Serving Pieces and Specialized Place Setting Pieces

In an earlier post I showed a Pierced Casserole Spoon which belonged to my mother. I mentioned that I remembered a meat fork that went with the spoon. Well, not only did I find the meat fork, I found another pierced casserole spoon and a ladle. The pierced casserole spoon shown here is a slightly different shape from the first mentioned in my blog. This one is an oval shape but the use is the same. The ladle in this set is rather large and should be used for serving soups from a tureen.

This beautiful elaborate carving set is part of my mother's sterling. My parents were married in 1933 but my research says this pattern dates to 1905. We still use this set at Thanksgiving an Christmas for serving turkey, ham and rib roast. The pieces are monogrammed with my mother's three initials. Although the knife is meant for carving meats, this one has cut many wedding cakes. My mother sometimes made wedding cakes for friends. The cakes were beautiful. I loved to watch her make each icing rose by hand. This was before the methods used today which are quite pretty but lack the attention, skill and patience, not to mention elegant good taste, of those cakes from the 50's and 60's. Along with the cake she would let the bride use this knife to cut her cake. Mother would tie a tiny bouquet of fresh flowers with satin ribbon on the handle. I used this knife to cut the cake at my wedding and hopefully my daughter will use it at her wedding.

This is a set of six sterling soup spoons. There are bouillon, creme and gumbo soup spoons. These three types range in size from five to eight inches. My spoons above fall between bouillon and creme soup spoons. I have a set of covered Italian soup bowls that work perfectly with these spoons.

Oh, my favorite piece of silver, the caviar fork. My husband and daughter eat caviar and even seem to know the difference in cheap caviar and good caviar. Other than a dollop on top of a deviled egg or atop a daub of sour cream, I do not indulge! The design of the caviar fork is quite useful. The wide tine enables one to scoop up the tiny fish eggs and the closely spaced smaller tines keep the morsels from falling through. These are of a simple pattern which blends well with whatever your flatware design is.  The caviar fork is small, about five to six inches in length.

Once again, here are some of the demitasse spoons in my collection. They are indented for use with espresso or any strong coffee served in a demitasse cup. They are like mini-teaspoons measuring four to

five inches in length