A Growing Salt & Pepper Collection

by Ari Weinzweig
The ever-growing number of salt and pepper shakers at the
Roadhouse do get a good bit of attention. My partner Paul
thinks Im crazy, but humors me. A lot of people love them. A
few barely notice them. Kids, Ive noticed, are very into them.
Parents walk them around and see which are their favorites and
play games like I Spy. Design people get really into them.
Every once in a while someone comes in, who has their own
collection or who knows someone who did. Mostly people are
intrigued, at the very least curious, which comes out most often
in the form of two questions: a) how many are there? and b)
how long have you been working at gathering up whats in
there?
So, How Many Are There?
To get to the most data driven question up front, I think there
are currently like 1010 sets (plus or minus a few there are a
couple singles) sets in the Roadhouse. As always though, Im
really not going for volume for the sake of volume. (See Bo
Burlinghams book, Small Giants for more on that subject
copies are for saleor for browsingthe Roadhouse counter.)
For me at least, theres a lot more to these little sets of
ceramics, plastics, stainless steel or whatever than just finding
something to put up on the walls.
How Long Has our Collection Been Growing?
In terms of how long I cant actually remember right now
exactly when it was that we put the first few sets of salt and
pepper shakers into the Roadhouse. Three or four years ago, Id
guess. Either way, if youve been coming in for a long time,
youve no doubt noticed that the collection has shall we say,
grown a good bit? Because there are so many sets now, a lot of
people assume that Ive been collecting these thing for some
significant portion of my life, but the reality is that its really
only been in the last few years that Ive gotten going with it. As
with most everything I end up expending high energy on, the
more I learn about it, the more interested I get, the more I start
to pursue it. And if you didnt already know this about me, Im
not real big on doing things half heartedlyI mean, if youre
going to do something, why not really do it, and do it well? Its
true for me with food, its true of writing, public speaking,
leadership, building organizations, travel and self-reflection
(hey, I started journaling one day nearly 30 years ago and Ive
done it almost every day since), and running. In this case, its
the same sort of situation with salt and pepper shakers. If
youre gonna gather some up, you might as well make it
memorable!
As with everything else in life, context and caring are a lot of
what give meaning to the people, actions, and relationships in
our lives. Dont worry, Im not going to tell you that Ive
invented some new belief system based on salt and pepper
shakers, nor are they even remotely the most important thing in
my life. Not even close on that one. But, as one more small side
note in all the things that I do . . . they are fun, and they are
interesting. And I like themtheyre a unique-to-the-U.S. bit
of pretty cool commercial art. And because salt and pepper
historically were very costly and hard for most people to get,
theres something I like about most everyone here in this
country having access to them. (There are many other issues
about getting food to the many people still in need today, but
insufficient salt and pepper certainly isnt one of them). And I

