Old World Utensils

Hi everyone, I took a break from blogging. Hope all of you had a great Christmas and New Year. Happy New year to all! Today I woke up and had to make tea several times in tne microwave and this reminded me of flasks. These are some memories of old world utensils.

A flask is a huge bottle like container which keeps liquids hot. In my parents house there were a few flask. You can make coffee or tea and and pour it in the flask and it remains hot for the whole day. The flask in uncle's house was steel exterior color. The flask in my parents home was colorful with lots of pictures and patterns. If someone is staying in the hospital you can fill the flask with coffee or tea and take it to them. I have not seen a flask in the US. I have seen water bottles but no flasks. It is really nice to drink tea or coffee that has been in a flask.

An aunt told my mom of melamime I think that is what they are called. It is a mixture of plastic and porcelain dishes. After that my mom wanted that type. Then when my grandfather and father went to Ceylon they came back with two types of dinner sets. One was real crockery. White with delicate flower patterns on the edge of the plate. The other was melamime yellow blue green brown white patterns in the entire plate. It came with bowls big plates small plates and a whole lot of dishes. One time our family was gifted with a large white round plate. It was very large. In the middle was the picture of a hen or rooster. One day my father wanted to invite lots of officers in Cochin shipyard and throw a dinner party. My aunt and my mom made cutlets in the kitchen. My father and I made a salad. There was lots of vegetables. Shredded carrot, cabbage, tomatoes cut in circles, cucumbers cut in circles etc. My father made a man out of all the vegetables with me and told me let us give this man eyes and hair and arms and legs. So in the middle was the figure of a man made with vegetables and the rest of the plate was decorated with the rest of the vegetables. I truly enjoyed making this salad with my father. Then there was lots of dishes and in the evening everyone came and there was a wonderful party with lots of conversation.

There were steel tea cups which had a saucer beneath it. We place the tea glass or cup in the saucer. This really helps because if the tea is too hot the saucer helps you by letting you hold just the saucer and tea cup is inside the saucer. The other way in which this helps is by pouring tea or coffee from the cup into the saucer and then back into the cup and reduce heat by yourself. Alternately you can pour the tea from the cup into the saucer and the surface area of the saucer is larger so the tea gets cool quickly. Than if it is in the glass There is also China or crockery tea cups. They have flower patterns on them. In my parents house there is a cupboard called meat safe.

It is a short armoire with shelves inside. Some portions of the two panelled door is made of glass some of wood and some of net. It is locked. You can open it with a key. Inside is bottles of squash biscuits rusks and stuff that go into a pantry. In the new house constructed by my parents I don't remember if the meat safe was there. But in the first house it was there. Some flasks have lids like a cup. Then you can pour the tea or coffee into the lid and drink it straight from the lid rather than from a separate cup or glass. When I remembered these memories from my childhood I searched for images from the internet and whatever looked similar to my memory posted it.