<p>This thread makes me happy that my parents (and most of their friends) never had breakables readily available. I’m a clutz. I’m 6’ tall and never quite managed to grow into my body. Plain and simple. If it’s breakable, I’ll find a way to break it. I managed to break the wooden high chair that had been through probably 15 kids and 3 generations. My mother was the child of poor immigrants and then a military brat who moved all over the world every two years. Father has nothing from his parents either. No valuables - which works fine with all of us :). Aside from my electronics (which have insurance… because I know myself) there is absolutely nothing breakable in my apartment. </p>
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<p>My Jewish grandmother (from Germany) does this too (I’ve been told). She has been married several times and was upper middle class when my dad was in his teens and she still did the furniture cover. She could be wealthy or in poverty now, I have no idea, but my dad promises that there’s plastic.</p>
<p>ek, it seems like you’re feeling better :).</p>
<p>Romani - you’d be welcome in my home and handed a wine glass. If it broke nbd. The pleasure of your company would be far more important. You are one of the most interesting people on cc and an evening with you would truly be a treasure. :)</p>
<p>Never came up because my family’s the only one to have lived in/around neighborhoods with a critical mass of Italian immigrants and their descendants. </p>
<p>Have discussed it in high school with friends…including proud Italian-Americans. :)</p>
<p>Cobrat - an inherent flaw in your communication is assuming superior knowledge over people on the Internet. That’s just plain silly as you never, ever know who you are really speaking with and what their life experience has been. For someone who speaks of value of respect, you showed great disrespect to zoosermom in correcting her in her assessment regarding her own family. It’s HER family. Who are you to say what their motivation was regardless of what neighborhood you grew up in?! It’s her heritage, her family, her story. To simply dismiss her like that was just rude.</p>
<p>I’ve never met a single African-American or Hispanic person with plastic on their furniture. Texted my mom and said she never saw any furniture covers when she lived in Spain. Never saw any in Latin America. Never seen any in any of my Hispanic/Latino or African-American friends’ houses, many of whom live with their grandparents. I grew up in a working-class area with plenty of elderly people- no plastic. </p>
<p>Can’t tell you if any of my grandparents observed their friends having plastic furniture as 1) my grandparents are dead and 2) we would have had better things to talk about.</p>
<p>Maybe, just maybe, your limited observations aren’t a generalities.</p>
<p>Plastic covered furniture, lampshades, plastic coverings over cloth tablecloths - was very common among Italian immigrants in my experience. H’s grandparents protected every surface. My MIL knew that it was a bit d</p>
<p>Cutting glass to protect tables is something that was very common where I grew up. Marble top tables were also very common. I considered the marble purely decorative but obviously it protects the wood too.</p>
<p>Oh yes gourmetmom! You got it. My late grandmother in law was a lovely woman who ended up raising several grandchildren after her their mom died. So I am not mocking her. The plastic slipcover thing was a new one on me, though, when I met her.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s rude about providing an observation which showed this phenomenon was far more widespread rather than limited to one ethnic group while growing up in NYC and having lived in the Boston area for some time. </p>
<p>Whether it was Hispanic families in my old NYC neighborhood; African-American classmates in same neighborhood, Harlem, and Bushwick; Jewish classmates in my neighborhood, Kips Bay, and the Lower East Side; Irish-American families in the Boston area; or Italian-Americans in various NYC and Boston neighborhoods…it seems the plastic covered furniture phenomenon was a widespread American phenomenon with a certain generation and socio-economic class.</p>
<p>I actually only ever saw one plastic draped sitting room as I mentioned & that was in the 1960s & it belonged to a family that was well connected politically but had recently moved to the mainland from Puerto Rico.
Yes to the generation, no to the socio economic class.</p>
<p>The Italian grandmothers, is relevant to my bookgroup meeting.
