Speaker 1: My name is Eva Longoria and I am my deraon
Speaker 1: and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
Speaker 1: our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
Speaker 1: and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2: So make yourself at home, even brichel.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you some This next episode is a
Speaker 3: very contentious point in our household because my husband and
Speaker 3: I fight about this all the time that if I
Speaker 3: buy one more dish, one more serving plate, one more
Speaker 3: set of dishes, my.
Speaker 2: Husband's going to divorce me.
Speaker 3: Like I am obset with dinnerware and cops and platters
Speaker 3: and serving spoons, and I love to collect them from.
Speaker 2: All over the world.
Speaker 3: And I go, I got this in China, and I
Speaker 3: got this in Morocco, and I got this cup and
Speaker 3: you know, a vintage store and Leone and Pari, you know,
Speaker 3: and I just I'm obsessed, obsessed dinnerware.
Speaker 2: So I have a bit of an addiction. I am
Speaker 2: a whore. Do you get the whole set or do
Speaker 2: you get pieces? No guess? And now yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: yes and no, it depends.
Speaker 3: I was in Budapest and that one of the most
Speaker 3: beautiful porcelain markets in the world, and so they make
Speaker 3: these beautiful tea sets. So that one I was like,
Speaker 3: I gotta get the set, and same thing and evil.
Speaker 3: So the city of Limoges is like known for porcelain.
Speaker 3: It's just so beautiful. I was like, I gotta get
Speaker 3: the set. I love champagne coops and usually vintage ones.
Speaker 3: There's one at a flea market, and so I have
Speaker 3: a big collection of like these mismatched champagne coops and
Speaker 3: somewhere are tiny, like they used to drink very They
Speaker 3: must have been smaller humans back then, because like in
Speaker 3: the Great Gatsby era, they're just like have these.
Speaker 2: Beautiful designs on the outside.
Speaker 3: I collect a lot of coffee cups, you know, and
Speaker 3: again usually they're tiny because back then we didn't have
Speaker 3: the mugs, right, it was different, much much different.
Speaker 2: Do you do you collect dinnerware?
Speaker 4: I do love dinnerware. I do, I do love. I
Speaker 4: definitely don't collect like you do. Yeah, like at all,
Speaker 4: but only because I think my husband would divorce me.
Speaker 4: He'd be like, it's either me or the dinner. But
Speaker 4: my dad had an obsession with dinnerware, and so my
Speaker 4: mom has like so much, and my parents used to
Speaker 4: entertain all the time when I was growing up. It
Speaker 4: is there is just something very beautiful about it. How
Speaker 4: did you start? How did how did this obsession start?
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I but you know, my aunt
Speaker 3: was a caterer and so I had to work.
Speaker 2: For her company sometimes.
Speaker 3: And so just like the way she presented food on
Speaker 3: a table, mostly because you know, she was paid to
Speaker 3: make it really beautiful, beautiful, that just stuck with me,
Speaker 3: Like your table setting should be telling a story. And
Speaker 3: I think the story of a plate is so powerful
Speaker 3: where it came from the history of Like if you
Speaker 3: think of talavea from Mexico and you think of like
Speaker 3: it's porcelain from China to France to Budapest. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just I don't know. A plate isn't just serving food,
Speaker 3: it's serving a story. It's such a good conversation starter.
Speaker 3: When people sit down they go, oh my god, this
Speaker 3: is beautiful, and I go, oh my god, let me
Speaker 3: tell you where I got it.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's like an entryway into a cultural story, you know.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because it's not just functional. When people
Speaker 3: have their own plate. It's this personal boundary. It's like
Speaker 3: this is mine and that one's yours. So there's a
Speaker 3: history of like how it redefined hygiene and etiquette and identity.
Speaker 2: And the rise of the individual. Yes, the rise of
Speaker 2: the individual.
Speaker 3: You know, we talked about this in a previous episode
Speaker 3: of like Louis the fourteenth having such an impact on
Speaker 3: coursing out and stop having a buffet and everything at
Speaker 3: once and eating with your hands. Like there's now there's cutlery,
Speaker 3: and now there's classic culture, and so for me, all
Speaker 3: of it is so fascinating, but just the patterns and
Speaker 3: how things are made, and anytime there's like a new
Speaker 3: discovery of like whether somebody found a mummy, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: is there a cup in there?
Speaker 2: Like I want to see it. I want to see
Speaker 2: did they put any dishes in there?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: In there. There was an exhibit at.
Speaker 3: The Getty or here at Latin, I can't remember, but like,
Speaker 3: you know, everybody's looking at all this art and I'm
Speaker 3: just searching for like where's the pottery, where's the dish?
Speaker 3: What did they eat out of? What did they cook
Speaker 3: out of? I'm always I'm always drawn to that more
Speaker 3: than the painting.
Speaker 4: I love you know, all of it. But I agree
Speaker 4: when there's like or even like shards of pottery, it's like,
Speaker 4: oh what was and then what was in the mummy stomachs?
Speaker 4: Like what were they eating? What was served on this?
Speaker 2: Like that stuff. I just love the stories.
Speaker 4: Behind it and and like everything, right, like what we
Speaker 4: do with this podcast.
Speaker 2: It's all about food and storytelling.
