I love sharing these heirloomed stories. I have so many treasures I’ve been passed down, or that I’ve collected over the years but as any good collector will tell you, the treasure is only as good as the story. So here is the story behind this vintage egg pan.
I talk often of my travels home and though it’s the longest part of the trip, the drive down 319 from Tifton to Tallahassee is one of my all-time favorites. It is scattered with tiny towns and whistlestops, a few thriving and many abandoned.
We always stop in the plantation town of Thomasville, GA because there is truly not many towns that are sweeter or more wrapped in tradition than it is today. There are several antique stores in town and my favorite is a must-stop each time we drive through. Shane just automatically turns into the lot as we drive through town.
I found this pan there after the owner had acquired a collection of pieces from the town’s famous Flowers Bakery that had since closed. Beautiful baking racks, sheet pans the size of my kitchen island, a few bread pans and several of these egg pans.
If you know me I tend to go more rustic and mainstream than this piece in my collecting. I mean, you can really only use this pan once a year around Easter time for it to make sense. Although my son did think the tiny breads I made last year were “footballs” so I guess we always have the Super Bowl to look forward to.
But as I talked to the owner of the shop about this collection she had come into, she told me more about the bakery and the legacy it had there in town. I really had my eye on the huge bakers rack, and was in the midst of building our home so was trying to reconfigure our kitchen in my head to make it work. But as she kept talking, she picked up one of these heavy pans and handed it over to me, surprising me by it’s weight and quality. The industrial pans are the best. But these egg treats were a specialty of the bakery, and the “can’t miss” item people loved to get when they went so at once I knew I had to take one home with me.
Sometimes the story does trump the piece, at least in my book. But I love pulling this pan out every Easter and making a carrot cake or white cake egg-shaped dessert for the kiddos. I imagine one day my daughter will have it in her own kitchen and think back on the tradition of having these each year. I’m sure Mrs. Flowers would smile knowing that here treats live on.