like them because many were made by very interesting studios,

led by very creative people who made these little pairs as just a
bit of fun kitsch to go with their main lines of pottery.
Going back a bit in time, I actually started out with what is now
this rather voluminous collection back in the late 90s at the
time that we had our little fresh produce market in Kerrytown.
It seemed like a fun thing to do to buy up produce-oriented
shakers and put them on display above the fruits and
vegetables. I probably had, at most, about fifty pairs back then.
While the produce market ultimately didnt last, the shakers did
they stayed in boxes in our offices until a few years ago
when it dawned on me that theyd be a fun addition out at the
Roadhouse. And thats when the collecting really got going.
They looked good, I liked them, other people did too, and like I
said, once I get going I might as well really get going. So the
literal answer to the question How long have you been doing
this? is that I probably started ten or twelve years ago, but in
truth, most of them have been gathered up in the last three or
four. Its been a lot of fun actually, both finding them, sharing
stories about them, learning their history, watching people of all
ages check them out and marvel at their diversity. Like I said,
many have great stories behind them, both historically in terms
of design, or personally, in terms of the people from whom I
got them.
A Little Salt and Pepper History
Aside from the fact that I like the way they look, there is
actually this very interesting culinary context that draws me to
the salt and pepper sets. See, the thing is that if you go back
into history both salt and pepper were, up until modern times,
generally very costly ingredients that only rich people could
afford to use regularly. As you may already know, back in the
days when there was no refrigeration, salt and smoke were the
two most common methods of food preservation. If you didnt
live in an area where salt was easily foundi.e., away from a
sea coast with a hot climate) or living above a known
underground salt deposit (like Detroit actually)you generally
needed to be fairly well off to afford salt in any kind of
generous quantity. In general salt cellars (the dishes in which
salt was served at the table) were considered a sign of wealth
and status. The grandest salt cellar was always placed on the
table in fairly close proximity to the host. Those seated on the
hosts side of the saltcellar were honored; if you were seated
below the salt cellar you were one of the common folk. As
recently as the Civil War, salt shortages were a big problem
right here in North America; the Union Army strategically cut
off the Souths supply of salt, causing considerable spoilage of
meats and other foods. In the Dictionary of American Food and
Drink, John Mariani reports that Southerners resorted to
scraping the floors of smokehouses to gather drippings of saltcured meats in an attempt to preserve foods during the shortage.
In his classic, Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier reaffirms this:
The most valuable trade, though, was the five-pound sack of
salt they had gotten, it having become so scarce and dear that
some people now dug up their smokehouse floors and boiled
and strained the dirt and then boiled it down and strained it
again.
Similarly, for most of Western history pepper, has been a super
hard to get commodity. The Romans loved it and went to
incredibly great lengths to get it. Over time it often became a
medium of exchange as well as itself an item of trade; much
like cacao beans in Central America, people actually paid in
peppercorns instead of coins. After the fall of the Empire
pepper consumption dropped drastically and stayed down for
many centuries. During the Renaissance, Venice grew to
become the major pepper port of Europe, and from the 12th to

the 16th centuries, the pepper trade helped to build the citystate into an international power. While these days buying a
diamond may set you back a couple months salary, medieval
pepper purchasers were in much the same boat. The more
pepper that was popped on a guests plates the more prestigious
the presenter was considered to be.
The power of pepper peaked in roughly the 15th century.
Demand had risen so highand supply had become so short
that pepper prices were off the charts. Some adventurous souls
sought out new sources to help meet unfulfilled demand. In this
sense, the lust for pepper became the driving force of European
expansion. You know the names of those who went after it
Columbus, Magellan, Vasco de Gama. Although the Americas
proved to be pepperlessother than the misnamed chile
peppers, which werent really pepper at allit was actually
the Portuguese who finally arrived in India by sea in 1498.
Their success established new trade routes, and more plentiful
supplies. Slowly but surely, pepper prices fell; by the end of the
17th century spices lost their supremacy in world trade.
Gradually pepper became more affordable, and hence more
readily available to the middle classes.
(For a more in depth bit of info on both salt and on pepper
(with no mention at all of shakers) see the chapters in
Zingermans Guide to Good Eating.)
A Few Favorites of the Moment
So its with all those centuries of context in mind that I think
about the significance of the American popularization of salt
and pepper, and with it the idea of the shakers. Because its
actually quite an interesting symbol of social import as well as
being rather fun that anyone in America could have salt and
pepper, being really something that until modern times was
mostly only for rich people. That, of course, fits really well
with our whole approach here at Zingermans that says that
good food is for everyone whos interested, not just for some
chosen gourmet few. And that, combined with the fact that
theyre fun, and that life is short, and that Im interested in
great design, and obscure history, and a good story, has me
intrigued with each passing year.
Next time youre in I hope you get a minute or two to check out
the ever-growing collection. Although the list will, Im sure
change over time, here are the ones Im most intrigued by at the
moment.