Speaker 4: But we haven't really talked about the plates, the dishes,
Speaker 4: the cutlaw water.
Speaker 2: I know, but what like what came first, the plate
Speaker 2: or the bowl? That's like a question. I would have
Speaker 2: to think it was the bowl, right, It was definitely
Speaker 2: the bowl. Oh god ding ding.
Speaker 3: I would think of the bowl just because it was
Speaker 3: like a probably an evolution of a cup, right that
Speaker 3: like held water Like that was really our sustenance was
Speaker 3: like to be able to drink water.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and these are things like the plate is so ordinary, right,
Speaker 4: we don't really think about it, but it.
Speaker 2: Didn't even knew all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, me too, And this is why this is why
Speaker 4: we do this, because this is the stuff that keeps
Speaker 4: us up at night.
Speaker 2: Well, what came first?
Speaker 3: The plate of the bowl, this is what keeps us
Speaker 3: up at.
Speaker 4: So but for thousands of years people ate from shared bowls, right,
Speaker 4: so it's really different. Bolts are ancient, they're communal, they
Speaker 4: hold liquids and grains and then and then plates evolved
Speaker 4: later from surfaces like bread or wood into symbols of
Speaker 4: individual status and food separation. Right, So, going way, way
Speaker 4: way back to the prehistoric era, like before ten thousand BC,
Speaker 4: people use shells or gourds.
Speaker 2: Or my birthday this year, I'm doing the Camino the Santiago.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, the s pinhole of that pilgrimage to the
Speaker 3: church is a big scallop shell. Yeah, so that's all
Speaker 3: that they would take is this clamshell to drink water
Speaker 3: on the way.
Speaker 2: That's so cool that you're doing that. That's I've been
Speaker 2: one to do that forever.
Speaker 4: That's like, and you're going to you take this along
Speaker 4: the way and that's where you're going to be drinking from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you take it. You take your own.
Speaker 3: You know, they seldom now, it's very it's very touristy.
Speaker 3: But you clip it onto your backpack and you just
Speaker 3: have the shell.
Speaker 2: And then they have places all along the Camino for
Speaker 2: you to get water and you drink from your shell.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful. That's so beautiful. Right now I'm doing
Speaker 2: the baby one.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing like the thirty day, eight thousand kilometer one.
Speaker 2: I'm doing like the five days. Might do the three day.
Speaker 4: That's steps in and just being part of this pilgrimage,
Speaker 4: being part of something that's so much bigger than you,
Speaker 4: that people have done for so many years.
Speaker 3: And that's just that's simple of that Camino. Is this
Speaker 3: boble the shell? Yeah, bowl shell up?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this this yeah, exactly the bullshell, that's the
Speaker 4: same thing. But this idea, you know, we're this idea
Speaker 4: of the ceramic bowl. We see in places like China,
Speaker 4: like the earliest ceramic bowls not just the shell or
Speaker 4: the gourd seed in Japan and China and the Czech
Speaker 4: Republic to serve foods that were boiled, not baked, and stews,
Speaker 4: you know, dominated the diet. So this idea, when we
Speaker 4: start seeing first ceramic bulls, it's when people started settling down.
Speaker 4: So when we look at early pottery, we see the
Speaker 4: story of humans settling and then having ceramic vessels meant
Speaker 4: that people were staying put and they were storing food
Speaker 4: and they were also boiling and making stews, and they
Speaker 4: were transforming grains and legomes in different ways, right in
Speaker 4: a way that roasting and you know, putting it on
Speaker 4: a fire just sort of couldn't do. And so you
Speaker 4: were talking about when you were describing your beautiful coop
Speaker 4: glasses that are just so beautiful. Some of this early
Speaker 4: ceramics is decorative. So early on especially there's this really
Speaker 4: interesting like Japanese ceramics called Jomu ceramics, is that it's ornate,
Speaker 4: like they would take ropes and press onto the clay.
Speaker 4: So from early on there's this idea of function but
Speaker 4: also of aesthetics.
Speaker 3: So wait before we get started, because I know, I
Speaker 3: feel like I always get confused with like what came
Speaker 3: purst the chicken or the egg, what came first? Pottery
Speaker 3: versus porcelain versus stone, you know, stoneware, So what are
Speaker 3: the like I guess what came first?
Speaker 2: And how you make dinnerware?
Speaker 4: So the early so the big picture is like you know, pottery,
Speaker 4: when we're talking about all of these things, the umbrella
Speaker 4: different the umbrella, but there's different types. So the different
Speaker 4: types of clays depending on what is available. So the
Speaker 4: main three types are earthenware stoneware and porcelain, and they're
Speaker 4: very different. So earthenware is fired at a low temperature.
Speaker 4: So this is when we think of our like clay
Speaker 4: like like our like like a barrel.
Speaker 2: Right, it's it's fired at.
Speaker 4: A low temperature, and low is still pretty hot, like
Speaker 4: seventeen hundred to twenty one hundred degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 2: So puce it's fired out, still not baking. That's low.
Speaker 2: You're noting, No, no, you're not. You're not baking it out.
