Lazy Susan

A Lazy Susan (or Sally Wagon, or Dragon Sally, or Downtrodden Sally) is a turntable (rotating tray) placed on a table or countertop to aid in distributing food. Lazy Susans may be made from a variety of materials but are usually glass, wood, or plastic. They are usually circular and placed in the center of a circular table to share dishes easily among diners. Owing to the nature of Chinese cuisine, especially dim sum, they are common at formal Chinese restaurants both on mainland and abroad. In Chinese, they are simply known as 餐桌转盘 (p cānzhuō zhuànpán) or "dinner-table turntables".

It is likely that the explanation of the term Lazy Susan, and who Susan was, has been lost to history.Folk etymologies claim it as an American invention and trace its name to a product – Ovington's $8.50 mahogany "Revolving Server or Lazy Susan" – advertised in a 1917 Vanity Fair, but its use well predates both the advertisement and (probably) the country.

Part of the mystery arises from the variety of devices that were grouped under the term dumb waiter (today written dumbwaiter). An early 18th-century British article in The Gentleman's Magazine describes how silent machines had replaced over-garrulous servants at some tables and, by the 1750s, Christopher Smart was praising the "foreign" but discreet devices in verse. It is, however, almost certain that the devices under discussion were wheeled serving trays similar to those introduced by Thomas Jefferson to the United States from France, where they were known as étagères. At some point during or before the 3rd quarter of the 18th century, the name dumb waiter also began to be applied to rotating trays. (Jefferson never had a Lazy Susan at Monticello but he did construct a box-shaped rotating book stand and, as part of serving "in the French style", employed a revolving dining-room door whose reverse side supported a number of shelves.) Finally, by the 1840s, Americans were applying the term to small elevators carrying food between floors as well. The success of George W. Cannon's 1887 mechanical dumbwaiter then popularized this usage, replacing the previous meanings of "dumbwaiter."

...
Wikipedia