TABLE CULTURE - THE JOY OF TABLE SETTING
With Björn Kroner-Salié
Expert for table culture
Hello, my name is Björn Kroner-Salié and I am a florist. Perhaps you already know me from various TV programmes or from a visit to the FÜRSTENBERG porcelain manufactory, for which I have been a brand ambassador with all my heart for several years. Why? Because home decor is not only beautifully arranged flowers in great vases, but also a laid table with fine porcelain and matching glasses and cutlery.
Plea for more table culture
While visiting friends of friends I had the idea to write a book about table culture, because I noticed the absence of table culture. We were invited to one of those wonderful apartments in an old building that seems to exist only in Berlin. After an impressive guided tour through the apartment we sat down at the table. You can imagine what is coming now, because this is a report on table culture. There was a lack of what makes a beautiful table, in other words: there was a lack of any form of charm. There was what was absolutely necessary for the pure act of eating, nothing more.It made me helpless. Isn't it the table at which people eat? Where friends meet to talk, celebrate, drink wine? Isn't the table the place, the stage, where the hospitality takes place? And doesn't it inevitably belong to cooking?
Table culture is hospitality
The laid table plays only rarely and at all a much too small role. It's fun to set a table! A table set carefully and with a sense for the quality and history of the goods opens the door to the world of the sometimes hidden but very lively manufactories. With my book I would like to whet the appetite for tables, because the tableware is part of our cultural identity, part of the cultural discipline "hospitality".For me, table culture is something absolutely concrete. Something from the world of things that are tangible and beautiful. There is not a lack of means, but of consciousness, and I often want to shout: "Buy yourself a decent porcelain!"
Always on Sundays or as with Grandma 2.0
The good old Sunday with family and roast needs a renaissance in my opinion. Because a Sunday roast is a fine thing. If it succeeds. Above all, however, it is a beautiful old family tradition. While the idea of the family has changed over time and fortunately opened up, Sunday roast remains the old one: a part of our bourgeois culture, to which a beautifully laid table belongs like the sauce to a dumpling. So let's prepare a stage for the roast.For the Sunday dinner you should own a porcelain that is contemporary on the one hand, but on the other hand promises a certain aesthetic quality and does not go out of fashion so quickly. When you buy, you have to make a double decision - first for the shape and then for the decor.
Traditional table culture has a future with Mix & Match
For the form, I chose CARLO from the pen of the Italian designer Carlo Dal Bianco from Porzellanmanufaktur FÜRSTENBERG. Individual elements, such as the handles, have a very modern look, but overall it is a classic design that should not go out of fashion so quickly.I couldn't make up my mind about the décor and decided to mix and match three different décors - ESTE, ORO and RAJASTHAN by Peter Kempe. Turquoise, gold and rust red? At first sight difficult, but in the end it works wonderfully. Above all, because the table linen from Ege Textile Manufactory is precisely matched to the colours of the porcelain. The basic equipment also includes beautiful and above all good glasses - such as the "Wine Classics Select" series by Zwiesel Kristallglas - and fine cutlery such as the silver cutlery from Wiener Silber Manufactur.
Do it yourself: Napkin rings and flower arrangements
In addition to the individual selection and combination of beautiful tableware, glasses and cutlery, tableware gains its special personal charm through small decorations that everyone can make themselves. Be inspired by my two examples!
The napkin ring
What you need:
- veneer wood (handicraft or artists' supplies)
- double-sided adhesive tape
- scissors
(1)
Cut veneer sheets into strips 5 to 8 cm wide. Apply a piece of double-sided adhesive tape to the upper end of the strip.
(2)
Roll up the napkin and wrap the strip centrally around the roll. Remove the protective film from the adhesive tape and glue the ends of the strips together.
TIP
The napkin rings can also be used as a name tag. The effect and suitability of the pen should be tested beforehand on a test piece.
The flower arrangement
What you need:- Porcelain vessels
- fresh foam bricks
- play sand or bird sand
- knives
- spiraea twigs
- tulips
- skimmia twigs
- columbine
- lisianthus
(1)
Cut the amount of foam from the brick, adjusting the size to the vessel. Fill the vessel with water, place pieces of foam on the water surface - do not press under water - and soak. Cut the foam so that it remains approx. 1 cm below the edge of the vessel.
(2)
Lightly cover the foam with the sand. Coat only a little, otherwise the cut surfaces of the flowers will be blocked by the sand.
(3)
Cut the flowers diagonally with a knife or scissors and carefully insert into the foam as desired.
TIP
Always pay attention to the outer edge of the vessel. With such arrangements it is nice when the floristry takes place inside and does not protrude beyond the edge of the vessel.
