[quote]How did author Alex Bogusky lose three inches from his waist? Bu taking three inches off his dish. But what does The 9-Inch Diet has to do with it? Here is the story.
When Alex Bogusky moved into a 1940s house six years ago, he was dismayed to discover his new dishes did not fit in the cupboards. “I was thinking, ‘What kind of idiot makes cabinets that do not fit a normal plate?’†he recalls.
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I have two comments about the cabinets and one shocking agreement about plate size--with a caution.
When I first read this post, I thought something about it was odd because I have a set of large plates that barely fit into my cabinets, but they do fit. But still I know the plates I currently use are larger than the ones I grew up with--because I'm the one who ended up with the set.
Early this morning when I woke up I realized what was bothering me about the post--the cabinets. My parents had a free-standing cabinet/counter piece of furniture (with a built-in 50lb flour bin) because when they moved into their first apartment in the early fifties, it was in an older building that didn't have any cabinets. That's right, older pre-fifties (maybe pre WWII) houses didn't have built-in cabinets (or closets for that matter). Peope used to use free-standing cabinets and closets. So the house Alex Bogusky moved into probably had the cabinets added later--unless his house is post WWII, or the house was built by people on the cutting edge of fashion.
That said, remember that my plates barely fit into my cabinets. In fact, when I moved in four year ago, I had trouble finding a cabinet that they would fit into. I only have one cabinet I can keep then in because the door of the cabinet takes less space inside than on the other cabinets. The apartment I live in is a garage apartment--it was once a two-car garage that was converted to an apartment. I don't know when, but it wasn't recent, so maybe my cabinets are older, not 1950s but maybe 1980s.
The point of agreement with the plate size:
So anyway, I measured all of my plates: the large plates I brought in the early 1990s, the microwave plates I just brought in 2008 (which look a lot smaller), and I dug my parent's plates out of storage (purchased with Betty Crocker coupons during the mid to late 1960s).
One thing I quickly noticed is that my large plates and the 1960 plates both had wide rims while the microwave plates barely had any rims at all. So I made two measurements on each plate, the total width and the usable width (from the inside edges of the rim). The only thing that can be placed on the rims is rolls, bread and maybe the edge of something too big for the plate. So the total width of a plate doesn't really matter, what matters is the usable width. As you will see, this is an important point.
The measurements:
1990s plates total width: 10 3/4" inner width 9"
microwave plates total width: 9 3/4" inner width 9"
and the shocker. . .
1960s plates total width: 10" [b] inner width 7"[/b]
that's right. . it is not a misprint, I measured it 3 times. Even though the physical size of the 1960 plate is almost the same as the microwave plate, [b]the actual usable space of the plate itself is only 7" not 9". [/b]The rim of the 1960s plate is actually 1 1/2" wide. I haven't checked with my sister or brothers, but my memory is as stated in the eariler paragraph. The bulk of our dinners fit inside the rims of the plates, with only bread or rolls being placed on the rims. No wonder I was a skinny child!
So, my advice if you want to use smaller plates. . .measure the plate from the inner rims not the total plate width. As you see from the above measurments my large plates have the same usuable space as the microwave plates--though the total widths differ by a full inch (they have an 1/2 rim). BTW, the 1960 plates are also shallower than both the 1990 plates and the microwave plates, so you can't pile them up as high (maybe that's reason for the wide rims. . .)
In closing, you will note that I don't own any 12" plates and if I did (which I can't even imagine--do they really make them that big?) they wouldn't fit in my cabinets either. My cabinets are not from the 40s, at the oldest they may be from the 1980s--or whenever it was converted from a garage.
PS It occurs to me that a bigger problem than the plates is the size of the food. Just last year I was stunned by the size of the chicken thighs the store was selling. I actually stood in the store trying to fantom the size of the chicken they came from. These thighs were about the size of what I think of as a typical chicken breast--not the mega breasts they also sell. OK, the guess the huge thighs came from the same chicken as the huge breasts, but since I slice the breasts anyway their size didn't hit me as hard as the thighs. I mean, I think of a thigh as a single serving, but these thighs were at least one and half servings, maybe two. Then I got to thinking about the chickens I ate as a child, the thighs weren't a single serving then, they were about half a serving size. A thigh as I remember them was smaller than a computer mouse and a drumstick would be about the size of a computer mouse. A chicken breast was a little larger, the size a a regular deck of cards (not the poker size cards) or a I-phone/I-touch. Today these foods are much larger. The fruit is larger as well. Apples are supposed to be the size of the smaller ones you buy in a bag. The large apples that they sell individually are actually 2 servings of fruit. . .ditto for the large oranges and bananas. I guess we should be grateful that egg sizes were standardized by law a long time ago.
Bon Apetit!