On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 22:53:15 -0800 (PST), Michael OConnor
> wrote:

>I was visiting some people for supper last night, and when I was looking in a cabinet for a plate, I came across a cabinet filled with food, and sitting inside there was an entire stick of butter, all wrapped up in the wax paper. I asked the lady of the house about this and she said she likes the butter to be soft when she goes to use it. Having never heard of this before, I thought I would ask the other foodies here if any of them also do this, and is it safe to not refrigerate sticks of butter.

I guess it depends on the temperature of the room. Around here, for
at least 6 months of the year, "room temperature" might be anywhere
from 75 F (~24C) to 85F (~29C), depending on the outside temperatures
and the A/C, so that butter would be rather soft to the point of
sagging.

On the other hand, in large parts of the U.S. in the not that distant
past, rural homes often had a "spring house" and in it there were
masonry troughs in which butter and similar foodstuffs were kept cool.
I recall finding the disused spring house at my great-grandparents
farm and wondering for what it was used. Put another way, we did not
invent butter as a consequence of mechanical refrigeration.