re-post)
On the radio the other day they reported that potato chips are the first thing people head for at a buffet. I thought about this for a moment, cast my mind and hands back to the three parties over the past few days (ah, the much of a muchness around Christmas!) and realized they were right! And then came the awareness on the "wonder why?" – chips and dips are pure nostalgia for me, likely for many others. Were they invented in the Fifties?
Those glass bowls, two tiered – remember? – certainly were. You put the chips in the large bottom bowl which sat in a wire rim and the dip in the matching small bowl held in its own wire perch just above.
I haven't seen one of those in years. But I did see what I thought was a somewhat later chip'n'dip server, the all-in-one plastic platter and bowl with the dip area in the centre around which you spread the chips, in the newly opened Nothing Over 99 cents (and they mean it!) store. But, alas, it was a feeding bowl/floor bib for a cat or dog. In retrospect it certainly could be used for chips and dip. Hmmmm. Pickle dip and ripple chips, in fact…