Speaker 4: That's low. So because it's low. For clay, that's low,
Speaker 4: it's a little bit porous, and it needs to be
Speaker 4: glazed in order to hold liquids. And so this is
Speaker 4: more of like bar it's kind of like an earth tone.
Speaker 4: And then we have stoneware that's higher, that's fired at
Speaker 4: a higher temperature between twenty one ninety and twenty three
Speaker 4: eighty degrees fahrenheit. And this is dense and super hard
Speaker 4: and much more durable. It's it doesn't it holds liquids
Speaker 4: without holding, without needing a glaze, and it's much more resistant.
Speaker 4: And this we see for mogs, for baking dishes, for dinnerware.
Speaker 4: It's solid, it's kind of it's called stoneware because it's
Speaker 4: solid like a like stone almost, and porcelain is even
Speaker 4: though porcelain is translucent and it's beautiful and it's white
Speaker 4: and it's thin, it's the most durable of all of it.
Speaker 4: This is fired super hot, you know, twenty three eighty
Speaker 4: one to two hundred and twenty four to fifty five
Speaker 4: degrees fahrenheit. It's super hard, it's super dense, it's non porous,
Speaker 4: it's white, it's smooth, it's so thin, it's almost translucent.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it looks like paper thing, like it's so delicate,
Speaker 4: but it's super strong.
Speaker 3: Seems it seems like it would be the most delicate one,
Speaker 3: but it's not.
Speaker 2: It's the strongest one. It's the strongest one.
Speaker 4: And this is like fine China tea sets like decorage, Like.
Speaker 2: Why do we call it China? Are we going to
Speaker 2: call it China?
Speaker 4: Because porcelain came from China, originally came from China, So
Speaker 4: this is why now we call it, you know, China.
Speaker 3: But I will say, will people wonder why the porcelain,
Speaker 3: you know, pottery is the most expensive, And it's because
Speaker 3: it's harder to work with.
Speaker 2: I was amply my travels in Limo.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm obsessed with Limoje because they have the
Speaker 3: best person in the world and there's this brand that
Speaker 3: I love, been a dog. They just have such a
Speaker 3: beautiful They've been around since like eighteen sixty three and
Speaker 3: it's just this Le Meisson de ben adult and so
Speaker 3: it's actually no since seventeen sixty eight. And this woman
Speaker 3: discovered this like malleable type of white clay.
Speaker 2: She just discovered this.
Speaker 3: Malleable type of white clay and she decided to use
Speaker 3: it to get grease spots from her household linens. And
Speaker 3: then people realize like, oh, you know, it's actually this
Speaker 3: ingredient that Chinese have been using for centuries that make porcelain.
Speaker 3: And so the saga of Limoges porcelain like began and
Speaker 3: in like seventeen seventies.
Speaker 4: And we have a whole section of porcelain coming up.
Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 3: And then we're going to Lyon in June for searching
Speaker 3: for France, and I'm like, I'm going to buy an
Speaker 3: entire set of this. They have Louis the four, they
Speaker 3: have all the replicas of like this is what Louis.
Speaker 2: This is the patterns from Louis the fourteenth. This was
Speaker 2: the pattern that was served in seventeen eighty.
Speaker 3: Like they have all the rep they really make them,
Speaker 3: but like you could get the same pattern that they.
Speaker 2: Used to use.
Speaker 3: Those are the categories earthen stoneware, earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain.
Speaker 2: Those are the three things.
Speaker 3: But I guess let's start at the beginning, because early
Speaker 3: pottery tells us so much about settlement, about migration, about cooking.
Speaker 3: I mean, all the archaeologists have uncovered so many things
Speaker 3: about human evolution because of pottery discoveries totally.
Speaker 4: I mean, we could trace when people went from being
Speaker 4: hunter gatherers to being in agricultural societies because they were
Speaker 4: sitting down, they were cooking, they were boiling, there were
Speaker 4: eating and this is and they needed plates to cut
Speaker 4: meat on because it's much easier to do on a
Speaker 4: flat service and a rounded one. So even just from
Speaker 4: those those shards of plates that we see in museums,
Speaker 4: it really tells us so much about civilization and going
Speaker 4: back to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China in this valley, like
Speaker 4: dinnerware played roles and rituals and festivals and funerary offerings.
Speaker 4: Ancient Egyptians placed plates in their tombs. We see the
Speaker 4: same thing in Mesoamerica. Mayan vessels for hot chocolate have
Speaker 4: been found in funerary contexts and plates to hold them.
Speaker 4: A list like this is you know, the fact that
Speaker 4: a plate could magically serve food forever in the afterlife
Speaker 4: is something so profound I can.
Speaker 2: Do with the other what those as well?
Speaker 3: We kind of push, Yeah, that's true, an alter assuming
Speaker 3: our ancestors will be fed their favorite things like we
Speaker 3: put it in dinnerware.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true. It's the same thing. It's just the
Speaker 4: modern version of it. And it's just it's so beautiful.
