Tuesday, March 20, 2012

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SAUCER?


As I was having my second cup of coffee, I wondered whatever happened to the saucer? It used to be that if you had a cup of coffee it was served on a saucer. And we don't really use a cup any more -- it is more like a mug.

If you go out to eat and order coffee, it comes in this "cup" that looks more like a little mug. I mean, I don't mind. . . it holds more than a cup, more like a cup and a half. But, as a child, I remember adults having coffee and it was served on a saucer. It seemed sorta classy. And it kept the coffee confined to the saucer if you slopped a bit out of the cup. Plus, it was a place to put a spoon if you like cream or sugar in your coffee.

I remember a grandfather, from my Dad's second marriage, who had coffee with every meal. He would pour some of his coffee into the saucer and let it cool a bit before he would drink it from the saucer. It didn't seem like bad manners. It was just something he did, like eating peas from his knife. There was always a saucer for coffee and hot tea.

If you went out anywhere to eat and ordered coffee, you got your coffee in a cup with a saucer. It was easier to carry. No burnt fingers. My sister has about a million teacups with saucers. They all are pretty and dainty, and she never ever uses them. They just set in a display case. Some are worth money. But the everyday cup and saucer? We hardly see them at all these days.

Maybe it's because of when we started to see flying saucers. They decided to do away with the cup and saucer and just have this mug thing instead. I have a few of my great grandmother's cups with saucers. They, too, set in a cupboard. I get them out every now and then. Maybe for a cup of hot chocolate on a wintery night. Or for a cup of real percolated coffee, and I think back to when families still sat around a table to eat, drink, converse, and be a real family.

I've found a place to eat that serves your coffee cup on a saucer. The cup is a little over sized, like a mug. It's good coffee. And the food is like moms used to make, when we were kids. I can close my eyes, smell the coffee, listen to the voices around me, and the tinkle of the spoon against a cup, and I am transported back to my childhood to a time that brings memories of family setting at the kitchen table, laughing, talking, and drinking their coffee. I hear the sound of a cup being placed back on it's saucer, and the room smelling of fresh perked coffee.

Maybe it's time to bring back the cup and saucer!

11 comments:

  1. Flier - i am sooo with you on this one! i love it that some of the older ladies around here still serve tea/coffee with a cup and saucer. it really does bring back good memories and IS classy! that's it - i am gonna hit up some garage sales and get me some cups and saucers!

    good one, buddy! your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Kymber, hey girl, I hope your able to find some. If my Mom had some at her yard sale this Friday, I'd snag some for you.

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    2. and i would very much appreciate your doing so, my good friend!

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  2. I just wish McDonald's would give me some dogone ketchup without having to beg for it. I always seem to remember to check for it once I've left the driv-thru. Sigh...

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    1. Hillbilly, We use to stop at a McDonald's, on the other side of the mountains, On our way to go hunting or fishing. And it never failed, that we would forget to get ketchup. So we would go into the McDonald's and take like a hundred packets of ketchup. We kept them in a jar in my Dad's trailer.

      We just sold that trailer to my ex and her husband,and my son. There was still about half a jar of ketchup left.It went with the trailer.LOL!

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  3. Very good point. We don't drink coffee regularly but even the proper tea drinkers in the family (Canadian in-laws and all) don't really use saucers anymore.

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    1. 45er, I guess I'm not the only one to notice this.

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  4. Pouring coffee into the saucer and then blowing on it to cool it was known as “saucered and blown”.
    That is an old term used to indicate that something is ready. I remember it from the days when we had an outhouse, a well with a rope and bucket, and used the Sears & Roebuck and the Montgomery Ward catalogs in the outhouse (not for reading). Yeah, I am an old fart.

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    1. Al Cooper, WOW! I had forgotten that. My great grand father use to say that. Thank you for bringing that memory back.

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  5. My grandfather sipped from his saucer too. I hadn't thought of that in years...thanks for the memories.

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    1. Stephen, it's funny some times, the things that just seem to pop into my head. Glad that I could bring back a memory or two.

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