A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, or consuming

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...

. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a

spherical cap In geometry, a spherical cap or spherical dome is a portion of a sphere or of a ball cut off by a plane. It is also a spherical segment of one base, i.e., bounded by a single plane. If the plane passes through the center of the sphere (forming a ...

, with the edges and the bottom forming a seamless curve. This makes bowls especially suited for holding

liquid A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...

s and loose food, as the contents of the bowl are naturally concentrated in its center by the force of

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

. The exterior of a bowl is most often round but can be of any shape, including rectangular. The size of bowls varies from small bowls used to hold a single serving of food to large bowls, such as

punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pun ...

bowls or

salad bowl A salad bowl is a serving dish for salad. It can also refer to: * Salad bowl (cultural idea), a cultural idea referring to the United States * Salad Bowl (game), a defunct, annual, post-season college football bowl game * Salad Bowl strike, a seri ...

s, that are often used to hold or store more than one portion of food. There is some overlap between bowls,

cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay, ...

s, and plates. Very small bowls, such as the tea bowl, are often called cups, while plates with especially deep wells are often called bowls. In many cultures bowls are the most common kind of vessel used for serving and eating food. Historically small bowls were also used for serving both

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

and

alcoholic drink An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The c ...

s. In

Western culture Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...

plates and cups are more commonly used.

Background

Modern bowls can be made of

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

, and other materials. Bowls have been made for thousands of years. Very early bowls have been found in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

and in certain Native American cultures. In

Ancient Greek pottery Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

, small bowls, including phiales and

patera In the material culture of classical antiquity, a ''phiale'' ( ) or ''patera'' () is a shallow ceramic or metal libation bowl. It often has a bulbous indentation ('' omphalos'', "bellybutton") in the center underside to facilitate holding it, ...

s, and bowl-shaped cups called kylices were used. Phiales were used for

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid, or grains such as rice, as an offering to a deity or spirit, or in memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures today. Various substa ...

s and included a small dent in the center for the bowl to be held with a finger, although one source indicates that these were used to hold

perfume Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...

rather than

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

. Some

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

examples from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

manifest elaborate decoration and sophistication of design. For example, the

bridge spouted vessel A bridge-spouted vessel is a particular design of ewer ( jug or pitcher) originating in antiquity; there is typically a connecting element between the spout and filling aperture, and the spout is a completely independent aperture from the usually ...

design appeared at the

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...

site of

Phaistos Phaistos ( el, Φαιστός, ; Ancient Greek: , , Minoan: PA-I-TO?http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/download/11991/4031&ved=2ahUKEwjor62y3bHoAhUEqYsKHZaZArAQFjASegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1MwIv3ekgX-SxkJrbORipd ), also transliterated as Phaestos, ...

. In the 4th millennium BC, evidence exists that the

Uruk culture The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after ...

of ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

mass-produced

beveled rim bowl Beveled rim bowls are small, undecorated, mass-produced clay bowls most common in the 4th millennium B.C. They constitute roughly three quarters of all ceramics found in Uruk culture sites, are therefore a unique and reliable indicator of the pres ...

s of standardized sizes. Moreover, in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

pottery, there are many elaborately painted bowls and other vessels dating to the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

period. , the oldest bowl found is 18,000 years old. In examining bowls found during an

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

dig in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, the

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

Vincas Steponaitis defines a bowl by its dimensions, writing that a bowl's

diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid for ...

rarely falls under half its height and that historic bowls can be classified by their edge, or lip, and shape.

Communal bowl

In many cultures, food and drink are shared in a communal bowl or cup. In

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

, the name of the town of

Bandiagara Bandiagara () is a small town and urban commune in the Mopti Region of Mali. The name translates roughly to "large eating bowl"—referring to the communal bowl meals are served in. Mainly on its Bandiagara Escarpment it has about 2,000 speakers ...

() refers to the

communal bowl A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom forming a seamless curve. This makes ...

meals are served in. The name translates roughly to "large eating bowl." In

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

sadza Ugali or Posho or sima (for others, see ) is a type of maize meal made from maize or corn flour in several countries in Africa. Sima is sometimes made from other flours, such as millet or sorghum flour, and is sometimes mixed with cassava flour. ...

is traditionally eaten from a

, a tradition that is still maintained by some families, mainly in rural areas. It is generally eaten with the right hand without the aid of

cutlery Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware), includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. The city of Sheffie ...

and often rolled into a ball before being dipped into a variety of condiments such as

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French word t ...

gravy Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with wheat flour or corn starch for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt (a simple mix of salt an ...

sour milk Soured milk denotes a range of food products produced by the acidification of milk. Acidification, which gives the milk a tart taste, is achieved either through bacterial fermentation or through the addition of an acid, such as lemon juice or vineg ...

