Puddy & Co. on sat 18 aug 01
Hallo, David and all!
It takes a real potter to notice this lack of logic in the field of
habits and customs as to kitchen equipment. Your remark about hot tea
served in glasses really made me giggle. Indeed! I grew up in Poland -
up till I was 27 - enough time to hang around cafeterias and such - and
never paid any attention to this absurdity. Tea was usually served in
glass either with stainless steal or - in "better" homes or for "better"
guests -in silver plated holders. Often on a glass saucers instead.
This saucer would serve as a place to put away the used tea bags, spoon
- AND the glass, when you finally managed to lift it up to your lips to
drink What a source of social confusion ....All the public places and
most of the households used this system - looking back, it does not seem
to have much to do with comfort.
On the other hand - I believe there is a justification of every - even
insignificant - silly custom like this. Finally, if the glass is too hot
to handle, the tea inside is probably too hot to drink. Waiting for it
to cool gives you time to read the newspaper, to have a cigarette or a
conversation with the person you are with at the moment, shortly
speaking - to relax. Russians had (still have, I hope) this habit
extended even further: huge tea-brewing pot - "Samovar" - sitting in the
middle of the table, people around the table filling their glasses (Yes,
glasses!) with simmering liquid, and drinking it through a cube of sugar
- the tea would cool down and absorb the sweetness at the same time.
Everybody was welcome. Imagine this in a Siberian climate...In some
way, not very far from the Japanese tea ceremony..
Ceramic mugs, (factory made, usually white, "American Standard" look),
were were considered "something worse" - and were used in what was an
equivalent of western "Fast food" - student cafeterias, "milk bars"
etc.
Unfortunately, I do not know anything about functional, handmade pottery
in Poland at that time, but I am sure there was not much of it. We were
so stuck on industrialization... And I do not think there was enough
technology available to ordinary people to fire anything to any
reasonable temperature...We had local low-fire clays, but, as someone
said, the glass industry was more developed.
There was some of it though, created by traditional folk potters and
distributed by folk art co-ops - simple, earthenware pots, often
unglazed, with stylized decoration of flowers or animals. I still have
one piece - buff earthenware with simple banding of iron oxide and
something white (might be lead..?) - simple and ABSOLUTELY graceful. So,
although it is no good even for a flower vase - water leeks from if like
from a sieve - I cart it around the world with me.
Personally I got the bug of functional pottery here, in Canada. So
tonight I am happily drinking my wine from my own wine tumbler
(stoneware, ash-glazed), thinking about what other silly customs we
might have had back there.
Sincerely
Hanna Lewandowski
Quadra Island, BC.
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