Product Code Database
Tableware items are the dishware and utensils used for setting a table, serving food, and dining. The term includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes, serving utensils, and other items used for practical as well as decorative purposes. (2025). 9781408153956, A. & C. Black. ISBN 9781408153956 The quality, nature, variety and number of objects varies according to culture, religion, number of diners, cuisine and occasion. 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. Special occasions are usually reflected in higher quality tableware.
Cutlery is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery usually means knives and related cutting instruments; elsewhere cutlery includes all the forks, and other silverware items. Outside the US, flatware is a term for "open-shaped" dishware items such as plates, dishes and (as opposed to "closed" shapes like jugs and vases). Dinnerware is another term used to refer to tableware, and crockery refers to ceramic tableware, today often porcelain or bone china. (2025). 9780718813925, Lutterworth Press. ISBN 9780718813925 Sets of dishes are referred to as a table service, dinner service or service set. or place settings are the dishes, cutlery and glassware used for formal and informal dining. In Ireland, tableware is often referred to as delph, the word being an English language Phonetics spelling of the word Delft, the town from which so much delftware came. Silver service or butler service are methods for a butler or waiter to serve a meal.
Setting the table refers to arranging the tableware, including individual place settings for each diner at the table as well as decorating the table itself in a manner suitable for the occasion. Tableware and table decoration are typically more elaborate for special occasions. Unusual dining locations demand tableware be adapted.
Karnataka, India">Lunch from Karnataka on a plantain leaf.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Food served on a banana leaf in Karnataka, India
Tableware can also made of other materials, such as wood (including lacquer), metals (such as pewter), tempered glass, or (such as Acrylate polymer, melamine or polypropylene). Before mass-produced tableware, it was fashioned from available materials, such as wood. Industrialisation and developments in ceramic manufacture made inexpensive tableware available. It is sold either by the piece or as a matched set for a number of diners, normally four, six, eight or twelve place settings.
Cutlery is normally made of metal, especially stainless steel, though large pieces such as ladles for serving may be of wood. The use of porcelain for Chinese spoon is popular in some Asian countries. Chopsticks are made of wood, bamboo, metal, ivory and plastic.
Disposable tableware includes all disposable (single-use) tableware. These are often made from paper cup, plastic cup, wood or bagasse. Due to environment concerns, single-use plastic plates and cutlery will be banned in England from October 2023. A similar ban has been place in the EU since July 2021. Canada is also planning such legislation. A kulhar is a traditional handle-less pottery cup from South Asia that is typically undecorated and unglazed, and is meant to be disposable.
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. In China, bowls have always been preferred to plates. In Europe, pewter was often used by the less-well-off (and eventually, the poor), and silver or gold was preferred by wealthier individuals. 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 (from Old French tranchier 'to cut') was commonly used in medieval cuisine. A trencher was originally a flat round of (usually stale) bread used as a plate, upon which the food could be placed to eat. At the end of the meal, the trencher could be eaten with sauce, but could also be given as alms to the poor. Similar use of bread is still found with the bread bowl.
The trencher was not fully replaced in France until the 1650s,Strong, 226 although in Italy maiolica was used from the 15th century. Orders survive for large services. At an Este family wedding feast in Ferrara in 1565, 12,000 plates painted with the Este arms were used, though the "top table" probably ate off precious metal.Strong, 166–167; the wedding was between Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Barbara of Austria
Possession of tableware has to a large extent been determined by individual wealth; the greater the means, the higher was the quality of tableware that was owned and the more numerous its pieces. The materials used were often controlled by . 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;Strong, 96–98. Strong says 1429, the year the proxy wedding took place. The bride arrived by sea in late 1429, but the formal marriage ceremony was not until January 1430. A comparable display on three dressoirs could be seen at the State Banquet in Buckingham Palace for the US President, Donald Trump in 2019. Inventories of King Charles V of France (r. 1364–1380) record that he had 2,500 pieces of plate.Strong, 97
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.Osborne, 733 The French Royal Gold Cup now in the British Museum, in solid gold and decorated with enamel and pearls, is one of few secular exceptions. Weighing more than two kilos, it was perhaps passed around for ceremonial toasts. Another is the much plainer English silver Lacock Cup, which has survived as it was bequeathed to a church early on, for use as a chalice.
The same is true for French silver from the 150 years before the French Revolution, when French styles, either originals or local copies, were used by all the courts of Europe. London silversmiths came a long way behind, but were the other main exporters. French silver now survives almost entirely in the form of exported pieces, like the Germain Service for the King of Portugal.Strong, 237
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". (2025). 9780385497718, Anchor books. ISBN 9780385497718p.55, 96 The nobility often used their arms on heraldic china.
