Antique kitchen tools
Whenever I haul out my food processor, Howard clamps his hands over his ears and a look of fear rises into his eyes. It’s a 1960s or 70s model, I believe, and it was handed down to me by my mother. It’s a big workhorse, to be sure, but it sounds like women screaming when it runs. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure the cats clamp their paws over their ears, too.
My shrieking, free love-era food processor isn’t the kind of antique tool I want to talk about today, though. I’m thinking WAY back, to the time when electricity was still only something God sent out of the clouds when he was angry; when kitchen tools weren’t made of that sissy stainless steel and teflon stuff, but of iron or copper or tin. I started thinking about this recently when Mom sent me an e-mail about my grandmother’s old cherry pitter (above). Here’s an excerpt:
“My neighbor asked me if I wanted some yellow sweet cherries. She was given a bucket full and had been pitting cherries all day and was tired. She said her fingers were sore and she just didn’t want to fool with any more. I said sure, I’ll take them. She handed me a bag of about 3 lbs. of cherries. Within ten minutes I had them all done. My secret weapon? Grandma’s Enterprise Cherry Stoner No. 2.! I don’t have a clue how old it is, probably older than Grandma because she got it from her mother, I think. It’s one of my most prized possessions and when I am done with it, it is yours. Grandma would have been very proud of you and I think she would have wanted me to give it to you.”
I poked around on the Internet for antique kitchen tools, because I was curious about whether there’s a community of collectors. Of course there is! There’s a community of collectors for just about everything. I read that some people call them “culinary antiques” or “vintage kitchenalia.” Check out this link to a site that talks about all of the many different objects considered worthy of collecting. I’ll bet we all have at least one old kitchen tool in our homes that we inherited from a relative or found somewhere.
Do you think these new appliances they are making today are going to be handed down to our great-grandchildren? I would bet not many will! Do you have an old kitchen tool you still use?
June 10, 2010 - 10:02 AM
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Maybe a Kitchenaid stand mixer or Vitamix blender could be handed down, just because they’re workhorse appliances that seem to last forever. I’m not sure I can think of anything else that might be handed down. We have a Whirley-Pop popcorn maker and I’ve seen some folks with far older ones than ours, but theirs are also more heavy-duty than our newer version.
Most of our kitchen stuff is fairly new, we don’t have any antique or vintage items at this point. Probably the reason is that we use things so often that they don’t get a chance to become antiques because they wear out! If new items were constructed like they were back in the day, then maybe some modern stuff would survive. When I was growing up, we still had a hand-crank mixer/beater that worked great, and we used it for a lot of things. It still survives today, it was constructed of heavy-duty iron so it is basically indestructible. Today’s gadgets have too much plastic and flimsy aluminum to be sturdy enough to last.
I have several old kitchen tools that I prize. Not as collectibles but as well made functioning items much more sturdy and efficient than their current counterparts. One is a dough raiser: a large metal bowl with an attached base and a lid designed to sit on the warming shelf of a cook stove. It protects the dough from drafts and drying out while sitting in the warmest spot in the kitchen. I don’t use a wood or coal fired cook stove but the warmest spot in my kitchen in the winter is still right next to the stove. I have several pieces of cast iron handed down from my grandma through my mom, and also several steel baking tins including two pizza pans from the days when you bought frozen pizza and it actually came on a metal tin. Mine are embossed with “Appian Way” on them. Mom repurposed them as cookie sheets and I use them for pizza, cookies, breads and a multitude of other things. They have outlived several high end cookie sheets I’ve had that just couldn’t stand up to hard use. I have a hand sifter that is probably from grandma and was my mother’s that I still use. I have a couple of pieces of kitchen furniture that see daily use as well. My favorite is an old Hoosier cabinet that is my baking center. It’s all original with a metal tag on the top that reads “Napanee Dutch Kitchenet, Copes Bros. and Zoom, Napanee, Illinois”. It has a large tilt out flour canister with an attached sifter, a full set of original glass canisters, a pull out table top, storage cabinets and drawers, a kneading board, a cutting board, a rack for extracts, and the original paper inserts with kitchen tips in the cabinet doors. It’s probably the single most useful piece of furniture I’ve ever owned and I treasure it. The other piece of kitchen furniture I use is a Monitor Ice Box. I found it too with all it’s original pieces intact. It’s been repurposed into my wine cellar and liquor cabinet by simply removing the racks and drip pans, placing accordion wine racks in the bottom food storage compartment and the liquor bottles in the top ice chest compartment. Since it’s insulated and enclosed it keeps the wines and liquors in the dark and at a reasonable storage temperature.
