Gallery 06 - Feasting
Feasting
Eating and drinking are universal experiences which structure and punctuate our day from breakfast to supper. This display looks at the significance of food and drinks in our lives and its influence on design.
National events, religious occasions and important rites of passage, such as weddings, are associated with special meals, food and drink. Changing fashions in drinking, from ale to coffee and tea, resulted in distinctive styles of glasses and cups for these beverages. The introduction of different foods and cuisine from overseas also led to new designs for tableware. Plates and cups have hardly changed over thousands of years, whilst other items such as celery jars, muffin dishes and custard cups have become obsolete.
Artists and Designers
Successful mass-produced objects rely on the skills of designers and artists. Some artists work as part of an in-house team; others work freelance, selling their concepts and designs to companies for manufacture. The end product may be branded with the designer’s name, but often their contribution is uncredited.
Throughout the 20th century companies such as Poole Pottery, Denby and Wedgwood worked with artists and designers to create striking items which appealed to a stylish market. Ranges were made to high standards and as limited editions, making possible experimental technologies and decorative techniques. Consumers were also attracted to the work of individual designers such as Susie Cooper, amassing personal collections of their work.
The Scandinavian design aesthetic of clean shapes and minimal decoration defined the 1960s and influenced a generation of European designers, particularly those working with metal.
Handcrafted
Alongside more commercial ranges, individual designer-makers have pursued excellence in the design of tableware. Many like William Kirk and Sidsel Dorph Jensen use traditional skills and techniques, with fresh interpretations of familiar shapes, aimed to appeal to today’s consumer.
Unlike the designer working with industry the designer-maker is involved in all stages of production, from initial concepts to finished item. Each piece is unique. The hand-painted patters, method of firing in the kiln or glaze selected all have an impact on the final product.
Many designer-makers work independently from their own studio. Others work as part of an artists’ collective, making individual products to commission, or limited-edition ranges for sale in galleries or their own premises.
Spoons
Spoons survive in greater numbers than any other silver objects. They were made in every market town across Britain. Due to the cost and the skill required to craft a silver spoon, they became prized possessions and were often passed down from one generation to another.
Increasing trade and prosperity enabled merchants and traders to commission and purchase a wide variety of flatware (spoons and forks) and cutlery (knives and other cutting implements).
In the late 1600s it was customary to travel with your own personal set of cutlery as this was considered hygienic. By the 1800s this practice had ceased, and households kept larger services, including serving spoons and specialised dining implements like the fish slice. The position of the cutlery on the table was also standardised, with the knife on the right of the plate and the fork to the left.
Celebrations
Feasting is a social activity we engage in to celebrate important life events.
Personal milestones like weddings and special anniversaries are often celebrated with the gift of decorative tableware and drinking vessels, that when used bring back memories of the special day.
Christening mugs have been popular gifts for centuries and sometimes have the name or initials of the child engraved on them. Children’s plates are decorated with striking images that are revealed when a meal is all eaten up.
Often decorative art is produced to mark national events such as coronations, jubilees, royal weddings and sporting events. Displaying these objects in our homes helps us to feel part of the celebrations. Using them to serve food and drink remind us of those important national events for years to come.
Celebratory Drinks
Alcohol can play an important role in feasting and celebrating special occasions.
New fathers traditionally ‘wet the baby’s head’ by having an alcoholic drink with friends soon after the birth. Toasts are made to the happy couple at weddings and to absent friends at funerals.
Drinking vessels for serving alcohol come in many different shapes, sizes and materials. They are designed to suit particular drinks and occasions.
Large vessels such as punch bowls, decanters and jugs are used for social occasions like birthday celebrations, when lots of people are drinking together.
Two-handled quaichs, used for passing whisky from person to person, emphasise the importance of sharing and friendship in drinking rituals.
Plates
From the plain and practical to the elaborate and ornate, plates are central to the mealtimes we enjoy every day. But have you ever stopped to think how our use of plates evolved?
Our early ancestors sometimes held their food on leaves or in shells. In medieval times trenchers made of wood, pottery, and even hard bread were used. At the end of a meal bread trenchers that had soaked up the juices of the meal, were thrown to dogs or given to the poor. Pewter, a mixture of tin and other metals, was also popular. Unfortunately, some pewter contained lead and poisoning was common.
During the 1600s porcelain plates from China became the height of fashion amongst wealthy diners. When European pottery factories mastered porcelain manufacture porcelain plates became much cheaper and readily available. Today, we still associated special occasions with the use of the ‘best china’.
Feast your eyes on the colour, design and decoration of the plates displayed here as well as the different materials they are made of.
Cold Service
The way in which a dining table is set has changed over the centuries. Special tableware for presenting foods offered an opportunity to display wealth, taste and a sense of style particularly for cold desserts.
From the 1600s tableware, serving and dining etiquette became increasingly lavish. Elegant arrangements of new and expensive dining equipment became more fashionable. Cake baskets, sugar casters and salt bowls were amongst a range of individual items used to dress the table. Specialised wars, such as bon bon dishes and celery jars, continued to be made and used throughout the Victorian and Edwardian periods.
An increasingly relaxed approach to eating and drinking in the second half of the 1900s led to a less formal attitude to tableware. Many of the peculiar, or specialist, items popular in the 1800s and early 1900s became obsolete. Some more useful items evolved. Salt bowls, for example, are more commonly found today as saltshakers and grinders.
Hot Service
Tableware, serving and dining etiquette went through a revolution in the 1600s. Dinner services along with specialised dishes and utensils evolved to ensure food remained hot at the table.
Service à la française formalised the practice of guests serving themselves from an array of dishes. All three courses were laid out on the dining table together, some under covered dishes. Keeping the food hot for the duration of the meal was difficult. The most widely available food warmer was the hot water plate.
Service à la russe became the new style to follow in the 1800s. Courses were served individually to each guest by servants, which reduced the time food sat cooling on the table. The advent of electricity and technological advances in the kitchen transformed food preparation and dining styles.
Oriental Influences
Although the recipe for making porcelain was known in China from at least 600 AD, it was a closely-guarded secret. Europeans, who were used to coarser ceramics, were fascinated by the semi-transparent whiteness of imported porcelain.
European factories competed with each other to discover how this delicate substance was made. The first high-quality European porcelain was produced by Meissen in Germany, in 1710. Soon companies like Sèvres (France) and Worcester (England) were also producing porcelain, decorated with oriental-inspired patterns.
As the trend for tea drinking spread and the cost of tea wen down, the size and ornamentation of the teapot became more impressive. Fashionable design and high-quality workmanship were paramount, demonstrating the good taste and wealth of the hostess. Shipments of special tea wares, including small porcelain teabowls stacked one inside each other, were imported into Europe from Asia on the same clipper ships carrying cargoes of tea.
Plain and Fancy
Tea, coffee and chocolate were imported into Europe from the 1650s. These hot drinks quickly became fashionable and by the 1720s, tea had become the most popular of all. Black, or fermented tea, drunk with milk and sugar was preferred to green tea.
Tea drinking created a new social ceremony for women, where elegant staging and matching tea services were essential. Whilst men enjoyed their wine in the dining room after dinner, women took tea in the withdrawing (drawing) room. This opportunity for informal conversation was the forerunner of ‘afternoon tea’. Fashionable from the 1850s, it was served earlier in the day with cakes and sandwiches.
“a hardened and shameless tea-drinker […] who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning” The writer Samuel Johnson describing himself in 1757.
The essential design of the teapot has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. The body may be round or oval, patterned or plain; handles looped or curved in response to fashion; but all rely on a well-designed spout to ensure that the pot pours without dripping.