on the corner of Washington and Ashley downtown. Harburgs

song was called Lydia the Tattooed Lady, and it was made
famous by Groucho Marx who sang it. Anyways the song was,
as most all Harburgs work was, politically topical and
references Grover Whalen, NYC politico, pr man and powerenforcer of Prohibition unveiln the Trylon. Turns out
Lydia was also the favorite song of Jim Henson, the man
behind the Muppets. Wild.
Washington Monuments
A bit to the right, theres a set of light brown, Bakelite,
Washington Monumentsprobably from the 1930sthat I
think are really great. If youre arent already familiar with it,
Bakelite was one of the first plastics to be used commercially. It
was invented by a Belgian guy name Leo Baekeland, hence the
name of the product he put on the market in 1907. Apparently it
had a great reception right off the batit was pretty heat
resistant, didnt conduct electricity, and wasnt all that
expensive to make. To give you an idea of context, Dr.
Baekeland was actually on the cover of Time magazine in
September of 1924! And FYI, the Smithsonians Museum of
American History in Washington has a set of Bakelite salt and
peppers (not of the Washington Monument though) that once
belonged to Dr. Baekeland.
Mini-Sunbeam C-20 Coffee Pots
Theres also a little silver set that looks like two coffee pots
one sitting on top of the other. Its actually a salt and pepper
version of the Sunbeam C-20 coffee set from the 1939, same
year as Trylon and Perisphere were unveiled. in NYC the set
both the original and the salt and pepperturn out to have
black Bakelite handles. The actual coffee maker was for
vacuum pot brewing, which is still one of the best methods any
of us could use for making good coffee today. The coffee maker
was designed by Alphonso Iannelli. Italian by birth he
immigrated to the US in 1898. He went on to work with Frank
Lloyd Wright on all sorts of amazing designs including the
1933 Century of Progress Worlds Fair in Chicago, from which
theres also another set of silver, embossed salt and peppers on
the wall on the way to the bathroom.
Rosemeade and Laura Taylor

1939 Trylon & Perisphere

In the case on the wall en route to the restrooms, by the entry
to the Fireplace Room theres a white and black plastic
Trylon and Perisphere set that dates to the 1939 NY Worlds
Fair. You might recognize the shapestheyre fairly famous in
the architectural world. Although the design is now over 70
years old, I still think it looks pretty timeless-modern, the way
all that great Frank Lloyd Wright stuff still does. The Trylon
and Perisphere were big draws at the Fair, and millions of
people went to see them. Inside the Perisphere (the round one)
was an exhibit called Democracity which represented what
the designers imagined to be the sort of place wed be living
now. The Trylon , right near it, was 700 feet tall. Although you
cant see it on the salt and pepper set, the two were connected
by what was then the longest escalator in the entire world.
Hows that for worthless but sort of interesting trivia? Ill top
that though with a bit of a local touch. The Trylon was actually
incorporated into a song by lyricist Yip Harburg, famous father
of Earnie Harburg, one of the leading creative and leadership
lights that made the Del Rio what it was for so many years here

Then theres all the stuff from my favorite studio right now,
Rosemeade. This amazing American pottery studio was started
and run by a woman named Laura Taylor, native of North
Dakota, graduate of ND (which out there is University of North
Dakota, not Notre Dame) and then the state supervisor of the
WPA (from the last time we had a big government stimulus
program to help the economy). Ms. Taylor was invited to NYC
for the 1939 Worlds Fair in order to demonstrate her pottery
making. Its pretty likely that while she was there shed have
gone to see Trylon and Perisphere, but we know for a fact that
she did meet her husband to be, Robert Hughes. Together they
went on to open what they called the Wahpeton Pottery Co.
(named after her hometown in North Dakota) in 1940. Later
they changed the name to Rosemeade, which was the ND
county in which she was born.
Theres a bunch of her stuff above Table 107 in the Fireplace
Room. I really love her design and the entire spirit of what she
did. all the clay used was dug from a bed near Wahpeton, then
aged for a year before they used it, and she developed a special
technique that of glazing over metal oxides that gave them a

