You might think that a lot of your kitchen tools are completely normal, but then you realize that nobody under 40 has ever even owned one of them.
The little crank
It does feel satisfying. Your arm might give up pretty quickly, yes, but using a hand-crank egg beater makes it seem like you’re really baking something. They were all the rage before electric mixers took over.
No plugs, no electricity, just you, your hands, and that beater. Some of the older models even had wooden handles instead of metal ones. That’s how vintage they were.
The heavy clamp
You wouldn’t exactly leave a manual meat grinder in a cabinet. That’s mostly because there wasn’t any space for it. No, you’d clamp it onto the table, and it’d be one of the main attractions in your kitchen. There’s also something so interesting about watching stuff go in there.
Meat, vegetables, it doesn’t matter. You can’t tear your eyes away from seeing the food push through the front. These sorts of grinders were pretty popular in the past. But when it became easier to buy meat in grocery stores, a lot of meat grinders disappeared from the kitchen.
The covered piece
Some people think that a butter dish with a lid sounds boring. They’re wrong. Turns out, some of the best ones could be really fancy and were made of glass or even porcelain. They’ve got handles. They’ve got matching liners.
Altogether, they make the action of bringing butter to the table more of an experience. Peeling back a wrapper? That’s boring. Covered butter dishes make it seem way fancier than it really is.
The frozen bucket
Getting ice cream wasn’t always so simple. No, in the past, you had to use a hand-crank ice cream maker to get your fill, and you’d start by putting ice cream mixture into the middle canister. Next came the ice and salt packed all around it. Then came the hard part.
Cranking the maker sure was tiring, and there was no easy way to get around out, apart from asking someone else to do it. But then you wouldn’t get the satisfaction of making your own ice cream. That feeling rocks. Although, barely anyone would know how to use one these days.
The strange comb
Younger people would be forgiven for getting confused by cake breakers. They do look like something from a hair salon. But in reality, they’re meant to be used to separate soft and airy cakes. Use a normal knife? No way.
That’ll make a mess of all that fluffiness, and that’s not what you want. You could get older versions with Bakelite or silver-tone handles. It made them as fancy as they were practical, although they’re not as common anymore. People would rather buy cakes.
The little cups
Egg poacher pans really do look so unremarkable. They’re not. Yes, they look just like shallow pans with small cups, but they’re the only way to get your poached eggs looking perfect. Big, small, it doesn’t matter. They come in different sizes.
Unfortunately, many people don’t have the patience or skill to bother poaching eggs anymore. They’re certainly not going to buy something to help with it. But for the real chefs out there, egg poacher pans are the way to go.
The jar with teeth
It’s pretty obvious that nut grinders are vintage. After all, they come from a time when people believed in buying one tool for one tiny job, long before things like food processors were common. Having a nut grinder wasn’t all that strange.
You could get some with metal lids and little hoppers if you were really classy. But you won’t see them in most modern kitchens. What’s the point of buying one when a food processor does it all for you?
The shiny shape
Molded food used to be a whole event. That’s where copper gelatin molds came in handy. You could get them in all sorts of designs, like a special shape or maybe a ring. Gelatin that looks like flowers? No problem.
A lot of the more modern ones became wall decor instead of cookware because, really, nobody eats gelatin that way anymore. People don’t even make it at home, either.
The porcelain cup
Small, fussy, and vintage. You can’t beat an egg coddler. They came to the U.S. from Europe during the late 19th century, and some of them managed to survive all that time. Most of them are in museums now, though.
The ones with the floral patterns genuinely look like collectibles instead of something you’ll use in the kitchen. It’s not like they were rare luxury pieces or anything. Far from it. But they are a relic from a time when cooking and eating were a lot slower-paced.
The flat weight
Most kitchen tools today are pretty light. A bacon press certainly isn’t, and maybe that’s why it’s so vintage. It’s made from cast iron with a solid handle and no clever buttons or settings. The older ones also had wooden grips.
In old-school fashion, they usually had raised designs on top, perhaps of a pig or flowers. We do have grill presses today. But they’re nothing like bacon presses because these tools came from a time long before nonstick pans and the convenience of plastic packaging.
The breakfast holder
That’s not all for breakfast. In the past, your kitchen wasn’t complete without a toast rack because every breakfast item needed its own equipment, apparently. Plates and mugs were for regular people. Having a toast rack showed you had class.
It wasn’t all good news, though, because the toast racks made the toast cool faster. But it was a price worth paying. They give you the feeling of eating breakfast in a hotel.
The tiny bird
Anyone who has a pie bird probably held onto it because it’s cute. It’s only later that they found out that it was something to actually use. The simpler versions were known as pie vents or funnels, but the bird kind was the one that really stood out.
It even whistled when the pie was done. Imagine that. You could get some that were made of ceramic, too, and they made for some pretty cute kitchen collectibles. They’re way more interesting than a boring old sheet pan.
The cherry gadget
It’s no secret that canning was a lot more popular in the past than it is today. A manual cherry pitter came in handy for that. Whether you had a handheld one or one clamped to the table, they all did the same job. They’d take out the stone and keep the cherry intact.
Or, at least, mostly intact. You could never guarantee that all the cherries would survive. The whole idea of having a tool to take out cherry pits seems so vintage, and that’s why they’re not very common items today.
The cream jar
Can you get more vintage than a butter churn jar? Probably not. They’ve become a part of farmhouse decor for years, and for good reason, since they look so cozy. A lot of the Dazey-style churns have become collectible.
But they’re not really practical anymore. They come from a time when farm work and home kitchen work had more of an overlap. People had more patience in those days, too. Now it’s all factory butter and modern mixers, no churning needed.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
10 popular kitchen tools pulled from stores after safety issues
It’s wild how many totally normal-looking tools have ended up being pulled from shelves. These weren’t obviously “scary” items. They were just everyday things people used for years until, suddenly, reports of fires or hidden defects started piling up.
10 popular kitchen tools pulled from stores after safety issues