, or

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. A stew needs to have raw ingredients added to the gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables and ...

vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...

Lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

is a popular boiled porridge made with rolled

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...

flour pellets (araw/arraw) typically topped at serving with sweetened

fermented milk Fermented milk products or fermented dairy products, also known as cultured dairy foods, cultured dairy products, or cultured milk products, are dairy foods that have been fermented with lactic acid bacteria such as ''Lactobacillus'', ''Lactococc ...

. It is usually served in a communal bowl or platter in

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 � ...

. In

, it is considered rude and unhygienic for a diner to use his or her own

chopsticks Chopsticks ( or ; Pinyin: ''kuaizi'' or ''zhu'') are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks of China, Chinese origin that have been used as Kitchen utensil, kitchen and List of eating utensils, eating utensils in most of East Asia, East and Southe ...

to pick up food from

s and plates when such utensils are present. Other potentially rude behaviors with chopsticks include playing with them, separating them in any way (such as holding one in each hand), piercing food with them, or standing them vertically in a plate of food. (The latter is especially rude, evoking images of incense or

joss stick Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be ...

s used ceremoniously at funerals.) In some cultures, the communal bowl has a set of social strictures, as evidenced by the Spanish idiom, " ¿Cuándo hemos comido en el mismo plato?" (English: When have we eaten from the same dish?).

Gallery

File:Large copper bowl. Dhankar Gompa.jpg, Large copper bowl.

Dhankar Gompa Dhankar Gompa (also Dankhar, Drangkhar or Dhangkar Gompa; ''Brang-mkhar'' or ''Grang-mkhar'') is a village and also a Gompa, a Buddhist temple in the district of Lahaul and Spiti in India. It is situated at an elevation of 3,894 metres (12,7 ...

File:A Replica of Arjan bowl.jpg,

Ancient Iran The history of Iran is intertwined with the history of a larger region known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian S ...

ian bowl called Jam-e Arjan File:Bowl MET DP243440 (cropped).jpg, Ancient Egyptian bowl; 200–150 BC; faience; 4.8 × 16.9 cm (1.9 × 6.7 in);

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(New York City) File:Clevelandart 1949.561.jpg, Nasca bowl; c. 100 BC; earthenware with colored slips; diameter: 12.8 × 17.7 cm; overall: 13 cm; from

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

;

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

(

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, USA) File:Roman, 1st century - Ribbed Glass Bowl - 2009.474 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif,

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

ribbed bowl; 1st century AD; glass; diameter: 6.5 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art File:Southwest, Mogollon, Mimbres, Pre-Contact Period, 11th-12th century - Bowl with Pronghorn Antelope and Geometric Design - 1930.50 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Mogollon bowl with a pronghorn antelope and geometric designs; 1000–1150; earthenware; diameter: 31.2 cm, overall: 12.5 × 32 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art File:Korea, Goryeo period - Bowl with Lotus Petal Design in Relief - 1942.721 - Cleveland Museum of Art.jpg, Korean bowl with a lotus petal design in relief; 1100 (

Goryeo period Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unificati ...

); porcelain celadon ware; Cleveland Museum of Art File:China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen kilns, Qing dynasty (1644-1912), Yongzh - Bowl - 1940.956 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Chinese bowl; 1723–1735 (

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

); porcelain with doucai decoration; diameter: 11.8 cm, overall: 6.4 cm; from the

Jiangxi province Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hi ...

(China); Cleveland Museum of Art File:Bowl (jatte à anses relevées or jatte écuelle) MET DP169254 (cropped).jpg, French Neoclassical bowl (jatte à anses relevées or jatte écuelle); 1787–1788; hard-paste porcelain; overall: 7.6 × 25.4 × 19.1 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Derby (Crown Derby Period) - Bowl from Dessert Service- Smaller Yellow Lily - 1989.189.20 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Bowl, part of an English dessert service; c. 1800; porcelain; diameter: 22.8 cm, overall: 5 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art File:Khalili Collection Islamic Art pot 1556.1.jpg, 10th century bowl from Nishapur, Iran. Decorated in folk style, depicting

Buraq The Buraq ( ar, الْبُرَاق "the lightning") is a heavenly equine or chimeral beast in Islamic tradition that notably served as the mount of the Islamic prophet Muhammad during his Isra and Mi'raj journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and up ...

Khalili Collection The Khalili Collections are eight distinct art collections assembled by Nasser D. Khalili over five decades. Together, the collections include some 35,000 works of art, and each is considered among the most important in its field. Among these ...

Background

Communal bowl

Gallery

See also

Notes

References

External links