special look. The detail on the dogssetters, boxers, spaniels

just to name a few. And check those Chihuahuas!is pretty
amazing. They were done in 1950 as part of a tied to spread in
National Geographic on dogs. There are also amazing gophers,
elephants, pheasants, amazing black and white stallions, mules
(check out the eyes), Siamese cats, coyotes, buffalo, prairie
dogs, skunks, fish, and more. And she did make Brussels
Sprouts and some cool cucumbers and corn shakers . Im sure
Im forgetting some here but there are pretty incredible and,
honestly, I pretty much love them all.
Laura Taylor also did a lot of other potterysalt and pepper
were just one little kitsch thing Rosemeade did to supplement
the rest of its line. In particular, she made some amazing small
boot figurines. I dont have any here on display but you can see
photos of them on my friend Anese Cavanaughs website.
Check out the boots and more importantly her approach to
leadership and life at leadingwithbootson.com
Ceramic Arts Studio
Then there are the sets from the Ceramic Arts Studio. This
was a spot in Madison, started by two guys Lawrence Rabbit
and Reuben Sand, who had the good fortune to fairly soon after
opening hire a woman named Betty Harrington. She went on to
do some amazing designs for them. I dont know how well
known it was in its own time, but my mother went to college
there during the years it was open. They did some amazing
horse headstheres a whole series of them over booth 106, a
few feet to the right of the Rosemeade stuff. Also a series of
what are called snugglerswhere one shaker sits inside
another. You can see some next to the stallions and then a
bunch more out by the door to the patiogreat polar bears,
brown bears, gorillas, coral and sea horse, a mouse sitting in a
piece of cheese, etc.
Frank + Oklahoma = Frankoma
Dont want to forget Frankoma. While their styles are
completely different, this studio was as rooted in Oklahoma as
Rosemeade was in North Dakotamany Oklahomans who
come in to eat know it well. John Nathaniel Frank, who was
actually born in my hometown of Chicago, started Frankoma,
he was an art teacher who took a job at OUs ceramics
department. He started making pottery in his house, then moved
his factory to the town of Sapulpa on Route 66. Frankoma uses
all Oklahoma clay and the style is very much sort of muted,
Western . . . very unique Id say. There are truly amazing
pumas, very cool looking bulls, oil derricks, and my favorite
which comes from the state semi-centennialits a tepee and a
skyscraper tower together as one set that says, From Teepees
to Towers, 1907-1957. Oh yeah, I also love the Turner
Turnpike one too. I was going to say set but its actually a
one-piece salt and peppertwo overlapping highway
stanchions. And the set from the First National Bank of Tulsa is
pretty amazing as well.

near LA to help distribution and also his asthma. Bauer does

beautiful pitchers, bowls, plates, amazing teapots pretty
much everything in the style of American Arts and Crafts.
Anyways, this set of blue and yellow fish was done in the
1950s as advertising pieces for Chicken of the Sea, as in, you
got it, tuna!
Caped Don
Further down, between the Frankoma stuff on their left and
the Rosemeade on the right, there are a pair of black-caped
Sandeman sherry dons. If you know sherry or admire the
advertising work of the 1930s and 40s you might recognize
themits one of the most amazing bits of label art work ever
done I think. The Sandeman house itself was established in
Jerez in 1790. In 1928 a Scottish artist named George Massiot
Brown went in to Sandeman to sell his design services. They
asked for some sample sketches and this was one of them. Its
an old style Spanish caballero wearing the sort of cape that
Portuguese students wear a bit to the west at the University at
Coimbra. For people who dont know either they might think
this is Darth Vader but . . . it isnt.
And a Few Others
Lets see . . . dont want to forget Fifi the Cat and Fido the
Dog who were the mascots for Ken-L-Ration, Millie and Willie
the Kool cigarette penguins, Elsie and Elmer the cows, Snap
and Pop (not sure what happened to Crackle in this context) and
the TV set the salt and peppers shaker parts pop up when you
turn the TV dials. And for entertainment check out the lawn
mower, the washing machines and the grill, the ice cream
cones, etc. in the case en route to the bathrooms.
Two last favorites and then Ill stop.
Deco Planes
By the entryway to the Roadshow, on the right side as you head
out of the bar, theres a pair of small gray, art deco airplanes
that are definitely one of the ones I love best. . Theyre dated
1946 on the bottom and the style is totally of that era. Theyd
be easy to miss but if youre up in that part of the restaurant and
you like that sort of design, check em out.
Genies
On the other side of the doorway (to the left as you go out) are
two little gas company genies that are particularly special. They
were designed by Disney and were used to advertise the
Montreal Gas Co. in Quebec, Canada. Hence, their headdresses
look like flames. I got them as a gift from my friend and (award
winning!) animator Brooke Keesling. She in turn bought them
from a distant relative of Walt Disney.
OK, enough already. Im always happy to hear which ones are
your favorites!

