My grandmother's china
I apologize for having gone missing. I’ve been extremely busy these past few weeks — we’ve moved to Washington, D.C., so I can start graduate school next week and the move was NOT an easy one. Let’s just say everything that could have gone wrong did, and leave it at that.
So, not only have I not had time to blog, I haven’t really even had time to cook.
However, now that we’ve finally found a place where we plan to live two years in a row (wow! could it be possible? I haven’t lived that long anywhere in about a decade), I pulled out the boxes of my grandmother’s china that have been sitting in storage for several years. Actually, they’ve been in storage way longer than that – -first at my mom’s house, then in mine..I didn’t even have an idea what was in there.
I’m pleasantly surprised! I’m now the owner of an 80-plus piece set of eggshell-colored, flowery china that’s in really great shape. I don’t think it’s fancy stuff (It’s stamped simply “Howard Laughlin, Made in the USA.” The Internet tells me this company was the major china company in the 1920′s through the 60′s, and some sets of the company’s china were sold exclusively at Woolworths Department stores).
However, I can’t believe all the peices in this set! There are: 12 cups, 12 saucers, 12 tiny little plates, 12 super tiny bowls, 12 larger shallow bowls, 12 salad plates, 12 large plates and a creamer dish, sugar dish, gravy boat and large serving platter. Phew.
I’m not even sure what some of this stuff is supposed to be used for, to be honest. Like these little bowls. You can see how small they are, because I held up a one-cup measuring cup for reference. Someone on the internet called them “berry bowls” — does this ring a bell?
Berry bowls?
The dishes all have gold painting on the edges and little gold designs in a ring around the inside — I can’t believe how they’ve all held up so well!
The plates are sort of square, sort of circular
Also confusing to me are how shallow these large bowls (pictured below) are — were they used for soup? Or a salad or something?
The shallow bowls
And finally, the pretty little sugar bowl:
I think this looks very French...
My grandmother is probably about the age your grandma might be…she’s in her mid-80s. She’s got much of the same types of pieces. She uses those little bowls for jello salad (served with the rest of the meal, NOT as dessert!) or for desserts like pudding or ice cream.
Welcome to the DC area! We’ve been living here for a year and just now starting to really feel settled in.
Jello salad! Why didn’t I think of that?
It’s funny, I looked at them and my first — and only — confused thought was, “Umm.. these would be good for kheer… but I don’t think that’s what my grandma used them for… ”
Thanks for the welcome. We’re enjoying DC so far — especially the wonderful FREE museums, which are so nice after having to pay $20-plus to get into the NYC ones. Anyhow, we should get together one of these days!
Hi! Sorry the move went badly. Glad you’re settled down though. My family has old dishes from the 1920s as well. It’s always a big deal to use them because we have to wash them with a very specif type of detergent to keep the gold from rubbing off (I think it’s Ivory?). Those are definitely soup plates. They are nice because they allow the soup to cool with more surface area, but they are kind of a specialty item.
Sorry if I just came off as some kind of antique-dish-know-all, I go to too many junk shops.
No, no, you don’t sound like an “antique dish know it all” don’t worry (although, come to think of it, I don’t know that I would recognize one if I were to meet her.. haha). I’m glad to know what to actually use those soup plates for, then. Great!