Who Let the Hedgehogs Out? – & – Blue Willow Saves the Day

My husband asked me a question this morning that one doesn’t hear every day. “Did you leave a hedgehog out?”

Rather than reply with a facetious query as to who else might have, I concurred.

And no. We didn’t import those spiny mammals into our menagerie.

The last time we shopped the giant international market, Jungle Jim’s, I found these cute Japanese red bean filled buns in a representative shape. They weren’t expensive, so we brought a box home.

Don't call me Sonic...

Sad to say, the texture proved a bit dry, though I appreciated the lack of extreme sweet featured in most Midwest treats. With one left and freezer burn setting in, this lonely critter got set out on a plate to thaw.

Color Enhanced

They had been microwave heated in past, a tricky balance of defrost and high settings. Alas, this countertop method dried out the little guy further, though I’m sure the frost visible on its tiny intact head didn’t help.

The filling was a disappointment...

As you may know, the plate beneath bears the Chinese Blue Willow pattern first popular Stateside in the 1920’s. A fan since childhood (not the Roaring Twenties), I requested a few place settings for our wedding. Selected for special occasions, they saw zero use. For everyday wear and tear, we stuck with his old CorningWare set from long distant college days.

A few years ago I admitted having grown tired of that blue flower pattern and gained approval to choose anew, the old decent set donated to charity. Knowing from reviews that these new bowls would be too tiny for salads, I decided to pull out some more befitting from, you guessed it, my Blue Willow cabinet.

By the way, I bought additional recent manufactures from a kind colleague and avid antique collector, adding to our original collection despite their lack of usage. Anyway, the bowls brought into rotation saw not a single breakage.

Oh, and I once broke a plate from our old CorningWare. Shards appeared for years.

To my chagrin, the same hardiness could not be attributed to the newer CorningWare. After a few months the cute simple swoops became damaged, dulled and disappearing in increments quite unlike those vintage blue flowers.

Looking at our stack of nice untarnished bowls made me decide to replace all that increasingly ugly dishware (to which food tended to cling throughout various dishwashing cycles, I might add). The rest in storage, one now serves as a water catcher for my Christmas cactus.

Wish I had a use for the rest, not much fit for charity.

The China from my former coworker, made in the home country, show more white between the central and edge designs while our original pieces (as shown above) came from England and have a tighter configuration. All are servicing well, holding onto their designs and shrugging off food stains.

Did you know the term ‘blue plate special’ is thought to have originated with this design’s popularity?

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