I imagine that everyone over the of age of 60 has one of these dishware pieces in their kitchen.

In the 1940s and ‘50s the number one wedding gift was a Pyrex dish of some sort. It might have been a pie plate or a set of bright colored mixing bowls.

Pyrex is a material that dates back to 1915 when a special glass that was well suited to temperature changes was developed. It was originally developed for railroads so that the lamps on the cars could within stand the temperature changes and wouldn’t break under extreme cold or heat.

One of the chemists working on the project crafted a casserole dish since his wife’s dishes often fractured in high temperatures. The advantages were quicker cooking time, uniform cooking and the food didn’t stick to the glass.

Before Pyrex, people cooked with metal or pottery. But you can identify a Pyrex dish from its shape. Colored mixing bowls were popular in the 1940s but the bowls with a pouring sprout were produced in 1957.

The original bowls were much thicker then those you can purchase today. The advantage to the bowls was that they nested which made them easy to store.

Patterns were soon introduced but the prevalent color of the ‘50s was bright turquoise blue or flamingo pink. But the most popular was the bright colors of the nesting bowls of the 400 series. The bowls were of the primary colors, blue, red, green and yellow. When the patterns were added the most popular in the 1950s was the gooseberry pattern with leaves and berries and flowers.

Beside mixing bowls Pyrex made refrigerator bowls, casseroles dishes, and any number of baking dishes. They even made a butter dish. Some of their bowls came with lids and when they didn’t the round plastic or fabric bathing cap cover was used to cover the dish for storing in the refrigerator.

The colorful baking dishes made it easy to serve food right from the stove to the table. This was a convenience that the housewives appreciated. I have in my kitchen several Pyrex pie plates not that I bake a lot of pies. They have just somehow appeared in my cupboard over he years. My mixing bowl set has disappeared  and most of my baking dishes have been replaced with the Corelle brand which became popular in the ‘70s.

Pyrex dishes are still available for purchase and are at a very reasonable price. The latest dish that I purchased was a 9×13 baking dish and it is coated with a non-stick material. It rinses out without a lot of scrubbing even after baking scalloped potatoes. But I do still use my avocado green dish that I also received as a wedding gift.

Look for some of these vintage dishes on display at the Edwardsburg Museum.

 

Jo-Ann Boepple works at the Edwardsburg Area History Museum.