why a white plate?
as kids my brother, *for years*, would give my mom a plain white plate as a gift for any occasion. a plain. white. plate.
oddly, no one in our family ever asked him what the deal was, so i took it upon myself to ask the obvious-but-unspoken question, "why a white plate?"
the answer i got back was of such a high level of clarity -- especially coming from his at-the-time-10-year-old-mind that you can't help but be amazed. (Even more so by the fact that he types about 10wpm, this answer must've taken a day for him to do.)
it's safe to say that our house wasn't "normal," but i won't have to tell you that after reading this ...
-----Original Message-----
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 01:51:01 -0400
Here's the deal- as i remember it. It was mother's day I believe, and we asked mom what she wanted. She said she wanted a "white plate" to serve food on. A platter. When I asked what the what should be on the plate -she said nothing- she wanted something that would go with all of her dishes she had already. And then it dawned on me- she wanted a WHITE PLATE. Perfectly round. Perfectly white. Sort of a zen plate. I understood the perfection of it. It would match every dish. It would match every food. It would be perfect. It would be white. It was the perfect gift for any occasion.
So we went to the store. To my dismay, white plates are hard to find. I mean, they had white plates with a gold ring around the outside- or black ring- or silver ring. But those were all corruptions of the white plate. Perversions. They could clash with the silverware. They could clash with the food. They were not perfectly white. They were white with trim. Why would you ornament a perfect white plate? So we went to more stores. There were lots of white plates to be had, but you had to be careful... some were off white. But this was revealed when you sat them side by side. The true white plate glowed with whiteness when sat next to an off white plate. the off white plate look corrupted... tainted. But still there was that daunting trim. Then at last we found the holy grail. A perfectly white plate. No trim. No off- whiteness. I was thrilled. They handed it to me. Yes.... this was THE white plate. My dad examined it and was disturbed
to discover that it was plastic! But I was unshaken. It was perfectly white ... perfectly round... Mom had specified nothing about raw materials: this was definitely THE plate. So dad shelled out the $3 begrudgingly, and home we went.
We gave mom her presents, and I watched with pride as she examined the white plate. she was pleased, but also a little puzzled. Puzzled by the plastic... I suspected. Hmmm. Maybe there was more to this white plate thing than I had imagined. But what did raw material have to do with it? So everyone started talking about the plate, and the quest for the plate. At some point Mom allowed that trim on the plate was allowed.
What? Oh NO!- Mom doesn't understand - without trim- the plate matches EVERYTHING. With trim it may not. All white is best... she just doesn't understand. So then, now and then, my mom would serve dinner's main coarse on the white plate. I would look at the effect. My fears were allayed. It WAS the perfect match for every food. But my Mom and Dad were right about the plastic. Plastic wasn't good. It wasn't that it upset the perfection of the plate, it was that it distracted people away from the perfection of the plate. Next year it would be different. It would be China. Then people wouldn't be worried about the raw material. They would think a china plate... a perfectly white china plate... a perfectly round , white plate, that matches the food so perfectly. They wouldn't get bogged down in the raw materials. They would just understand.
But future years were not so kind. You see, you can't find a china plate with NO trim or NO embossing around the rim. They had one or the other. So I would settle on some kind of trim...it
would be ok- Mom said trim was ok. But in my heart, I was not satisfied. I would look at the plates on the table, and they never looked as good as the ORIGINAL white plate. So after several years of searching for the perfect white china plate, I moved on to other things. Eventually I became interested in crystal balls... perfectly round... perfectly clear.
But that is another story.
posted by b1-66er at 23:01
1 Comments:
white plate stigma deepens ... this from my art curator pal, darlene:
For years I served my gourmetmeals on white plates. No trim or embossing of course. The answer is an obvious one for people who are creative. White is not a color.
For fifteen years, I wanted that weird all white Thanksgiving platter I saw for 10 bucks (it started when it was 3 bucks) at every grocery store and k-mart and target (drop-in your favorite junk store title here). That platter with the embossed white turkey was everywhere. Until I ‘had to have it’. Clerks questioned me with marketing ploys, “we have the colored china one with the turkey”, “we have a white
plastic one”, “we have the china platter for ‘fall’ w/o a
turkey”. WITHOUT A TURKEY, none of these were good enough for the
lavish thanksgiving dinners. I even walked into a wal-mart! I searched and searched till I found it.
Thanksgiving is my favoriteholiday as it combines my beautiful childhood memories of planning the traditional feast with my family and my occasional adult ‘bring a boyfriend to thanksgiving with my
family’ that never seemed to make my parents uncomfortable. This
ritual changed when I became a New Yorker—my parents brought
everything to my co-op and we did it there. So, for years far away from them in California, I opened my house to whoever wanted to stop by. There are plenty of artistic types that never have a place to go and to this year, I still get random calls from people that ask if I’m doing it again.
My thanksgiving consists of everything I can make in a week and getting up on Thursday before the sun hits the sky. That includes the pies—at
least four, the breads, the ‘normal’ veggie dishes, the not so normal veggie dishes—at least one new one each year, the two or three types of potatoes/yams/sweet potatoes dishes, the ‘perfect’ fresh cranberry sauce with just a touch of cinnamon, orange zest, cloves, and nutmeg that takes me a week to prepare and always served in the purple serving dish for the best color combination, and yes, that ‘special turkey’ I order from the farm each October to be killed especially for me. Being an animal lover, it always surprises me that I take so much pride in this part of the feast. Nevertheless, it is absolute pride and my guests all know it.
My guests bring nothing as I ask for nothing except containers to take home left-overs which I always freely give them, and I HATE pot-lucks (anytime of the year) as they screw up my perfect meal, but flowers and wines seem to make it thru the front door. And each year, someone arrives with a cooler of beer, because the ‘regulars’ know that if
they have to destroy my food with beer, they better bring it.
Each year, the regulars share past stories with the newbies of my turkey day. The white platter story has had many incarnations and has kept some guests from returning and others trying to move in with me. Once, I actually got up from the table and prepared fettuccine alfredo in the
middle of t-day just to prove a point about the whiteness of the plates and how the lack of color seems to make it taste better. Once, Stephanie Z did the dishes with a group of my friends just to give me the time to make the fresh whipped cream and teach her the trick. The manager of the troubadour ‘showed up’ because I met his fiancé at a party who couldn’t believe the stories of the platter and all the elaborate dishes. The two vegetarians required my attention to detail and new utensils that never touched meat.
Not owning a dishwasher, whoever happens to have the turn at washing all those dishes is closely scrutinized by the guests as the white platter gets cleaned and returned to the box awaiting the next November. It is the last dish to be washed ALWAYS.
Much to the dismay of my friends, I no longer perform the turkey white platter ritual. I spend my Thanksgiving in Vegas now with all the trimmings and on that day, if the white chips are available, I request them.
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