Two Sable salad bowls, one gesture to repeat as each season begins: lay out seven greens, make a wish for those who will eat them, then bring them together. An old Japanese custom inspires the gesture; OrienX gives it a place at today's table.
Before the first meal
On the sand-coloured surface of the Saladier — Sable, seven small handfuls of greens still lie apart. Lamb's lettuce almost meets the rocket; watercress keeps its place; chopped herbs have yet to disappear into a dressing. Someone pauses to look at them before mixing. At that moment, the bowl receives a wish.
Why seven? In Japan, young herbs were traditionally chopped on the evening of 6 January to a song about finishing before the birds from China crossed the sea. Folklore recorded in Tottori tells of people striking the chopping board with a pestle or kitchen tools, symbolically driving away the birds and what they stood for. The next morning the herbs went into rice porridge, nanakusa-gayu. Eating it carried a wish for the family's health in the new year.
The song gave that wish something the hands could do: find the plants, gather them, cut them, and serve them to the family. An invisible intention passed through precise, everyday movements.
A wish takes the shape of a bowl
Inspired by that thought, OrienX proposes a contemporary ritual for its two Sable salad bowls. At the first meal of a new season, choose seven greens available nearby. In France, these might be lamb's lettuce, watercress, rocket, parsley, chervil, chives and mint. Set them in seven places in the bowl. Before mixing, think of those about to serve themselves: may the coming season keep you well.
This gesture needs an open shape. The 20.2 cm opening of the Saladier — Sable keeps all seven ingredients in view. At 5.5 cm high, it lets the eye follow the leaves to the bottom. Its rounded rim welcomes the hand that gathers them, while its broad foot steadies the bowl as they are mixed. With a capacity of 1.1 litres, it can hold the first tender leaves from a market or vegetables prepared for an ordinary meal.
The Grand saladier — Sable gives the same gesture a 25.6 cm opening and 2 litres of space. Leaves can stay whole, their seven colours and textures still distinct before the salad is tossed. Its low, open form makes the moment visible around the table: one person adds an herb, another pours the dressing, and the separate places become a meal.
On both pieces, the matte, finely speckled sand colour becomes, in this story, the pale soil of the wish; the seven greens are its first shoots. The image grows out of the bowls' real colour and returns each time they are filled. OrienX designs these two pieces, made by hand in Arita. Through their shape and this simple action, a wish carried by a Japanese custom finds a place in a French kitchen.
What the bowl keeps
By evening the seven greens will have been eaten. Neither their arrangement nor the words of the wish will remain on display. Yet the next time the bowl is taken from the cupboard, its open sand-coloured surface may recall where the leaves were placed, and the person one had in mind.
That is the role we give these two pieces: to bring a wish back whenever food is prepared. The small and large bowls hold the same gesture; choose according to the amount of greens that day. Repeated over time, a salad bowl can become a familiar place for care in the home. The seven herbs are not painted on the ceramic. They appear, fresh and different, whenever a new season begins.
Explore the Saladier — Sable · Explore the Grand saladier — Sable
The seven-herb custom is documented by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and the Tottori Prefectural Museum. The seasonal gesture proposed here is an OrienX contemporary creation. Cover: AI-generated editorial scene based on reference photographs of the Sable bowls; it is not a product photograph.