor Joseph II (1741–1790) and convinced him of deregulating the selling price.

Here's the highest-rated comment at the NYT, beautifully written by Fred Plotkin:

Lovely article and great memories from commenters. I grew up in the West 70s in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There was still a large Viennese community, mostly Jewish, who had escaped Hitler, the Anschluss and the Holocaust. All of them loved classical music and spoke about it to anyone who would listen...and I was one of those. West 72nd Street was a sort of Wienerstrasse, with bakeries and cafes that somewhat replicated those from Vienna. One drank Meinl brand coffee (Vienna's most popular) and always had a brotchen, which was close to a Kaiser roll but always had poppy seeds unless you did not want one--but we did! The roll was crisp, fragrant, baked just hours earlier and would be easily cut horizontally. Fresh room temperature sweet butter was spread on both sides and this was served with a tiny dish of apricot preserve, just enough to slightly sweeten the butter. I would sit at tables as a 12 year old, carefully eating my roll so it did not go too quickly and sipping that wonderful coffee. Why did I tarry? Because it allowed me to listen to people tell stories of hearing Mahler, Strauss or Bruno Walter conduct or to hear readings by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Or to hear about Klimt, Freud, Loos, Wittgenstein and others who made Vienna so vibrant before what was often referred to as "the catastrophe." These people were guardians of a civilization, one they felt it was essential to transmit to the likes of me, one bite of roll and butter at a time."