We had just been reading My Life in Food by Judith Jones, and had an interesting discussion comparing her mothers response to use of things like garlic ( which she thought was alien & vulgar), to what our own mothers and grandmothers tables looked & smelled like.</p>
<p>We didn’t have a strong connection to anywhere but the US, as our family had emigrated in the 1600’s, but my grandparents had been farmers in the Midwest, before they came west during WWII to work building airplanes. So we ate onions if not garlic, although I can’t say I ever developed much of a taste for my grandmothers onion & butter sandwiches.
I did like wilted lettuce though. ( salad with hot bacon grease dressing with just a little sugar)
Several other book group members mention * their * grandmothers eating lard sandwiches. Which sounds a step down from onions.
:p</p>
<p>But those with Italian grandmothers made food that sounded very delicious and exotic compared to the pork chops & fried chicken from mine.
( it was very delicious too, though)</p>
<p>My Mom and Gramma ate lard sandwiches too. They ate what they had. This was a farm in northern MN. No plastic covers there. I’m not sure plastic was around then.</p>
<p>But lard sandwiches are all the rage at the chi-chi restaurants in L.A.! I swear this is true! Sometimes they call it “lardo” or “lardon” but I swear it is the same stuff! (or close enough). It is an offshoot of the bacon and home- artisan-butchery trends! </p>
<p>Here’s a link to a recent New York Times editorial on the general phenomena, with a quoted excerpt:</p>
<p>My nana not only have the living room covered in plastic, but the lamp shades as well. She had glass covering tables, plastic flowers, and probably would have double wrapped us if she could. She immigrated from Ireland as a teen. Doilies were apparently a thing for her too.</p>
<p>I’m thinking it was more depression era related. My mom to this day still always keeps the plastic on the shades. </p>
<p>When I first moved on my own I realized you take the wrap off the shade and to this day I feel a little naughty every time I take off the plastic wrap.</p>
<p>Anyone with depression-era family keep money hidden in really odd places? </p>
<p>My grandparents owned an antique shop and we have all the old antiques in our basement that we inherited when they passed away. Not only did we find random bills stuffed in my grandparents’ stuff (both raised in the depression era) but I randomly find bills stuffed in antiques (people often sold the antiques after family passed away). Never really thought about a depression-era connection until now but it would make sense.</p>
<p>My best friend when I was a kid was from a traditional Italian family. Their living room furniture was all covered in plastic. I don’t remember the covers ever coming off - not even for the First Communion and Confirmation parties.</p>
<p>“Whether it was Hispanic families in my old NYC neighborhood; African-American classmates in same neighborhood, Harlem, and Bushwick; Jewish classmates in my neighborhood, Kips Bay, and the Lower East Side; Irish-American families in the Boston area; or Italian-Americans in various NYC and Boston neighborhoods…it seems the plastic covered furniture phenomenon was a widespread American phenomenon with a certain generation and socio-economic class.”</p>
<p>Well, here you go, cobrat. My Catholic grandmother and Jewish grandmother lived within a few blocks of one another in a working class neighborhood of a major east coast city. My Jewish grandmother had plastic covers on her furniture but was slovenly in general. My Catholic grandmother was a meticulous housekeeper and would never have put on plastic covers. What generalizations can you make of that?</p>
<p>I have glass on my nightstands, my dresser and on a really nice wood chest in my foyer and dining room. It protects the wood not just from spills but from fading in sunlight. I wasn’t aware it was d</p>
<p>I think glass is a good idea, although depending on the style of furniture and whether or not you have children/toddlers running around, acrylic might be a wiser choice. We had acrylic cut for the tops of the desks.</p>
<p>I took old endtables and redid the tops using recycled glass tiles, but glass would be more formal. I also have silk shawls/ runners on top of my rolltop desk & upright piano to slow down discoloration of the wood, because I want all the sun I can get, unlike my great aunt who kept her house dark. ( we use her bedroom set, but I keep the blinds down in the bedroom usually, unless we want to startle the neighbors)</p>
<p>I do have some silk/ plastic arrangements that I rotate out, but IMO, they look good, not faded & plasticky at all. Even though I am diligent with my garden, I am not good about keeping houseplants going. ( I take them outside when the weather warms up, and then forget to bring them back in)
:o</p>