The final replacement of silver tableware with porcelain as the norm in French aristocratic dining had taken place by the 1770s.Strong, 232–233 After this the enormous development of European porcelain and cheaper fine like faience and creamware, as well as the resumption of large imports of Chinese export porcelain, often armorial porcelain decorated to order, led to matching "china" services becoming affordable by an ever-wider public. 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. Until the mid-19th century the American market was largely served by imports from Britain, with some from China and the European continent.
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. In its most common material, various types of ceramics, this is often called teaware. 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.Osborne, 736; Strong, 225–226 By the mid 18th century matching sets of European "china" were usual for all the vessels, although these often did not include plates for cake etc. until the next century. This move to local china was rather delayed by the tendency of some early types of European soft-paste porcelain to thermal shock if too hot liquid was poured into it.
Chopsticks have been used since at least the Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BCE). However, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian wrote that it is likely that chopsticks were also used in the preceding Xia dynasty and even the earlier Erlitou culture, although finding archeological evidence from this era is incredibly difficult.H.T. Huang (Huang Xingzong). Fermentations and Food Science. Part 5 of Biology and Biological Technology, Volume 6 of Joseph Needham, ed., Science and Civilisation in China, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 ), p. 104
Though originating in China, chopsticks later spread to Japan, Korea, Tibet, Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Chopsticks have become more accepted in connection with Asian food in the West, especially in cities with significant Asian diaspora communities.
The porcelain figurine began in early 18th-century Germany as a permanent replacement for on the dining table.
In wealthy countries, table decorations for the aristocracy were often made of precious metals such as silver-gilt. The model ship or nef was popular throughout the Renaissance. One of the most famous table decorations is the Cellini Salt Cellar. Ephemeral and silver table decorations were sometimes replaced with porcelain after it was made in Europe from the 18th century onwards.
Place settings for service à la russe dining are arranged according to the number of courses in the meal. The tableware is arranged in a particular order. With the first course, each guest at the table begins by using the tableware placed on the outside of place setting. As each course is finished the guest leaves the used cutlery on the used plate or bowl, which are removed from the table by the server. In some cases, the original set is kept for the next course. To begin the next course, the diner uses the next item on the outside of the place setting, and so on. Forks are placed on the left of a dinner plate, knives to the right of the plate, and spoons to the outer right side of the place setting.
Items of tableware include a variety of plates, bowls; or cups for individual diners and a range of serving dishes to transport the food from the kitchen or to separate smaller dishes. Plates include charger plates as well as specific dinner plates, lunch plates, dessert plates, salad plates or side plates. Bowls include those used for soup, cereal, pasta, fruit or dessert. A range of accompany plates and bowls, those designed to go with teacups, coffee cups, demitasses and cream soup bowls. There are also individual covered casserole dishes. In the 19th century, crescent-shaped could be used to hold side-salad or to discard bones.
Warewashing is essential but can be costly regardless of whether done by hand or in a dishwasher. (2025). 9781118297742, Wiley. ISBN 9781118297742 Dishes come in standard sizes, which are set according to the manufacturer. They are similar throughout the industry. Plates are standardised in descending order of diameter size according to function. One standard series is charger (12 inches); dinner plate (10.5 inches); dessert plate (8.5 inches) salad plate (7.5 inches); side plate, tea plate (6.75 inches).
Tea and coffee tend to involve strong social rituals and so and, coffee cups (including demitasse cups) have a shape that depends on the culture and the social situation in which the drink is taken.
In either arrangement, the napkin may either rest folded underneath the , or it may be folded and placed on the dinner plate.
When more courses are being served, place settings may become more elaborate and cutlery more specialised. Examples include fruit spoon or fruit knife, cheese knife, and pastry fork. Other types of cutlery, such as boning forks, were used when formal meals included dishes that have since become less common. Carving knives and forks are used to carve roasts at the table.
A range of items specific to the serving of tea or coffee also have long cultural traditions. They include and as well as , sugar bowls; milk or cream jugs.
In a family setting, a meal typically includes a fan dish, which constitutes the meal's base (much like bread forms the base of various sandwiches), and several accompanying mains, called cai dish ( choi or seoung in Cantonese). More specifically, fan usually refers to cooked rice, but can also be other staple grain-based foods. If the meal is a light meal, it will typically include the base and one main dish. The base is often served directly to the guest in a bowl, whereas main dishes are chosen by the guest from shared serving dishes on the table.
Not all of these plates and bowls would be necessary for one meal. A rice bowl, a soup bowl, two or three small dishes with accompanying foods, and two or three condiment dishes for person would be typical. Various serving bowls and platters would also be set on a table for a typical meal, along with a soy sauce cruet, a small pitcher for tempura or other sauce, and a tea setting of tea pot, tea cups and tea cup saucers.
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