Speaker 4: And I think this idea of the shift from utilitarian
Speaker 4: two decorative. And even though some early pottery, like the
Speaker 4: Jaman pottery in Japan, is really that some of the
Speaker 4: oldest pottery is really kind of decorative, like they would
Speaker 4: press rope on the clay to just make these interesting
Speaker 4: surface areas. It wasn't until the ancient Greeks between the
Speaker 4: seventh and fourth centuries BC that they started introducing this
Speaker 4: red figure and black figure pottery and this sort of
Speaker 4: revolutionized ceramic. They made plates and bulls and drinking cups,
Speaker 4: and they adorned them with stories. So it was just
Speaker 4: this story like utilitarian storytelling. They would have scenes from mythology,
Speaker 4: from daily life and just like you know, heroic epics,
Speaker 4: and so they were tools for artistic expression. And we
Speaker 4: actually see the names of the artists and you know,
Speaker 4: just drawn onto these plates. And some of them are
Speaker 4: so interesting. There are some Greek plates. I don't know
Speaker 4: if you've seen these. Spaghetty Villa here in Los Angeles
Speaker 4: has them, that met in New York has them as well.
Speaker 4: But there are these plates that have fish painted on it,
Speaker 4: and they have this little indentation in the center, so
Speaker 4: they held fish and then the little indentation held some.
Speaker 2: Sort of sauce. So they were beautiful, but they were functional.
Speaker 4: They told a story and so you could take your
Speaker 4: fish and dip it into the sauce.
Speaker 2: They their Greek. Those are Greek.
Speaker 4: And then the Romans made another shift because they started
Speaker 4: mass producing plates by using molds.
Speaker 2: So it was the beginning.
Speaker 4: Of the shift towards this democratization of dinnerware that foreshadowed
Speaker 4: the industrialisions by by like a really really long time.
Speaker 4: So they were doing glass, also making silver bowls and plates,
Speaker 4: and the silver is interesting because they had stamped.
Speaker 2: They had the weight.
Speaker 4: Of the silver stamp onto the stamped onto the vessel.
Speaker 4: This is like make and sometimes also with the maker's mark.
Speaker 4: So this idea of oh, yeah, this is my silver
Speaker 4: plate and it has the weight on it.
Speaker 3: Right. Silver and gold obviously was used in dinnerware as well,
Speaker 3: but that's not technically pottery, right.
Speaker 4: That's not technically pottery, no, but it also shows you know,
Speaker 4: there's just that there were different types depending on the
Speaker 4: on the on the status, right, and the gold ones
Speaker 4: were used more ceremonial.
Speaker 2: Silver was more the ones that the that the elite
Speaker 2: would would eat.
Speaker 3: Right, and elite households that had individual plates and cups.
Speaker 3: But for the most part in this time and in
Speaker 3: ancient Mesopotamia and Greece and Egypt, and they were still
Speaker 3: eating communally shared bolds.
Speaker 5: Regular like most people, regular people, and I would assume
Speaker 5: in medieval Europe it was still this way.
Speaker 3: Yes, Like when did the shift happen from this communal
Speaker 3: dining to individual place settings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took it took a really really long time.
Speaker 4: So medieval Europe people still didn't use individual plates. They
Speaker 4: would serve food on trenchers, which were like slices of
Speaker 4: bread that absorb sauces, or they would have shared bowls
Speaker 4: or you know, wooden boards, and then after the meal,
Speaker 4: the bread would be eaten or given away to the poor,
Speaker 4: and sort of dining was still communal, and it sort
Speaker 4: of started shifting between the thirdteenth and fourteenth century when
Speaker 4: we start seeing pewter. So there's still pottering among them,
Speaker 4: but pewter among the wealthier classes. And pewter is an
Speaker 4: alloy of tin, and it could be molded into beautiful.
Speaker 2: Shapes, but it had lead, I know, so it had
Speaker 2: health risks.
Speaker 4: But still among the super wealthy, they were like, whatever,
Speaker 4: something's gonna kill me, right, So they were just they.
Speaker 2: Were still it remained dominant material. They had short life spins.
Speaker 2: They did, they did, they did. But there was a
Speaker 2: shift porcelain fever. I still have porcelain fever.
Speaker 3: So there was a big Europe went crazy for porcelain,
Speaker 3: but it was China that developed it, right.
Speaker 4: China developed it, you know, beginning around the seventh eighth century,
Speaker 4: that during the Tang dynasty. But yeah, Europe went sort
Speaker 4: of completely cuckoo over over porcelain. So they developed it.
Speaker 4: They perfected it later between the fifteenth and eighteenth and
Speaker 4: seventeenth centuries, and we talked about porcelain was just so
Speaker 4: durable and so amazing. It started to it was the
Speaker 4: opposite of Europe's heavy ceramics or metals. And by the
Speaker 4: fifteenth and sixteenth century, no, it was across Europe. They
Speaker 4: really just wan their hands on this porcelain. They competed
Speaker 4: all over Europe. They competed to get it, and it
Speaker 4: was transported along the Silk Road and later you know,
Speaker 4: by sea.
Speaker 2: And it was.
Speaker 3: The kalin, which is that what it's called, the clay,
Speaker 3: So the porcela is made of this refined clay called kalin.
Speaker 3: Is it native to some place or can kaylin be
Speaker 3: found anywhere?
Speaker 4: It can't be found anywhere. But for a very very
Speaker 4: long time it was. It was only only China was
Speaker 4: making it right, and so European alchemists were like, what
Speaker 4: the hell is this?
