My mother in law and my parents have some Corelle® plates. I bought heaps of them. They come in different patterns but I just got ones that are pure white. They are fairly expensive but they are made in the USA.
Unlike any other non-plastic/metal plates I’ve seen, they are very thin and they’re “break and chip resistant”. My dad said that if they break they shatter into tiny pieces.
“It is made of Vitrelle, a tempered glass product consisting of two types of glass laminated into three layers”
They’re pretty tough but I have broken a few and they don’t shatter into safety glass pellets like you get from a car.
The oddest place setting experience I ever had was dropping a large, heavy stoneware platter from shoulder height, grasping at it twice on the way down but failing to connect, jumping back to avoid the obvious explosion of pieces, then seeing it bounce off the tile floor undamaged to almost the height of the counter top and explode on the second impact. Mom was pissed, probably even more so at how fascinated I was that it bounced than she was that I broke a 25 year old wedding present.
I’ve broken a plate and a bowl, and…well, let’s just say I were to be attacked by a gang of ninjas in my kitchen, the shards from one shattered *Corelle *plate could do more damage than any knife in my collection, and would be my choice as a weapon.
I know a dude who came back from Nam with a Corelle® plate in his head.
Yeah, they break into stabby shards of glass that are long. They’re not easy to break, but enough drops on a tile floor will eventually do one in. I think I’ve still got one of my mother’s bowls running around the house.
I have an affection for CorningWare and Corelle glass dishes too. Their translucent material has a different weight and ring to it that I find more pleasing than ceramics.
Back in the 70s when Corelle was new on the market, in Australia at least, my wife and I went to a home show. As we passed a fully set dining table she excitedly said, “Look there’s some of that unbreakable china.” She grabbed a plate and began to bash it vigorously against the corner of the table top. She was very impressed with its toughness - not a mark on it. At this point I noticed the brand name on the sign on the table and recalled that the unbreakable china, unlike this china, was made by Corelle. I guess all the folks watching with puzzled expressions simply put us down as inefficient vandals.
Hmm, you have opened a mystery. I am aware of Corelle, but haven’t actively thought about it in 20 years. But, when I opened your OP the link to Corelle on Wiki was used-link grey, not new-link blue.
Apparently someone has broken into my house, logged on to my computer, looked up dishes, then left without doing anything else. I assume it must be Russian spies looking for emails.
I was at a Men’s Town camping party years ago. One of our adventures involved driving to a dump and shooting up a case of Corelle® dinnerware, piece by piece. Fling a dish like a frisbee and pretend it’s a clay pigeon. Drunken hilarity for a $20 tip to the guy in charge there, who took a few shots himself.
My sister dropped a Corelle plate on the tiled kitchen floor and shards were driven into her leg upon impact. They may not break, but they do shatter.
My mom dropped a Corelle plate once and not only did it disintegrate into many shards, but the fragments lay vibrating on the floor for the longest time! It was truly bizarre!
I love my Corelle - we had a set of all white, and when we got bored with that, we got a set with a black pattern. I love some of the latest patterns and some of the different bowls and platters, but at this stage, I won’t be buying any more. We’ve got service for 12 and there are just 2 of us - we’d have to break an awful lot of dishes and bowls for me to justify the purchase of another set…
My wife loves them, but they are certainly not hard to break. It only takes one drop from counter height to shatter them. Even, as we found out the hard way, with a brand new one right out of the box.
I have what remains of the set that was given to my parents as a wedding or early-anniversary present. They’ve been married 47 years. And when I say “remains,” I mean “all the pieces that I have not deliberately gotten rid of because of disuse, like the teacups and the gravy boat.” I have dropped many plates multiple times, and never broken one.
Several years ago, one of my friends got into a huge fight with her boyfriend and came to my apartment, telling me she felt the need to break things. I handed her a good portion of my dishes, let her throw them off my balcony, and then went out and picked them up after she’d left.
We have a set of plain white Corelle dessert bowls. We feed the cats out of them because they won’t shatter if they bat them around a little.
I’m not all that fond of them because they stain more than glass should be capable of. I had a set that was mostly white with an iris pattern across it and man, I don’t know why but after a decade or so most of them were dingy and had streaks and spots that no amount of scrubbing would remove. Now I have dark plum stoneware. I do like the light weight of Corelle though, I have to say.
I used to be an adventurer like you, until I got a Corelle plate in the knee.
Plain white Corelle user here.
you can break em, but overall, I’ve had good results.
Now, if only they made a 2 quart baking dish…
More than 30 years after graduating from college, we’re still using the Corelle Spring Blossom set that I got for a graduation present. We’ve added to the set over the years (16 plates, all sizes of bowls, butter dish, shakers, platters, etc.) Haven’t broken but a few over the years. We’re not quite bored with them, but that might happen someday.
Now we’re finding that Corelle is showing up at antique shows and on eBay, like a newer version of Fiestaware. The problem is since they never break, they won’t be rare!
I worked at Walmart for years, decades actually. One of my favorite stories was when the store manager shooed us out of our office to berate someone in private. We were in this little anteroom waiting (me and my immediate supervisor and another coworker) and there was some Corelle bowls sitting in there.
I was telling the other women, 'Oh this Corelle stuff is GREAT! It’s unbreakable!" The other (older) women said “Oh bullshit.” “Nothing is unbreakable, don’t be stupid!”
I said, “No it is! Watch!” And proceeded to THROW (yes throw, not drop like a sensible person) a bowl onto the floor. Which are of course, cement.
It exploded like a damn ceramic grenade. The three of us screamed.
BOOM! The door to the office slammed open and I got yanked in and berated for not ‘acting professionally’. (I’m at Walmart? What am I, a lawyer.)
Then, for years, if we’d be walking around the store on our breaks or something, and we walked down the dish aisle, I’d here this–<pointing at the Corelle> Y’know, those dishes are unbreakable."
Me: “Oh shut up.”
That said, I have some of the plain white Corelle and I love it. I have nearly a full set of what I call ‘diner’ pattern–it’s white with a brown pattern on the rim. Plus the Blue Heaven china that I collect. I have way too many dishes for two people.
They’re great until they get dropped on a hard surface and turn into Claymore mines. You will need to wipe the floor with a wet paper towel after sweeping to get all the tiny spear like shards.
I love them too. They’re chip resistant no doubt about it, but if one shatters there are bits like needles, tiny needles embedded in the linoleum. It made a horrible mess and months later we still find bits.
But the good news is I handle them at least twice a day every day and I’ve only seen two shatter after at least 20 years of being clumsy with them.