At a local flea market, I ran across a box of spoons not too long ago. When I started looking through them, I found quite a few utensils that really got my interest. The Victorian Era was pretty interesting when it came to the serving pieces that were made, and one of those serving pieces was in that box I bought.
That piece is a red tomato server and is marked WM ROGERS MFG ORIGINAL ROGERS. The server has the LA FRANCE pattern and dates to the early 1900’s.
Here’s the kicker—there are two different types of tomato servers. There’s one for red tomatoes and for green.
There’s a big difference to the server, and it’s that the spade on the green tomato server is not perforated. The red tomatoes can be juicy, so the perforations lets the juice drip through. Green tomatoes are not nearly as messy so you don’t have to worry as much about spilling tomato juice on the table cloth.
A modern twist on this type of server is that you could use the green tomato server to serve fried green tomatoes. You can see the red tomato server in my Etsy store here.
What kinds of Victorian serving pieces have you run across?