pewter

He remembers two politicians who would eat together and regularly put in the same order: "Two working man's portions of your beef and two pewter mugs of your finest ales."

“A packet of red paste and a tea tray, which might be iron or pewter.”

“I love to create the feeling of the flower floating and defying gravity,” says the designer, who likes to begin with a vessel, often a silver pedestal bowl or oversize pewter julep cup, then adds blooms to double or triple its height.

The merchants who’d accumulated this newfound wealth got a taste for the good life: luscious, imported citrus and plump olives; salt and spices; rich pastries; young game meats and wine — all doled out using gold, ceramic and pewter serveware.

There was a claw-foot tub with pewter fixtures, a charmingly messy bookshelf window-seat, a kitchen painted a cool green.