Why Did This Old Pot Have Such a Strange Spout?
Illustration: the peculiar spout of a posset pot.
At first glance, it looks like an unusually elaborate teapot. Two handles, a lid, and a spout that seems to curve much higher than necessary.
But this wasn't a teapot. It was designed for something people in England enjoyed centuries ago, and its unusual plumbing solved a problem most of us have never encountered.
What were they drinking that required such a strange invention?
A Drink With Two Personalities
Illustration: serving posset.
The answer is posset, a drink enjoyed in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hot milk or cream was mixed with wine or ale, often with sugar and spices. The acidic drink caused the dairy to separate, leaving a thick layer of curds or froth above a thinner liquid.
Actual posset pot, Lambeth Factories, London, ca. 1687. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 46.64.15. Public Domain.
A Clever Bit of Plumbing
Illustration: how the low-mounted spout reached the liquid beneath the curds.
A posset pot had a spout that connected low on its body, beneath the thick layer. The spout then rose upward, keeping the drink from simply running out when the pot stood upright. When the pot was tipped, the thinner liquid could be poured from below the froth. The thick portion could be eaten separately with a spoon.
Potters made these vessels in an astonishing variety of decorated forms. The unusual shape wasn't a whim: it reflected how people actually served and enjoyed the drink.
Actual Staffordshire posset pot, 1710, inscribed “The best is not too good for you.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 41.194.5. Public Domain.
A Forgotten Problem, Preserved in Pottery
Posset survives in the names of some modern desserts, but its old serving vessel has largely disappeared from everyday life. An antique pot that looks puzzling to us made perfect sense to its original owners.
Sometimes an invention looks strange only because we've forgotten the problem it solved.