Speaker 2: Because it was.
Speaker 4: So durable, it's translucent, it doesn't scratch, it's stunningly beautiful.
Speaker 4: So they were trying to replicate it like for many
Speaker 4: you know, for hundreds of years, they would mix eggshells
Speaker 4: and marble dust and mother of pearl and they would,
Speaker 4: you know, buried underground and it was like this whole
Speaker 4: they were trying to replicate this. They thought it was
Speaker 4: just magical because it was just so beautiful. And then
Speaker 4: it wasn't until the early seventeenth century that Germany found
Speaker 4: kalin deposits in Germany, that's the first time that they
Speaker 4: found it. So that's paved the way for a porcelain
Speaker 4: manufacturer called Masin Porcelain. France followed at Vincennes and then
Speaker 4: sev and these were championed by people like Madame de Pompadour,
Speaker 4: and they were making a different type of porcelain, that
Speaker 4: soft paste porcelain, which doesn't have kalin, but it became
Speaker 4: just legendary, the self porcelain. I'm obsessed with self porcelain
Speaker 4: because it's just it's so beautiful. It's like they have stories,
Speaker 4: they have little flowers and little cupid and then they're
Speaker 4: known for their like pinks and blues and greens, and
Speaker 4: it's just so beautiful gilding. It's just so elaborate. But
Speaker 4: they started making these coordinated dinner service a soup plate,
Speaker 4: a fish plate, a dessert plate, charger plates like each
Speaker 4: plate for a specific.
Speaker 2: Course and this idea of owning.
Speaker 4: A full service of porcelain was not just functional, It
Speaker 4: wasn't just about eating. It was this display of taste
Speaker 4: and refinement. So we start seeing this idea of taste
Speaker 4: go hand in hand with the beautiful table, right, So.
Speaker 3: Then you know I'm obsessed with limoj So then France
Speaker 3: finally discovered Kaylin Depause's near Limoje in seventeen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Many of my.
Speaker 3: Favorite mason the porcelains are are in Limos, and I
Speaker 3: didn't know they had found the clay.
Speaker 2: I thought, like, they've just shipped in clay and they
Speaker 2: just made it better.
Speaker 3: This is why now Limos is so known for it,
Speaker 3: because this clay is a little it's a little different.
Speaker 4: So yet once they founded at Limoje, this was a
Speaker 4: rival to imported Chinese porcelain, right, it just changed everything.
Speaker 4: They also founded in England, so there's a Chelsea porcelain.
Speaker 4: So but that's pretty much it's Germany, England and France.
Speaker 4: I believe those are the only countries in European.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and the US has summit in Georgia.
Speaker 3: But you know, yes, the US has some Klan, a
Speaker 3: major belt of high quality Kailin is found along the
Speaker 3: Fall line in like Middle Georgia in the United States.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating.
Speaker 5: Yes, that is crazy Kailin.
Speaker 3: It comes from the Chinese gauling, which means a high ridge.
Speaker 3: I don't know, so I guess that's like what created
Speaker 3: this place, like it was a high something Kaylin Helen.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I'm obsessed with Limos. Everybody in France knows.
Speaker 3: They make fun of me because Limoj only has porcelain industry.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting because they made this discovery in France
Speaker 3: about in seventeen, you know, sixties, which was like French
Speaker 3: Revolution was happening, Napoleon and it was also this the
Speaker 3: the idea of the curated dining experience in Louis the
Speaker 3: fourteenth and you know, this opulence and status and all
Speaker 3: of this, you know, was happening at the same time
Speaker 3: the revolution was happening. And it's just interesting that, you know,
Speaker 3: something as simple as dinnerware could reflect that history, like yeah, trying,
Speaker 3: but well porcelain, you know, having a nice set of
Speaker 3: ports dinnerware just projected this imperial power and it said so.
Speaker 2: Much about the politics at that time. Was so interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know during the and the way that
Speaker 4: people like sav porcelain, it was really so beautiful and
Speaker 4: ornat and little cupids and little flowers. And then after
Speaker 4: the Revolution it became these neoclassical designs and Roman motifs
Speaker 4: and just these vases and it was about politics, so
Speaker 4: they shifted their aesthetics to shift with the time. This
Speaker 4: is what's so fascinating when talking about food and things
Speaker 4: like a plate or a fork, is that you just
Speaker 4: trace it and it tells you the history of just
Speaker 4: the world. I mean, it's just really it's just blows
Speaker 4: my mind every single time. But let's talk about how
Speaker 4: this porcelain fever was reflected in colonial Mexico then New Spain,
Speaker 4: which is really quite interesting because the porcelain crape in
Speaker 4: colonial Mexico was very different. There's no porcelain in Mexico.
Speaker 2: There's not porcelain in Mexico. There's not Marlona in Mexico. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there is no, but there's beautiful is it earthenware or
Speaker 2: there's yes, it's different.
Speaker 4: Porcelain was coming in on the Manila galleons, right, and
Speaker 4: there were exchanging things like porcelain for silver from the Americas.
Speaker 4: So it was coming in and the wealthy, you know
Speaker 4: Urbans and the colon the Spaniards, they had porcelain from China.
