The history of the dinner plate goes hand in hand with the history of man. Soon after the discovery of fire, when man stopped eating food in its raw state and began to cook it, he also felt the need for containers in which to deposit it. Shells, leaves, wood, stones-everything became "flat."
Already the Cretan, Greek, and Roman civilizations give us admirable examples of dishes created in the most varied materials from terracotta to wood and other alloys, even precious ones, and even the most tribal and poor populations that did not have wealth, nevertheless used dishes made of bread (called mensa), a use that has still remained in the tradition of some North African and South American populations..
It was in the mid-1500s that the plate also took on the aesthetic role of embellishing the table, and the most common material of production became majolica. In Italy many were the cities that had schools of excellence in this production, such as Faenza, Pesaro, Vietri and many other localities, known to this day for their important imprint on this production sector. In the early 18th century Europe began to take up the ancient Chinese art of porcelain, and the plate went from being a utensil of use to a cultural commodity and symbol of wealth and refinement. The "plate service" thus became part of the bride's trousseau, the table setting, and in time also became a reason for recognizing the quality of a restaurant, an element of distinction of the dining room of a hotel or ship.
Until a decade ago, the quality of the plate service also "made the difference" of an establishment. Then things changed. The reasons are many, and perhaps only a sociologist can put in order all the reasons that lead us to a revolution in the concept of the plate today. The proliferation of the fastfood system and of cardboard containers, the great aesthetic advances made by companies of "disposable" materials that have made disposable plates and cups beautiful to the touch and to the eye, a radical change in the eating habits of the world's population that sits much less at the table than it used to and increasingly needs more agile and "carry-on" food containers, the creativity of the new generation of chefs who have not only deconstructed recipes, but who have also felt the need to revolutionize the way they present dishes and their containers (glasses, glass jars, trays, cutting boards ..), globalization that brings us in real time to know and use materials, forms and habits of nations with food cultures very different from ours and that allows us to serve Italian dishes in Japanese trays and Mexican cuisines in Chinese bowls.
These are just some of the reasons that have led to a radical modification of the concept of "table service." The concept of "fusion" has not stopped at food, but has also run fast to the forms and materials in which to present them. Even the objects of table service are changing such as, for example, bread baskets that we find on tables in the most diverse forms and materials also recovered from other areas of daily living. For purists, this is perhaps a distortion of the aesthetics of the table, a decadence of style and bon ton, certain it is that the world is moving at an impressive speed and that perhaps remaining clinging to "the time that was" does not serve much purpose. Perhaps the greatest attention should always be paid to the pursuit of quality. If the shapes of containers for presenting food on the table change, if colors, materials, and presentation concepts change, quality must still not fail. This is the only firm principle that shields us from mistakes, style slips and stylistic confusions.
Servintavola Ballarini: elegance and practicality
Among the companies that do research in this direction and focus on quality, it is a must to mention the company Ballarini, which for some years now has added to its normal production of cookware for domestic use, the Professional line, to which a great deal of research and innovation work is dedicated to make the chef's profession increasingly easy, technological, and also spectacular. One example comes from the Servintavola line, which directly connects the kitchen to the table. The work of Restaurant Professionals does not end in the kitchen attention to customers requires excellent service and table setting. Ballarini's Servintavola were created precisely with the aim of giving dishes the right presentation and embellishing the table with style and creativity. Four lines of small cookware in different materials are ideal for presenting entrées, side dishes, soups and anything else that stimulates the restaurateur's imagination.
For more information www.rgmania.com