From Fish Plates to Sugar Nips, Here’s All The Best Things We Saw at the Round Top Antiques Fair

Last week, our founder Amanda Hesser; Food52 GM Jojo Feld; and senior director of merchandising, Jackson Fust; and I descended on Round Top, Texas, for the bi-annual Round Top Antiques Fair—a must-stop for designers like Kelly Wearster and Leanne Ford—to scope out vintage treasures we could sell as part of our ever-growing collection in our Shop.

Over three days, we saw miles and miles of vintage glassware—Amanda has thoughts!—wooden boards, and cauliflower-ware, the kooky cousin of cabbageware. But even among all the old things, we saw new-to-us delights and trends. Here’s what we spotted and loved.

Sardines have been having a moment on modern dishware, but we were truly surprised—and taken by—the sheer amount of plates and platters that starred fish. Jojo picked up a set on the first day in the Big Red Barn, and ever since then, they seemed to swim into our view. At Marburger, we stumbled across even more from various vendors.

A folk art dating back to the 19th century with ties to African American burial rituals, memory ware most often reveals itself in mosaic-like vessels decorated with personal items such as jewelry, shells, buttons, and, in one case, doll parts. Each one tells a distinct and different story through texture, shape, and the items that adorn it.

When I spotted my first brass tray with bamboo detailing, I gasped. The shine, the weight of it, and the delicate bamboo outline were all perfect, and I imagined it housing perfume bottles on my dresser or taking center stage the next time I host stoop drinks on my Brooklyn brownstone’s steps. Ultimately, it was too large—but then I spotted a much smaller one (sadly, too small) at another booth.

In my apartment’s kitchen, where space is at a premium, single-purpose kitchen tools are rare. And yet, we spotted a few one-purpose-wonders that we couldn’t resist—the first being sugar nips, aka tiny silver tongs for breaking off bits of the sweet stuff from sugar loaves. (Obviously these were created in a pre-cube world.) I could also see it being used for salt and pepper on my table. The second is a bee trap, a vase-like glass with an open bottom and reservoir that you’d fill with a sweet liquid such as brandy, for example, said Bill Borman, the Chicago-based dealer (follow him at @piggy.kitchen) explained to us. Set it on your outdoor dinner table to catch bees, and when the party’s over, pop the cork and let them free.

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What vintage pieces would you like to see in the Shop? Let us know in the comments below!