Tuna by Bauer
Community of Collections
Oh yeah, then there are the blue and yellow fish made by
Bauer. Theyre in the corner over table 106. If you dont know
it Bauer was one of the best known of the dozen or so midcentury companies that came to be called California Pottery in
the design world. Interestingly the company was actually
started in Paducah, KentuckyJ. Andy Bauer got going there
but later opened a second pottery factory on the West Coast

I should add too that, in the context of community building, one

really nice, unexpected outcome of having the salt and peppers
on display that I hadnt ever even considered, is that Im
starting to get sets of old shakers from regular customers.
(Thank you to you all for being generous in your giving. I try to
get them all up on display. Thanks in particular to salt and

pepper supporter Sue Mitrovich.) Usually theyre folks whose

parents or grandparents collected them. And theyre happy to
give them to us where others will get to appreciate what their
loved ones did for a long timeits a nice thing to be entrusted
with small but emotionally significant family heirlooms.
If you head back through the hallway past the entrance to what
weve come to call the fireplace room youll be looking
straight at an entire case of shakers that came courtesy of Jim
Metzler of Elkhart, Indiana. I met Jim and his family in one of
those six degrees of connection stories that I love so much. A
friend of his granddaughters had come up to Ann Arbor to visit
and somehow had ended up at the Roadhouse for dinner. She
loved her meal and went back home where she told her friend
(Jims granddaughter) Jen Havlish about her experience. She
also shared with Jen that we had all these old salt and pepper
shakers on displayshe knew that Jens grandfather was
getting ready to move out of his house and was preparing to sell
off a of his old stuff including his collection of shakers. Jen
took the initiative to email me and invite me to come see if I
was interested in buying some of them. For any number of
reasons (like, I like a good adventure and I like salt and pepper
shakers, especially those with a bit of history behind them) I
said Id be happy to check them out and offered to drive down
to visit.
The only thing was that at the time I made the offer I was
assuming that Jen and her grandfather lived in the Ann Arbor
area. As the conversation progressed I discovered the rather
large geographic error of my assumptionthey were actually 2
hours away in Elkhart, Indiana. For someone like me who
closely guards every minute of time I have every day of the
week, thats a long lot of driving time. But . . . having offered to
come and see the shakers I felt sort of obligated, and given that
the family was about to sell all Jens grandfathers stuff off in a
matter of weeks, I just decided to go for it and headed out to
Elkhart early one Sunday morning. Figured I could get there
and back in time to work lunch. As youd intuit from the fact
that the shakers are now on display in the Roadhouse, the
whole thing worked out really well. The Metzler family are
great people, its great set of old salt and peppers, and now,
theres a really nice connection between us and the entire
family.
Jim grew up in the town of Wakarusa, Indiana and lived most
of his adult life in nearby Elkhart. His parents started buying
shakers in the late 30s and a lot of the older ones in the
collection are dated on the bottom from the late 1930s and early
1940s. Jim continued to buy them and built up quite a
collection over the years. As someone who saves things and
notices the little details of life, I can relate to the passion he had
for this small sidebar of a thing he did for probably five
decades. Im probably just projecting, but if it were me it would
be very hard to part with them (I know, I know, theyre just
objects). Here he was selling the house hed lived in most all
of his adult life, and with it so many of the things (like these)
that hed collected, and that cant be an easy thing to do.
For what its worth, there are about 100 sets in the case. All but
one came from Jim. His favorite, if I remember correctly, was
the Little Miss Muffet and her tuffet. I like the red and blue
1940s bombs. The one pair I added I put in there because a
month or so after Id been down to meet Jim, Jen and the
family in person, I came across a little red plastic advertising
set from Weathermaster, a company that happened to be
based in Elkhart! Not sure exactly when it was from, but the
phone number to call on the shakers only has five digits (23150 , to be exact) if that tells you anything! Given the Elkhart
connection, they were too good to pass up so Ive squeezed into
the case along all the ones that we got from Jim.

As a history major, theres something special to me in being

able to take a family heirloom like Jims collection and put it
out where other people can come and appreciate it. The entire
Metzler family came up to Ann Arbor about six weeks after Id
been down in Elkhart to make their first visit to Zingermans. It
closed the loop on that first set of interactions and hopefully
was but the first of many visits theyll make to see us and say
hi to Jims collection. I hope you take a minute to check it out
next time youre out to eat.