Friday 11 October 2013

Vintage portion control

Knowing that UJ is storing the accumulation of at least three houses from when several households came together in the 90s, I asked him the other day if he had any spare plates in the stash.  He is a man with a serious stash of household goods, I kid you not!


So on Wednesday, he brought me four of the above, and I instantly recognised them as "the rosy plates" on which we would eat our dinner when I was a child, and indeed, until I left home.  There was a set of four of them, which I now have in my possession.  They seem to be made of some kind of coated pottery or even perhaps a kind of pyrex.  They are over 40 years old and there is not a chip or a crack to be found in the set.


Now just look at the difference in size between what were our dinner plates, the rosy plates, and what is the common size of a dinner plate nowadays!  The bottom plate here is an example, but I have plates of that size from several different sets, and they are all big!

Portion control is important for several reasons - for health, for wealth, and for the reduction of waste!  It helps people who have eyes bigger than their bellies, for instance, to see a full plate, and think that they have plenty.  Tonight the folks have had meatballs with tomato/onion gravy sauce and spaghetti.  The FH thought he could do with more sauce but I pointed out that his plate was brimming already, and I wanted the sauce as a planned-over!  I had some spaghetti left, so I stirred the sauce into it, popped it into a freezer container and there is a quick meal for someone in a hurry, all ready to ding and eat.

6 comments:

Judy Y said...

I picked up 3 plates from a neighbour's garage sale that are vintage from her Mum's stash of dishes and they are the perfect size (as your rosy plates) for our dinners. The other plates that i have seem enormous in comparison. I'm always looking for more of the same when I am thrifting but no luck so far :(

buttercup said...

portions have definitely got bigger. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s half a pound of mince was considered perfectly adequate for a family of 4.

Wannabe Sybil said...

I had to get smaller plates when I got the dishwasher as it is a table top and wouldn't take our normal sized dinner plates. Since then we have not been feeling hungry, food is going further and I suspect I may have been losing weight in spite of myself. I haven't mentioned this to the family. WS xxx

Angela said...

I couldn't agree more about the increase in plate size over the last few years.

Retro Wren said...

I agree totally with your plate size ideas.

I think you'll find that your plates are made from 'milk glass' . Lots of vintage crockery is made from that. Personally I adore all milk glass products! They definitely don't make 'em like they used too!

Hope you had a relaxing afternoon today.
Have a great week dear lady.

Rw

Morgan said...

Thank you for that, RW - I have had a look and that does seem to be the right name for them. I had a look on eBay and saw some plates for sale in a Snowflake design, which are similar. I only have the plates in the rosy pattern, but I do have a casserole dish of my late grandmother's in the Snowflake pattern, so it is lovely to know more about their old things.
And I hopped over to your blog this morning - lovely! I will be coming back again soon - your pictures are great xx