French Country · Encyclopedia · Pottery and Earthenware
Cheese strainers
Perforated dishes used everywhere in France to drain curds before they became cheese. The book shows a five-lobed strainer from Ligron, a seventeenth-century Rouen faience piece and a Puisaye stoneware strainer with its stand.
French: faisselles · Ligron, Rouen, Puisaye
At a glance
- Use: draining curds
- Centers shown: Ligron (Loire country), Rouen, Puisaye
- Materials: earthenware, faience, stoneware
- Notable form: a polylobed rim
What they are
A faisselle is a pierced bowl or mould in which fresh curds drain. The word is still used in France for fresh cheese sold in its draining pot.
Three examples
At the center of the book's photograph is a fine polylobed strainer, its rim cut in five leaves, from the region of Ligron in the Loire country. In front is a seventeenth-century piece in Rouen faience, and behind is a strainer with its stand in stoneware from the Puisaye.
Collecting and using them
Check the pierced base for cracks. Faience strainers are rarer and more fragile than earthenware ones.
Hung on a wall or used to hold small plants, cheese strainers are a charming reminder of the farm dairy.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 130–135, with general background on the object. The book was published in 1995, so workshops, people and figures are described as they were then. Regional names and dates are given as the book records them; a style or a region of origin does not by itself date an individual piece.