Dining Bowls

Dining bowls in ceramic and porcelain — soup, cereal, pasta, dipping and dessert forms, from a 5 in dipping dish upward.

What size bowl for what?

Roughly: 5 to 6 in for dips, desserts and snacks; 7 to 8 in for cereal, soup and pasta; above 10 in it is a serving bowl rather than a personal one. A pasta bowl is wide and shallow rather than deep, which is why it holds more than it looks like it will.

Why is a pasta bowl shallow?

Width lets a sauce coat rather than pool, and it lets a fork turn. A deep bowl traps sauce at the bottom and gives the fork nowhere to work, which is why pasta is served in a wide shallow bowl and soup is not.

Which bowls go in the microwave?

Plain glazed ceramic and porcelain generally do. Anything with a metallic rim or a metallic lustre does not, and wood never does. Check the stated care for the piece rather than assuming by material — a gold-rimmed bowl is the common and expensive mistake.