I have an old cast metal meat grinder that clamps onto a table to use. I only use it when making pepper relish, to grind the peppers and onions. I guess I could use my food prosser, but this is the way I have always done it and my mother before me.
I think you’re right, John, it’s all the plastic they use on products now. Heck, half of our cars seem to be plastic, too. I wonder how many modern cars will hold out and be antiques someday.
Rebecca, your antiques sound so cool! I would love to see a picture of your cabinet because it’s a bit difficult to picture it. I’ll bet it’s very unique.
David, what you describe is tradition. I’ll bet when you get out that meat grinder and make relish, you think of your mom the whole time.
We have a cast iron skillet that has been handed down for at least three generations. Not a trace of wear and just requires re-seasoning every few weeks. We use it nearly every day!
I was home for lunch today and watched an old episode of “Julia & Company” on the Cooking Channel. Julia Child was using a hand-cranked pasta roller that clamped onto the side of the counter like your mother’s cherry pitter.
I’ll bet that machine would work just as well today as it did in the 70s when Julia was rolling her own noodles.
(She dried her pasta on a broom handle propped up between the sink and a chair. She was adorably frugal.)
I really needed that cherry stoner last night!
I’ve also got an old meat grinder like david. I dug it out of a box from my mom recently and used it to make ground chicken for tacos. It turned out way better than purchased ground chicken. I’ve also heard that it’s great for making pimento cheese so that’s on my list to try next.
Rebecca, if you Google “Enterprise Cherry Stoner” you’ll see there are a few for sale on the Internet. The prices vary.
When I took the jam-making class at Jamisons’ Orchard, Dennis Jamison said he uses his meat grinder to mash up fruit for preserves.
Cast iron skillets are probably the best example of cookware that is passed down through generations. I had not even thought about that, Ron! We had a great discussion about cast iron on the blog back in January: http://blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/fridgemagnet/2010/01/25/the-truth-about-cast-iron/
I have a few very old kitchen items that I inherited from my grandma afer she died at the age of 91. An old flour sifter, a biscuit cutter that she got from her mother in law, a brown earthenware bowl that she used to mix her bread doughs in and a large roasting pan.
Rebecca, that cabinet sounds so cool. I remember my grandma having a cabinet with a built in flour sifter. It was thrown out when she got new cabinets. I’d love to have that.
You know what “old kitchen tool” I really wish I had more of? Those little coffee scoops that used to come in Chock Full O’Nuts coffee tins! I had scores of them before I moved to Virginia and dumped them all, except for one, thinking I would just get more here. Ha! Never happened as they ceased making them. I still have one green one and treasure it more than anything else.
I’ve got an old coffee mill that is from the 1920′s. I also have my mother’s – I don’t know what to call it, a juicer? – she used it to juice tomatoes and remove the seeds. It is a horizontal crank with a stainless bowl that is perforated. It’s not really what I consider an antique, as she got it sometime during the 60′s. I also have her apple peeler that her great grandfather used, and it is probably nearly a hundred years old. A little bit of silicone on the shaft once a year and it works flawlessly.
Cast iron? You know how I am about that…
The picture above of those yellow cherries surely looks enticing!
I don’t like yellow sweet cherries, too sweet for me.
Thanks Lindsey…I will check it out. I’m done for this year, but if I find one I will be ready next year. It is no fun seeding all those cherries by hand, but the cobbler was a hit a work.
I live in Low Moor on the farm where you dad used to have a garden.
Oh, Rebecca! Are you Mr. Irvine’s daughter?
Yes. I lived in Roanoke for twenty years and moved back to the farm in 2004. I love it here, but can’t understand how Dad kept up with everything that needs done.