Almost everyone has heard of the “blue plate special”, which is, in part, a nod to the Blue Willow line of dishes. The first documented history of the Blue Willow pattern was during the 1700s in England. Both Josiah Spode and John Turner are credited with the beginnings. Thomas Turner was the first to mass produce these dishes in transferware, making it affordable to the general populace. The pattern depicts the story of forbidden love between a wealthy man’s daughter and his secretary, whom the girl’s father deemed unworthy of her love. He banished the secretary and built a large fence to imprison his daughter while awaiting her marriage to an older man to whom he had pledged her. Enclosed behind the fence, along with the daughter, lay a pagoda, a pine tree, and willow trees. The father was furious to learn that his daughter, with the assistance of his banished secretary, had escaped her imprisonment and that the couple had fled across the sea. The father pursued them in a boat and, as he was about to have them killed, the couple were mysteriously transformed into a pair of turtle doves, allowing them to escape certain death. This story has inspired numerous books and plays, as well as over 500 registered manufacturers worldwide – 400 in England alone – of this treasured pattern! Distinguishing marks of true Blue Willow pieces include a pagoda, willow trees, a fence, a pine tree, a boat, a bridge with three people, and a pair of birds in flight. The “blue plate special” was popularly served on mass-produced Blue Willow and similarly patterned or solid blue plates in American and Canadian diners, with documentation extant from as early as the 1890s. This practice gained much popularity in the 1920s, just prior to the Depression. Prices for the “blue plate special” ran around 25 cents per meal for the offering of the day and no substitutions were typically allowed. Blue Willow is still a very popular pattern and continues to be highly sought-after today, with the Churchill pattern from the 1980s being one of the most popular. And now you know!