Talk:Porringer

Contradictions being ignored

This article cites Britannica Online, yet it doesn't mention that Britannica's information contradicts some of the claims made here. Although the words sound similar, there is no reliably documented connection between porringers and porridge. And people wealthy enough to afford a porringer from which to eat were unlikely to be eating gruel, the food of the poorest of the poor. These were luxury items. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DDave210 (talk • contribs) 20:56, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Porridge meant "stew" in 16th century English, not "gruel". It was a corruption of pottage, influenced by the ME word porreie (a kind of soup). Similarly, porringer was a corruption of potynger, a bowl for potage. Without committing myself on the question of porringers being only for the rich, I will say with some confidence that potage was common at wealthy boards. But you're right about one thing; this article needs some help. Richigi (talk) 02:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I see what fueled your objection; the article actually said "gruel" before you fixed it. I did discover something interesting. At the Louvre's website it says 17th c. porringers were meant for taking breakfast (broth) upon waking (Dauphin's Porringer). I suspect there's a lot of reference material on the history of this object, if anyone has time to hunt it up. Richigi (talk) 03:10, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Someone Hacking Your Site

Keeps discrediting my entries, and just gives credit to the IP I am using at the time. WB2 07:00, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Porringers were used for blood letting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.59.172.208 (talk) 22:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Pewter bullets

i have tagged the contention that pewter was scrounged for bullets during the revolution for citation. this notion is a myth and patent nonsense. first of all, good pewter is at least 90% tin, and is not soft, as the article currently states. more important is the following. the rarity of pre-revolutionary pewter is due to the economic relationship of the colonies to the colonizer throughout the colonial world and times. this relationship was always such that the colonies were supposed to send raw materials to the home country, and receive the home country's manufactured goods in return. the effect of such a policy in the american colonies was to discourage the making of pewterware here. added to this phenomenon is the fact that pewter is eminently recyclable. pewterers' advertisements in newspapers of the time very often contained statements to the effect that the advertiser also bought used and damaged pewter. moreover, there are no significant deposits of tin on the eastern seaboard, wheras the british isles are full of it (particularly in cornwall, where it was mined since pre-roman times.). taken together, these facts make it easy to explain the rarity of pre-1776 american pewter without resorting to patriotic fables of pewter bullets. Toyokuni3 (talk) 05:23, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

*What* is it for?

This article makes no mention as to what the porringer was first used for, nor why it bears its name. Lots of info about what they look like / are made from / styles, but absolutely nothing about *what* they are, nor *why* they were used. Wynne0 (talk) 16:17, 5 September 2021 (UTC)