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Happy Thanksgiving!
Submitted by mccormickstudio on Thu, 11/25/2010 - 9:28am
Tamac Turkeyday
Here's a Thanksgiving day photo taken from our own Craig McCormick's archived posts on modish. Consider posting your vintage modern thanksgiving table settings, too. Add your photos to the Dining in Style Section.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
I've always thought that was a lovely table setting, but why two knives? Why only glasses on the far side of the table? Why is the napkin under the knife/spoon? Why is there a salad plate but no salad fork?
I used Russel Wright's Highlight (for a table of 10) for Thanksgaving dinner. Never again. As there were twenty of us, we served buffet, and gravy runs off relatively flat surfaces. Set the other table of ten with R.Wright's Knowles Queen Anne's Lace which the biggest eaters snagged off that table and replaced their Highlight on the other QAL table.
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
Janet, I suspect the glasses are missing to favor the shot. I pulled my 1st edition of Vogue's Book of Smart Service from 1930
. Meals with fish or other entrees can have two or three knives to the right--one for the entree, a meat-course knife, and a knife for whatever goes with the salad. They aren't including the butter knife on the bread & butter plate. Russel Wright's Guide makes a case for simplifying the service where possible. So I guess the fork can serve double duty, but the one knife is for cutting the meat and the other is for opening the rolls or some such thing. I grew up with my family placing the napkins under the utensils instead of on the plate, so that all looks quite natural to me.
Do you still have your Highlight and QAL? How did the QAL hold up?
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
Caveat - I am very traditional when it comes to setting a table: salad fork, fork over the white napkin on the left, knife, spoon on the right, and a butter knife on the butter plate, so the napkin on the right just looks different to me.
I carefully, oh so carefully set the tables with the 'good stuff', but after the meal, the 'boys' in the family take over and stack the dishwasher, wash the goblets, silver ware and all I do is hope they are careful. So far, no Highlight or QAL chipped. On the other hand, between Seeds, QAL, and a smattering of the Knowles blue, we have place settings for at least 60, and can fill in with about 15 more in Highlight, so if something does get chipped, it is no big deal. The little kids in the family get the everyday dishes, RW White Clover to use.
With the Highlight, I use Fostoria optic crystal goblets and salad plates. They look very oily and 'rainbowy', gave the family silver to all the children so use a 1960 pattern of Stegor Stainless by Gorham. Among the silver I didn't give away (because the kids didn't want them) is a set of 'lettuce knives' that exist for the sole purpose of cutting lettuce. I will try to take some pictures of the various table settings, but am pretty inartful at picture taking.
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
Wow ... You are brave using White Clover as your everyday dinnerware. The pottery body Wright used in that line is SO fragile!
For what it's worth we use the more casual napkin-on-the-right schema like Craig's setting here. Unless we serve in the very Wright buffet style. Then it is a free for all.
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
American Modern is also said to be fragile and easily chipped, but my sister is still using the same AM that my parents had and used during the '50s. The only problem we have had with White Clover is that the plates are too big for many modern dishwashers. When we chose our new dishwasher, I took a plate and platter with us to the store to make sure they would fit. White Clover is also perfect for children to use as the lip of the plates is rounded up higher than the flat surface and keeps the food on the little people's plates. Although our cupboards are bursting with all things Russel Wright, I seriously wish I had discovered Eva Zeisal first.
Ak-Sar-Ben is chippable. All one has to do is look at it crossly, and a chip appears. "....very Wright buffet style."? Is there such a style?
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
Janet, grab a copy of Guide to Easier Living. It's all explained in there.
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm sorry I came so late to this topic. I'm very grateful to Mike for reposting Craig's Thanksgiving table from the past and glad that Craig weighed in on the discussion. I can picture what he's talking about.
I'd suggest that anyone who wants to see beautiful Tamac pieces (in Craig's cupboard) and amazing table settings search out photos of his collection on modish.net. He's not only knowlegeable but also a very talented photographer. My husband and I were seduced by his pictures several years ago.