Speaker 4: This porcelain, Chinese porcelain appeared on tables and sometimes they
Speaker 4: would use these tea sets or coffee sets to drink
Speaker 4: hot chocolate. But they also displayed them in cabinets. I
Speaker 4: want to get to that next is like what about
Speaker 4: the cabinets or where did that come from?
Speaker 2: So this imported porcelain, they were the good times. Don't
Speaker 2: threaten me with an all war.
Speaker 4: So but this popularity of imported porcelain influenced local ceramics.
Speaker 4: So in places like Buevla, potters developed a lavera, which
Speaker 4: is a tin glazed pottery inspired by blue and white porcelain.
Speaker 4: So it combined the blue and white Asian aesthetic with
Speaker 4: Spanish traditions like Talavea pottery, which is very similar to
Speaker 4: the to the Mexican taala vera. But also the Dutch
Speaker 4: had the Delft pottery that was blue and white. But
Speaker 4: these are much cruder, of like stunningly beautiful, but but
Speaker 4: but but thicker and.
Speaker 2: Just just a little more just a little a little.
Speaker 4: Cruder, but but but it's the ballaveta, the Mexican talaveda.
Speaker 4: It blends this Asian traditions with the Spanish tradition with
Speaker 4: indigenous Mexican techniques. So you see this very distinctly Mexican
Speaker 4: style of.
Speaker 2: Art that is emerging. That that emerges, and it was
Speaker 2: mostly like red and orange clay, right, the talareta is
Speaker 2: blue and white. Was it in Puebla that it became.
Speaker 4: A Puebla That's when it became That's where they developed
Speaker 4: it in Buebla.
Speaker 2: I guess because now everybody has beautiful plates. They're not
Speaker 2: fine China, but.
Speaker 3: Everybody has you know, your your what is it restoration hardware,
Speaker 3: your pottery barn.
Speaker 2: Your target. I have the most beautiful dishes from Target.
Speaker 3: Like when did it be mass produced and kind of
Speaker 3: moved away from like this elite high society, almost royal, monarchical,
Speaker 3: exclusive thing to have nice plates to kind of mass
Speaker 3: produced stylish and durable, but like mass produce.
Speaker 4: The Industrial Revolution, you know, of course, was during the
Speaker 4: in industri religion. There were factories like Wedgwood in England.
Speaker 4: Josiah Wedgwood. He was an ardent abolitionist. He pioneered techniques
Speaker 4: that made really stylish durable dinnerware to a growing middle class.
Speaker 4: And he was able to standardize shapes, refined glazes, and
Speaker 4: he was able to produce ceramics at scale and at
Speaker 4: a low cost. And these were still beautiful, These were
Speaker 4: still refined, and he had these matching sets, and so
Speaker 4: he was able to you know, anybody could could have this.
Speaker 4: And we also start seeing around this time this idea
Speaker 4: of formal china versus everyday dishes, and this was sort
Speaker 4: of rey and first this Victorian etiquette, which emphasized hospitality
Speaker 4: and refinement. So we start seeing because it's more affordable,
Speaker 4: we start seeing the concept of separate dishes in middle
Speaker 4: class households. So the industry revolution really changed everything. And
Speaker 4: also around this time, the eighteenth and nineteenth century, we
Speaker 4: start seeing the china cabinet, the buffets.
Speaker 2: The fun Yes, that's dying. I came there, man, that
Speaker 2: was it.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you something though, I remember growing up
Speaker 3: and the first time we got a china cabinet, it
Speaker 3: was a big deal.
Speaker 2: To have that piece of furniture in.
Speaker 3: The dining well, our dining room slash living room thing.
Speaker 3: It was just I remember, it was my mother's pride
Speaker 3: and joy.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, it was crazy. Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We start seeing them around the eighteenth nineteenth centuries, and
Speaker 4: it was you know, it provided this area, this this yeah,
Speaker 4: this place for you know, for showing your beautiful china.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it had a mirrored back. And during the Victorian
Speaker 4: era they became taller, they became much more ornate.
Speaker 2: They had glass.
Speaker 4: Doors that you could see it it's reflected in the
Speaker 4: mirrors in the back. And this was really sort of
Speaker 4: quite different. It took kind of this idea of dining
Speaker 4: as a spectacle to another level. Now it has they're
Speaker 4: usually in the dining room, right, we didn't have one
Speaker 4: growing up.
Speaker 2: I mean, like it was a big deal. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah they are.
Speaker 4: I mean they're really they're so beautiful that prior to this,
Speaker 4: you people would have a sideboard, and but most of
Speaker 4: the time people would just put them away, like put
Speaker 4: them in you know, on in cabinets or you know,
Speaker 4: on shelves, and they weren't necessarily part of the esthetics.
Speaker 2: Of the of the home.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, so's so I think that in the
Speaker 4: twentieth century, sort of mid century, we start seeing these sideboards.
Speaker 4: They became really popular, and they're not as as ornate
Speaker 4: as they once were, but there's they still They're still
Speaker 4: in homes. You still see these kind of homes.
Speaker 3: I think now mid century modernism, you know changed. Now
Speaker 3: we have you know a lot of lightweight, shatterproof plastic plates,
Speaker 3: so you don't really want to display that. Or we
Speaker 3: have functional stuff right like heat proof glass and pyres
Speaker 3: and and that's not as pretty or metal bowls, right, and.
