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The term tableware is a little confusing because it includes slightly different things in different cultures although in the UK it generally means all the porcelain plates, cups, saucers serving dishes and any other ceramic objects. Throughout the western world it is clear that modern ceramic dinnerware really took off with the Victorians. The newly rich middle classes could not get enough of all the different dishes that manufacturers were churning out to feed an almost insatiable appetite for showing off. This was the beginning of the middle class dinner parties and there were different shaped dishes for every conceivable dish and condiment. Today we often dish up meals in the kitchen and don’t bother with serving dishes on the table but sometimes it is fun to do the job properly with perhaps a large clean tablecloth and proper settings of glasses, cutlery and table decorations. Most of us make an effort at Christmas and birthdays to set the table properly and some of us wistfully think of the days when men and women would dress for dinner and meet for drinks in the library one hour before being led to the dining room. Some of the most popular television drama series are set in Edwardian times where these old customs are played out. In most of these television dramas the setting is a very large country house and below stairs are cooks and servants pandering to every need. Yet in the early twentieth century there were still many middle and even lower middle class households where it was customary to scrub-up and dress smartly before the whole family would sit at the table. There was a great sixties film called a Taste of Honey where the stiflingly pretentious middle class rules of table etiquette were enforced by a bully of a father on his rebellious teenage daughter. The full complement of ceramic dishes is quite expansive and done properly there are certain rules about the size of each plate. It seems that a charger should have a diameter of exactly twelve inches, a dinner plate of ten and a half inches and a dessert plate of eight and a half inches. Before you rush off to the kitchen to check these measurements I have to admit I haven’t that much time left to waste on that particular exercise and I suggest if you are tempted to measure them then my only advice is that you really should be getting out a bit more. If you are lucky enough to get invited to a State banquet then you will probably be over-awed by the number of items on the table. Similarly, the officers mess dinner nights in prestigious regiments can also be spectacular especially where there is an impressive centrepiece in the middle of the table which usually consists of some large solid silver items taken off the French in 1815. Sometimes it is good to make the effort and set all the cutlery in outward descending order and to have on the table the sauce boats, the serving bowls the compotes and salvers to name just a few of the pieces of tableware to complete the picture. For all your tableware please visit http://www.smithsofloughton.com/
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