Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/14/popular-midcentury-corningware.html
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For those interested, I cannot recommend highly enough the Corning Museum in Corning NY. In addition to an amazing glass art colection they have displays of classic 1950s corningware and a bunch of stuff on the science of glassmaking. If you book in advance you can also try your hand at glassblowing and other glassmaking projects - they mail the results to you after it has cooled.
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The shotgun style farmhouse (the “Old House”) that my mother grew up in in the 1930s and 40s was rented out by my grandmother in the 1980s (she lived in the “New House” built in 1965 a little ways away on the same property). One night after Christmas in 1983, the tenants had built too large a fire. The flames licked out of the chimney and caught the tinder-dry house on fire. It was consumed quickly and violently (Everyone got out safely.) The next morning, amidst the smoldering embers, sat a perfectly fine piece of CorningWare with this pattern, the only thing still recognizable.
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No, the Popular midcentury CorningWare pattern is blue.
I mean, it doesn’t even look black in weird lighting condi—
[voice class=“Roseanna Roseannadanna voice”]Oh. That’s different. Never mind![/voice]
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My parents bought some cornflower patterned plates in the 70s. They still have many of them. They have several virtues. They are light-weight compared to stoneware and quite thin so they stack in less space and are easy to fit in a dishwasher. They look pretty good even after decades of use and dishwasher cycles, and despite five kids, they don’t chip or break easily in regular use. Good stuff.
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I have that exact one and a shallow square one as well that’s like 9x9. I broke the lid for the latter, unfortunately.
But I use them all the time along with some old Anchor and Pyrex items that all used to belong to my grandparents.
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Awwww, we used to have some of those when I was growing up. 
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I used the large robin’s egg blue Pyrex bowl for popcorn last night. Like these:
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I think for a while if your household did not have some Corningware with this pattern, you were at risk of being called up in front of the HUAC.
Still widely available in every thrift shop, antique mall, flea market, and yard sale in America.
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With a name like Smucker’s, it’s GOT to be good!
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That’s the forgotten jam at the back. The good stuff, from the farmers’ market, is at the front.
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My mom had the same dish (in a few sizes), along with a latching handle that would clamp on to the small side projections.
I remember oddly enjoying attaching two of these handles to one pot and then carrying it by both.
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Totally off topic, but I just got Baader-Meinhoffed hard when I went down to our breakroom for coffee and found this in the “free stuff” bin:
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I love Cold War jokes!
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Wait? Why is it called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? What’s it got to do with a band of left-wing terrorists in West Germany?
I guess this is why:
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You’ll start seeing it everywhere now… 
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Woah reminds me of my mother’s cookware. My parents had the strangest glass countertop stove that essentially required corningware to cook with (maybe steel pans worked too?). Those silly blue flowers were on all of our cookware my entire life. So weird to see it listed as “mid century” and “back”.
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