Speaker 2: So none of that is for display.
Speaker 3: So I feel like the china cabinet and the sideboard
Speaker 3: and all of this was like about aesthetics and then
Speaker 3: it kind of moved into convenience and functionality simplicity. You know,
Speaker 3: we talked about you know, the kitchen. When did we
Speaker 3: talk about that. I moved from like yeah, the stove, oven,
Speaker 3: the oven, the oven, yeah, aesthetic to being functioned on.
Speaker 2: Now it's stainless steel and restaurant quality. Put the griddle,
Speaker 2: Put the griddle in the middle.
Speaker 3: Like it's just like now I think, now it's a
Speaker 3: choice in your house. Like we have so much diversity
Speaker 3: in materials today, So your dinner where could reflect your culture,
Speaker 3: it could reflect efficiency, it could reflect aesthetics.
Speaker 2: So I think it's it's.
Speaker 3: Interesting the amount of choices we have so fire King
Speaker 3: is a line of dinnerware that was like heat resistant glassware.
Speaker 3: It was made by this guy Anchor Hawking, like in
Speaker 3: the nineteen forties to the nineteen seventies, but it was
Speaker 3: made to rival pirates, which is interesting that Pyrex is
Speaker 3: still around and was around. But it was designed for
Speaker 3: like durability that so it could withstand to put in
Speaker 3: the oven and and so like I said, my coffee cup,
Speaker 3: you could put the coffee.
Speaker 2: Cup and the mug in the oven.
Speaker 3: And he marketed it as stylish and like even today,
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's known for that jade green color. And
Speaker 3: then he did like an orange gold color. I have both,
Speaker 3: but it was just like, ugh, it's so reminiscent of
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties housewife and ads and in you know
Speaker 3: that moment that was such a moment because it was
Speaker 3: like this is durable but pretty, and so now you
Speaker 3: have to collect it if you want to buy it.
Speaker 2: Because they didn't, I guess they went out of business.
Speaker 2: I don't think they're still around.
Speaker 4: Yeah, through the nineteen seventies. Yeah, from the forties to
Speaker 4: the seventies.
Speaker 2: And so we did.
Speaker 3: Then there was another shift because okay, we went from
Speaker 3: like beautiful to I mean elegant, to you know, industrial
Speaker 3: to plastic to the imperfect bowl. The it's perfect like
Speaker 3: the like I made this myself in a pottery class.
Speaker 3: So there's a shift also to this like imperfection in
Speaker 3: pottery is there's a brand that does with right.
Speaker 4: There's a brand that I'm obsessed with called Heat Ceramics,
Speaker 4: and they've been around. It was founded by a woman
Speaker 4: named Edith Heath in Sasolito, California, in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 2: And this was sort.
Speaker 4: Of this new idea of luxury. So it's not the
Speaker 4: fine refined ceramics. It's not your you know, beautiful but
Speaker 4: functional glass or and it's not your plastic or anything
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: But it's so it's this stoneware.
Speaker 4: It's this really really beautiful stoneware and really Matt glazes,
Speaker 4: and every piece just has small imperfections.
Speaker 2: I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 4: These this idea of the imperfections are flaws, but they
Speaker 4: really show the hand, the care of the artists, the
Speaker 4: care of each piece. So they're beautiful, they're functional, they're stackable.
Speaker 4: Friend of mine gave me this like huge blue bowl
Speaker 4: as a wedding gift, and I was.
Speaker 2: Like, what is this most beenible thing I've ever seen?
Speaker 4: And now I'm obsessed with it. But it really stood
Speaker 4: apart from mass produced dinnerware in you know, the nineteen
Speaker 4: forties and because it focused on local production and it's
Speaker 4: still around. If you're in Los Angeles, there's a store
Speaker 4: on Beverly Boulevard and it's just oh, it's so beautiful
Speaker 4: and it's like it's colorful, and I just I love
Speaker 4: the blues and the yellows and that and the.
Speaker 2: Like just the white is like so white.
Speaker 4: So it's just, yeah, I'm obsessed with them. There's so
Speaker 4: much beauty in this world, so much.
Speaker 2: Beauty on a plate. Beauty on a plate.
Speaker 3: Like you think about the food on the plate, and
Speaker 3: you want to make that beautiful, but like we forget
Speaker 3: about the plate. Can we talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: disposable plates, which I have to tell you I use
Speaker 3: I have, I have, you know, eco friendly paper plates.
Speaker 2: Pippe hates it. Pippe is like I sometimes I give
Speaker 2: them like a bean.
Speaker 3: Thuckle in the morning and I put it on a
Speaker 3: paper plate because I'm like, don't want to watch dishes.
Speaker 3: We gotta go like hurry up and eat your I'll
Speaker 3: go and he just looks at me as if he's.
Speaker 2: Like, why are you giving me a paper plate? Hey?
Speaker 2: He's like this is so uncivilized. Yes, that's how I
Speaker 2: am too. I mean, Dave, my husband is like, what
Speaker 2: are you Queen Victoria? Like what yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: It was like no, yes, yes, I am.
