Tableware
For example, Middle Eastern, Indian or Polynesian food culture and cuisine sometimes limits tableware to serving dishes, using bread or leaves as individual plates, and not infrequently without use of cutlery.
Outside the US, flatware is a term for "open-shaped" dishware items such as plates, dishes and bowls (as opposed to "closed" shapes like jugs and vases).
In recent centuries, flatware is commonly made of ceramic materials such as earthenware, stoneware, bone china or porcelain.
The popularity of ceramics is at least partially due to the use of glazes as these ensure the ware is impermeable, reduce the adherence of pollutants and ease washing.
Tableware can also made of other materials, such as wood (including lacquer), metals (such as pewter), tempered glass, acrylic and melamine.
[9] A kulhar is a traditional handle-less pottery cup from South Asia that is typically undecorated and unglazed, and is meant to be disposable.
Wood does not survive well in most places, and though archaeology has found few wooden plates and dishes from prehistory, they may have been common, once the tools to fashion them were available.
Ancient elites in most cultures preferred flatware in precious metals ("plate") at the table; China and Japan were two major exceptions, using lacquerware and later fine pottery, especially porcelain.
Religious considerations influenced the choice of materials, as well: Muhammad spoke against using gold at table, as the contemporary elites of Persia and the Byzantine Empire did, and this greatly encouraged the growth of Islamic pottery.
In Europe, the elites dined off metal, usually silver for the rich and pewter for the middling classes, from the ancient Greeks and Romans until the 18th century.
A trencher was originally a flat round of (usually stale) bread used as a plate, upon which the food could be placed to eat.
In the late Middle Ages and for much of the Early Modern period much of a great person's disposable assets were often in "plate", vessels and tableware in precious metal, and what was not in use for a given meal was often displayed on a dressoir de parement or buffet (similar to a large Welsh dresser) against the wall in the dining hall.
At the wedding of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and Isabella of Portugal in 1429, there was a dresser 20 feet long on either side of the room, each with five rows of plate;[16] a similar display on three dressoirs could be seen at the State Banquet in Buckingham Palace for the US President, Donald Trump in 2019.
[17] Plate was often melted down to finance wars or building, or until the 19th century just for remaking in a more fashionable style, and hardly any of the enormous quantities recorded in the later Middle Ages survives.
[19] In London in the 13th century, the more affluent citizens owned fine furniture and silver, "while those of straiter means possessed only the simplest pottery and kitchen utensils."
By the later 16th century, "even the poorer citizens dined off pewter rather than wood" and had plate, jars and pots made from "green glazed earthenware".
By 1800 cheap versions of these were often brightly decorated with transfer printing in blue, and were beginning to be affordable by the better-off working-class household.
The introduction to Europe of hot drinks, mostly but not only tea and coffee, as a regular feature of eating and entertaining, led to a new class of tableware.
It developed in the late 17th century, and for some time the serving pots, milk jugs and sugar bowls were often in silver, while the cups and saucers were ceramic, often in Chinese export porcelain or its Japanese equivalent.
This move to local china was rather delayed by the tendency of some early types of European soft-paste porcelain to break if too hot liquid was poured into it.
It was only in the 17th century that hosts among the elite again began to lay out cutlery at the table,[14] although at an Italian banquet in 1536 for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, it is recorded that each guest was provided with knife, spoon and fork, evidently a rarity.
[24] The table fork was revived in Italy in the 16th century, and was described for his English readers by Thomas Coryat in the 1590s as "not used in any other country that I saw in my travels".
[27] Chopsticks (Chinese: 筷子 or 箸; Pinyin: kuaizi or zhu) are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks that have been used as both kitchen and eating utensils in much of East and Southeast Asia for over three millennia.
The porcelain figurine began in early 18th-century Germany as a permanent replacement for sugar sculptures on the dining table.
Place settings for service à la russe dining are arranged according to the number of courses in the meal.
[35] The emphasis in Chinese table settings is on displaying each individual food in a pleasing way, usually in separate bowls or dishes.
Formal Chinese restaurants often use a large turning wheel in the centre of the table to rotate food for easier service.
[36] An "elaborate" formal meal would include the following place setting:[35] Japanese ceramic tableware industry is many centuries old.
The emphasis in a Japanese table setting is on enhancing the appearance of the food, which is partially achieved by showing contrasts between the items.
[citation needed] Dining in the outdoors, for example, whether for recreational purposes, as on a picnic or as part of a journey, project or mission requires specialised tableware.
Plates Dinner plate with rolled table napkin; small bread plate above forks.
Glasses Small glass for water, larger one behind for red wine, and smaller wine glass for white wine.
Cutlery (from the outside toward the plate) Fish cutlery (knife and fork, as fish will be served without any sauce, otherwise it would be a fish spoon (cuillère à gourmet)); meat cutlery and cheese or fruit cutlery, the end of the knife rests on a knife rest. Above the plate, dessert cutlery (spoon and fork).
