Show Me Your Dinnerware, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are

Do you know the dangers of Pyrex bowls? Did you collect stamps for Albert Heijn’s royal dinnerware? Or did you make your own soup bowls from clay dug up in your own backyard? Dinnerware has trends, and a bright orange rusk tin from the past instantly brings back all those old memories.

1960s: the mystery known as boerenbont

Pastel-coloured Regout earthenware dinnerware is hugely popular in the sixties. People collect it piece by piece with points from Royco soup, Bolletje rusks or various coffee brands. A complete dinner set consists not only of an endless array of plates and bowls in all sizes, but also includes a series of adorable ashtrays, because that was perfectly normal in the sixties.

Another classic: boerenbont. It comes from the same factory in Maastricht. The famous Dutch decoration is painted by hand for a wonderfully authentic look. No one knows the origins of boerenbont, but almost every Dutch family owns something with a boerenbont decoration on it, whether that’s the complete dinnerware set or just the cheese slicer.

1970s: the potter’s wheel spins merrily

The perfect alternative: unwashed hair parted in the middle, eating from plates that look as though they were made an hour earlier from clay dug up in your own backyard. That’s the seventies in a nutshell. The dinnerware is, of course, dark green, dark brown and orange, with a wonderfully coarse texture that makes the hairs on your back and arms stand on end as you scrape the last bit of pumpkin soup from the bowl with your spoon. Sandwiches, by the way, are simply served on one of those wonderfully old-fashioned round bread boards. Do you remember Brabantia’s bread bin and rusk tin, the bright orange ones with brightly coloured flowers?

1980s: unbreakable, yet shattered into a thousand pieces

Those hard-glass bowls you can eat crisps, custard or salads from? That’s Pyrex. If you missed those bowls, perhaps you know the oven dishes or tea glasses. After about a thousand trips through the dishwasher, they turn greyish and a little dirty, but luckily Pyrex is unbreakable, so it lasts forever. Or does it? At an unexpected moment, it shatters into at least a billion pieces. It’s funny how one tiny custard bowl looks, when shattered, as if you’ve dropped a kilo of crystal meth from your hands.

The eighties also had an innocent face: Janneke Brinkman’s dinnerware. The artist decorates plates, coffee mugs, sugar bowls and later even duvet covers and diaries with cheerful poppies, butterflies, blue tits and hydrangeas. Still available today, but at Action.

1990s: hip to be square

Square plates. Why, for heaven’s sake? There’s really nothing more sensible to say about dinnerware in the nineties.

2000s: we want a plate

In restaurants, it starts innocently enough with a piece of slate instead of a plate, but before long, serving creativity gets completely out of hand. Bitterballen in a child’s frying pan, fries in a shopping trolley, herb butter on a rock and chocolate cake on a pointing trowel—and you might wish we were making this up, but sadly, we’re not. We just want a plate! And our prayers are answered. In the noughties, we collectively save up for a classic Wedgwood dinnerware set at Albert Heijn. It’s a shame that Blokker’s rip-off is virtually indistinguishable from the ribbed plates offered by Appie, but still, it is classic and stylish.

2010s: eat everything from a bowl

Instagram dictates that everything be served in a bowl. Makes sense for yoghurt with muesli (sorry: granola), but it’s difficult to neatly fork ravioli with goat’s cheese or a croquette sandwich out of a plate with a high raised rim.

Dinnerware with interesting glaze colours (is that sauce? No, it’s the glaze) is trendy—just look at Pascale Naessens and Xenos. Ibiza vibes are also hitting the dining table: wicker placemats, Moroccan bowls, authentic tapas dishes and—watch out, here they are again—those coarse soup bowls from the seventies, goosebumps included.

Also read:

• This Is What We Ate in the 1990s, Part One
• This Is What We Ate in the 1970s, Part Two
• This Is What We Ate in the 1980s, Part One