Speaker 2: It's just I understand the human Yeah, He's.
Speaker 3: Like, you can give the paper plates to the kids,
Speaker 3: but like you're not giving it to me, you know.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, okay, fine, I don't use them a lot.
Speaker 3: But when did that come around? Like when did this
Speaker 3: like single use item come into play?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean there's this man named Martin Keyes and
Speaker 4: he's credited with developing the first molded paper plates out
Speaker 4: of wood pump. But when we think about it, if
Speaker 4: we go way way back, like people were eating out
Speaker 4: of leaves. So there's this this precursor of paper plates
Speaker 4: in some way has been around for a long time.
Speaker 4: But he developed this paper plate in nineteen oh four
Speaker 4: and he was working in he was a mill worker,
Speaker 4: and he saw his fellow his colleagues or his whatever
Speaker 4: fellow mill workers used then scraps of wood as makeship plates,
Speaker 4: and he was like, oh, that's interesting, So he founded
Speaker 4: the Keys Fiber Company in Maine. He manded a machine
Speaker 4: to make plates out of wood pulp and they were
Speaker 4: called saved A Plates and cups followed, and the company
Speaker 4: eventually by the nineteen thirties produced the Chinette brand China.
Speaker 2: It's a nod to China and.
Speaker 4: It's like a pretty sturdy white paper plate. So it's like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, this is like this nod to Chinese porcelain.
Speaker 4: But you know, Americans throw away an estimated trillion disposable
Speaker 4: plates and utensils a year. So I always think of
Speaker 4: like archaeologists are going to look back at our time,
Speaker 4: at our culture as one built around disposability and speed.
Speaker 3: Wait, I guess as the plate, is the individualized plate
Speaker 3: a universal thing or their cultures that don't do the
Speaker 3: individual plate.
Speaker 4: It's a very Western thing, right, because the Western is
Speaker 4: not universal. It's not universal, So we think of like
Speaker 4: Western plating reflected the idea about of the self. Many
Speaker 4: cultures traditionally eat from share dishes, right, so it's really
Speaker 4: quite different in the West. Each diner receives their own
Speaker 4: portion and their own plate, and so in other places
Speaker 4: of the world, for example, an Ethiopia and Erytrea, meat
Speaker 4: meals are often served on a large tray and the
Speaker 4: food like various different types of stews are placed on
Speaker 4: top of injera, which is this like spongy bread, and
Speaker 4: diners eat together from the same plate, so there are
Speaker 4: terror pieces of this bread and scoop up the food.
Speaker 2: So we see that in Ethiopia, in.
Speaker 4: The Middle East, there are mets there are placed in
Speaker 4: the center of the table for.
Speaker 2: Everybody to share.
Speaker 4: You take small portions using spoons, you know, rather than
Speaker 4: individual plates. India as well, like family size, family style
Speaker 4: meals are common lots of things, and I love the
Speaker 4: family style eating.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite way to eat.
Speaker 4: But everything in the middle and then people just serve
Speaker 4: themselves whatever they want. So this communal eating right. China
Speaker 4: as well, we see plates in the center, often on
Speaker 4: like a rotating lazy susan, and then diners they take
Speaker 4: their food into small bowls. So you know, it's different.
Speaker 4: In every culture has something completely different. But before we
Speaker 4: say goodbye, I want to go back to the bowl.
Speaker 4: The kind of become dominant because of fast casual restaurants,
Speaker 4: like people with layer sweet creams.
Speaker 2: They're super popular.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they refer to as slop bowls, which is so derogatory.
Speaker 4: But I kind of think that food tastes better in
Speaker 4: a bowl. I don't know, eat I eat pasta ina bowl. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't like pasta on a plate, but it is.
Speaker 2: It does better in a bowl. Me too.
Speaker 4: But there's like a grain bowl, like Saddi bulls. Everything
Speaker 4: is cut up, everything is sort of together. And I
Speaker 4: just feel like this idea of like a ball is
Speaker 4: something so intimate, you know, and especially now like thinking
Speaker 4: about all of this and going back to this idea
Speaker 4: of community, and there's something just very cozy about a bowl.
Speaker 4: But I love how dinnerware, you know, it's really throughout
Speaker 4: the ages.
Speaker 2: It's a reflection of how we live, how we dine,
Speaker 2: and how we connect with one another.
Speaker 3: I love I love I love dinnerware. I love the
Speaker 3: evolution of it, the history of it, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to continue hoarding it.
Speaker 2: So I think you should. I thank you you guys.
Speaker 3: Send us pictures of your favorite piece of dinnerware. Is
Speaker 3: it a favorite cup, Is it a favorite plate?
Speaker 2: Is it a favorite serving spoon. I'd love to see it.
Speaker 2: We really would love to see this, We really would Yeah,
Speaker 2: we want to know what are you dining on? Yes?
Speaker 2: What are some brands we're not aware of? That I
Speaker 2: should all of a sudden become obsessed with.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: I need to collect gosh, I want to see your collection. Well,
Speaker 2: thank you guys for listening, and we'll see you next week. Bye.
Speaker 2: Everybody Hungry for History.
Speaker 3: Is a Hyphene Media production in partnership with Iheart's Mikoura
Speaker 3: podcast network.
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