Phraseologism "shish with butter" has several options. So, for example, they say "cookie with butter" or "fig with butter." This is the same as shish with oil, the meaning of which can be found in Russian literature and in Russian dictionaries.
Phrase meanings
Shish with oil in the first case means a complete lack of money or livelihood. For instance:
"- What are you planning to do now?
“I don’t know, we’ll eat a shish with butter!”
In general, fig is an allegory of a small price and is very often used in the literature with this meaning. In the second case, this idiom means complete, categorical rejection.
Phrase history
In general, a shish, a cookie, a fig - this is a gun. A physical gesture that is indecent and intended to offend or humiliate the person to whom it is shown. In magical practice, it is intended to drive away the evil eye, evil spirits, danger. In museums around the world amulets from antiquity are stored in the form of a hand with a muzzle. And in the original Russian tradition, shish was used as a talisman against evil spirits. In Russia, with the help of a cookie, barley (eye disease) was driven out. The patient was shown a muzzle and sentenced:
"Barley, barley, you’ll buy a cookie, whatever you want: buy a hatchet, chop yourself across."
Indians, unlike Russians, haven’t decided to keep a shish in their pocket, they have a muzzle, on the contrary, flaunted. According to Native American interpretation, this gesture means that someone is milking a cow or coloring his eyes. Apparently, it all depends on the situation.
In Japan, this gesture, which symbolizes coitus and genitals, was used by ladies in the streets who wanted to show that they were ready to serve the client.
In Polesie, a shish was not only a gesture, but also an amulet that was cut out of wood and hung on a loom to protect yarn and linen from the evil eye.
One of the versions of the origin of this gesture and idiom refers to the struggle of Frederick I Barbarossa against Milan in the XII century. The Milanese revolted and, putting the emperor on a mule, expelled him from the city. When Frederick was again able to regain power over the city, he ordered every Milanese to remove the fig leaf attached to the back of the mule.