I'm commenting here specifically because I'm intrigued about the notions of how a table should be set. Craig didn't address the flatware comments. We find that table settings marketed by Dansk (and, I suspect, more generally then, and perhaps even now) considered the butter knife as belonging to the plate used for serving butter (each person at the table using it to slice their own portion). Individuals would use their dinner knife to butter their bread items.
This has been quite a challenge for us. Thanks first to a friend and then to Craig, we've tried to acquire Dansk tableware in the Kongo and Odin patterns. Butter knives for each place setting have been very hard to come by. I've even had people tell me that I was "very generous" in wanting to provide each person with their own butter knife. But spoiled by eating out in restaurants where a butter knife was part of my place setting has made me persevere.
Another curious marketing decision, to my way of thinking, is supplying duplicate spoons (presumably for coffee service) but not doubles for salad/dessert forks. So the host/ess is supposed to wash the salad forks before bringing out the cake or pie?
Until today, I thought that Craig's Odin knives were "backed up" by the obiviously sharper variety (the ones with a point on the end) because the Odins are relatively dull. Perhaps Craig's additonal knife was only to serve another purpose at the table.
I can understand why JHQ was inspired by his Swedish upbringing to create an oar-shaped design, but the knives truly are only semi-functional. The spoons, on the other hand, are awesome. When I have more tech mastery, I'll treat you to views of our Odin, including the rare and rather pricey long-handled spoons.
For people who enjoy Jens Quistgaard's designs, I'm sad to see them debased in their current incarnations. I think JHQ would be as well. But we can enjoy the vintage originals.
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
Haha! I loved reading this thread. Truth be told, as obsessive-compulsive as I am setting tables (usually the night prior to a dinner), I often forego traditional standards for place settings. After all, Tamac was one of the most non-traditional dinnerwares ever made. So why heed to convention? Certainly there is a time and place to set a proper table. And, strangely, I often feel that compulsion to set a table properly when I set an English MCM dinnerware such as my Ridgway Homemaker. But with most of my american MCM settings, I address the food, the aesthetic of the layout design, and I often break a rule just to do so. This is how I roll - keeping an edgy ideology of play - which I think most great MCM architects and designers did as well.
Regarding the missing goblets... There is a 5-10 minute scramble which occurs between the time that the food is hot and ready and coming out of the oven and dinnertime, which I am hastily documenting. I always shoot the setting prior to food, but I try to very quickly snap a few when the food is out so that I don't impact the dining experience for our guests. It looks to me like my wife took the closer glassware and was putting ice in the glasses while I was shooting, and I didn't notice it. The far glasses have fresh ice but no water yet.
I've also learned to let go of events after the 'documentation.' Chaos inevitably ensues during big dinners. I used to attempt to maintain some order, but it's just not possible with friends bringing food, plates moving, children, etc. For me, it's most important to share the history of the dinnerware and the stories of those who made it, and possibly create some appreciation for MCM dinnerware and modern design in our guests. IMO, The biggest problem in America is a lack of education for most people about the relevance and beauty of modern design in our everyday household wares.
Michael - thanks for re-posting this!
Craig
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
We have four children who are all married w/children, and there is a hierarchy among the holiday chores. The most recent member of the family is always the 'water person' so now is a son-in-law. With his membership in the family, that moved a daughter-in-law up the prestigious ladder to relish trays. (First outing she asked her husband "Did you know your mother peeled the celery?") I always set the tables so far in advance, the kids tell me their plates are dusty...
Don't have a copy of Wright's How to do things Right, but will look for it, although I really don't need any new compulsions/obsessions about table settings.
Your Steubenville Raymor table is gorgeous, as are your pillows and rug. I wish more people would post pictures of their living spaces.
Re: Happy Thanksgiving!
Haha! Thanks Mike. You took the words right out of my mouth! It's a great resource for seeing how the Wrights pioneered casual entertaining (among other things we take for granted today).