Cambridge Decagon Pink Elegant Depression Glass Sherbet Plate
Quick! What do you call those little plates that go on the left just above your fork? Bread and butter plates, right?
If you have china dinnerware, then yes, bread and butter plates.
If you have glass, then no. This is a sherbet plate or sherbet liner.
Yes, it looks like a bread and butter plate and yes, you would use it for a roll or a small salad or relishes or cranberry jelly slices at Thanksgiving.
But it is a sherbet plate.
Consider the origins of our glass dinnerware. The companies that made glass dinnerware sets, like Cambridge or Fostoria, had a sure fire winner with stemware. Everyone knew goblets and tumblers were glass. But plates? Soup bowls? Glass was a hard sell for dinnerware, especially to homes that could afford it.
Consider also the stress on etiquette; the maxim of the day was that you never put your silverware on the tablecloth once it touched food. Now put yourself in the shoes of a well-mannered hostess who has sherbet dishes. These look like saucer champagnes and they have no place to hold a spoon once it has been used.
Eureka! The obvious answer is a sherbet liner, a little plate to go under the sherbet dish to catch drips and hold a spoon safely and politely off the table. The fact that this little plate is the perfect size for a roll, well, that is just another reason to use glass dinnerware.
If you have sherbet dishes, try using them a small plate underneath and see how it works. If you don’t have small plates you can pick a pattern you like. Almost every glass pattern from the 1920s-40s had sherbet plates, usually affordable and even today readily available. The one shown is Decagon from Cambridge Glass. Then come back and tell us how it worked – I bet you will like it!
Thank you for visiting.
Be sure to visit the other blogs participating in Pink Saturday to see what everyone has this week. As always, thank you to Beverly of How Sweet the Sound who started this fun blog fest over two years ago and organizes it so well for us.
Shopping information: You can find a wide variety of sherbets and sherbet plates in our store Cat Lady Kate’s Elegant and Depression Glass. It’s like antiquing with your best friend.