I’m slowly losing my dinner plates one by one. They get a crack that starts on the edge, almost in the middle of the plate, that slowly creeps across the plate until it eventually snaps in two. I’ve even had a couple matching sandwich plates do the same.
Yesterday we were eating watermelon and discovered juice dripping through the crack and wetting my dads pants. It’s already about half-way across the plate. It’ll snap in two before much longer.
These are the standard ceramic/pottery plates. My mom bought them one by one at her grocery store thirty years ago. Buy $xx of groceries and you could buy a plate, saucer, sandwich plate, coffee cup for a huge discount. She put together a full 8 piece set in about a year. She gave it to me almost ten years ago.
I’m wondering if the microwave is responsible? We never use a cold plate in the microwave. But the food we heat up is cold.
Or is this cracking normal with plates. Every day use, dishwasher etc.?
It could be the microwave. It sounds like all the plates have the same potential flaw in them. If they develop a tiny crack you can’t see, water can seep in there. Then the microwave heats the water and that exerts pressure on the crack.
If any of your dishes have a crack in them, go ahead and toss them out. Those cracks can hold bacteria. Plus you wouldn’t want one to break in half while you were holding a full dinner on it taking it to the table.
Anyway, the heavy duty restaurant ware plates should hold up better in the microwave. They actually cost about the same as the cheap, new plates at Walmart.
If you’re gonna buy something for use in the microwave, you probably should avoid vintage. Until microwaves became common household items, many ceramic glazes contained metals, making them unsuitable for mw use. Grab something cheap and new from a discount store for nuking stuff, and save vintage wares for serving.
My parents has a set of 70s plates that all spontaneously cracked in half, one by one over the years – and this was before they had a microwave. One small plate audibly divided in two under my fingers while I was reaching for my sandwich. I think some 70s ceramics were just made in a way that left them under stress, or something.
I had the exact same thing happen to me after I bought a set of nice old plates at a flea market. After having two plates crack mysteriously, I realized that it was the microwave.
I checked the label on the back of the plates and they are labeled Microwave Safe. The brand is Woodhaven Stoneware. Mom said she got them in 1979. Microwaves were just getting common in homes.
Someone above mentioned moisture getting into a tiny crack and then water expansion breaks the plate in the microwave. That may be what happened. After 30 years use, there could easily be cracks in the glaze I didn’t notice until the microwave made them much worse.
Time to use a cheap plate to heat the food. I don’t want to lose anymore plates.
My plates are all Corelle - I’ve been using them for years (and it’s hard use - I’m a little bit clumsy) and they’re still fine (with the odd tiny chip on the edge). I take 'em straight out of the fridge and right into the microwave - no problem.
Some just plain lie. My fiancee brought some Ikea plates that said “Microwave Safe” into the relationship, and the first time I ever tried to use one it blistered my finger it got so hot.
Corelle is great, but if you ever drop one, oy, do the slivers go everywhere.
My plates are oven-safe, but that doesn’t mean I can grab them straight out of the oven. It just means they won’t be damaged by the oven. Microwave-safe means the same thing.
I think the 30 years part may be important. My husband was just wondering the other day where all of our stoneware plates have gone. I told him, “We’ve been married 23 years, and we got those as a wedding present. 23 years of microwaves, dishwashers, kids, tile floors, dogs, moving house 3 times…how long did you think they’d last?”
I use Jet-Dry in my dishwasher (we have very hard water here) and open the door as soon as the cycle is over - my dishes come out just fine without heated dry.
I got lucky. My exact pattern was available on ebay. I bought some replacement plates and even a big bowl that I dropped & shattered twelve years ago. The company had just discontinued this pattern a few years ago. There was still stock left.
For the most part, that gets our dinner set back & nearly complete. There’s a lot of sentimental memories and we didn’t want to throw out the old and get an entirely new pattern.
Now, we just have to heat food on a plastic plate and not our stoneware.
I’ve heard the advice not to reheat foods in plastic containers because of concerns that phthalates or BPA (Bisphenol A) might leech into the food. Instead you might use Corelle dishes, which don’t have either of those. (Some brands of disposable plastic containers don’t contain them either.)
