Bouillon cup – too big for tea, too small for hearty soup

I was more curious about the two handles on the cup than the pattern. What was it? It wasn’t a teacup because it was too large, and it seemed much too small to be a soup bowl.

The pattern was beautiful, and the bottom bore the manufacturer’s name: Theodore Haviland, a well-known maker of fine china. On the side was a series of soft yellow, red, blue and lilac flowers on stems against a crème background. In the center of the bowl was a bouquet of similar flowers overflowing from the vase.

What kind of cup was it?

I found out that it was not an oversized teacup, but a bouillon cup. I was familiar with the word “bouillon” because I substitute low-salt chicken bouillon for homemade chicken stock in recipes. So I assumed that this cup was used to hold clear soup. The cup is like a cross between a teacup and soup bowl that a hostess may use for a light snack, according to one website. The soup is usually drank or sipped with a spoon, said another, and the cup is never used in formal dinners.

At some point early in the 20th century, the bouillon cup seemed to have been used pretty often. I found several references to it in pharmacist publications, suggesting their use for holding broth. In the Soda Fountain Section of The Pacific Pharmacist book from 1908, the writer offered a short description of how to make clam bouillon, tomato bouillon (by adding good quality catsup to beef bouillon), hot egg malted milk and egg bouillon (breaking an egg in a cup of beef bouillon) served in “regulation” bouillon cups.

The cups were once used for afternoon tea. They also were used to feed soup to sick people (I have an image of that in my head from some old movie).

At lunch or tea, there apparently is a proper way to use the cup for devouring soup. From Amy Vanderbilt’s 1952 “Complete Book of Etiquette”:

“Soup or bouillon served in a handled cup or even in a small cup-size bowl (Oriental fashion) is drunk. If there are dumplings or decorative vegetables or other garnish floating on top, these may be lifted out first with the spoon before the soup is drunk. Noodles or other things which may be in the bottom of the cup are spooned up after the liquid has been drunk.

A handled cup is held with the index finger through the handle, the thumb just above it to support the grip, and the second finger below the handle for added security. The little finger should follow the curve of the other fingers and not be elevated affectedly. It is incorrect to cradle the cup in one’s fingers if it has a handle. This is done only when the cup is of Oriental style without handles.”

And from the 15th edition of Emily Post’s “Etiquette” from 1992:

“Soup at luncheon is never served in soup plates, but in two-handled cups. It is eaten with a teaspoon or a bouillon spoon, or after it has cooled sufficiently, the cup may be picked up. It is almost always a clear soup: in the winter, a bouillon, turtle soup, or consommé, and in the summer, a chilled soup such as jellied consommé or madrilène.”

The bouillon cups and saucers at auction had the right pedigree. The Haviland name has been around since the mid-19th century when David Haviland, a New Yorker, moved to Limoges, France, to produce china to be shipped back and sold in America. The company’s china found its way onto White House tables in the administrations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison.

Haviland seemed to have marketed it, though, to Victorian housewives, according to Collectors Weekly. There are 20,000 or more patterns, and there have been five Haviland companies in various countries over the years. Theodore Haviland took over his father’s company in 1890.

The pattern at auction was Montreux, and a bouillon cup and saucer in the pattern was selling for around $25 on the web.