Antique kitchen tools, such as hand-cranked apple peelers, have become increasingly popular in recent years due to the rise of rustic, shabby chic, and retro trends. These tools remind us of a time when kitchen tools were not only functional but also had character and style. Etsy is filled with shops selling vintage kitchen gadgets and retro appliances, showcasing the unique blend of practicality and absurdity that once characterized kitchen gadgetry.
When searching for vintage kitchen gadgets, it’s essential to keep authenticity in mind. Research the era and find items that are not only functional but also have character and style. For example, Skyline utensils can be revamped by unscrewing the handle, allowing for easy priming and painting in any color.
Cooking utensils with painted wood handles were once pervasive, with red and green being the most easily-to-find colors. Antique wooden kitchen tools can be painted or left plain, and some items may have wooden handles. Brightly painted cooking utensils of the 1920s brought the first dab of color into American kitchens, with apple green leading the cutlery color wheel.
In conclusion, these vintage kitchen tools are not only functional but also have character and style. It’s important to keep these treasures in mind when searching for vintage kitchen gadgets and to cherish your family’s treasures.
📹 VINTAGE KITCHEN GADGET TEST — Do They Work?
They don’t make ’em like they used to. I’m test a bunch of vintage kitchen tools to see if they really work. New videos every …
What is a hand painted kitchen?
A hand-painted kitchen is a style where cabinets and door fronts are primed and painted according to the home owner’s preference. These styles can be traditional, cottage, weathered, or sleek and contemporary. Some popular hand-painted kitchen finishes include Avoca In-Frame in Rathfarnham, Dundrum, Milltown, Family Home in Greystones, New England In-Frame in Templeogue, Roundwood, and Castleknock.
Other popular finishes include Shaker in-Frame in Newcastle, Lucan, Lucan, Platinum Shaker in-Frame, Contemporary Style in Kilquade, Shaker in-Frame in Dundrum, Glenegeary, Steped Shaker in Howth, and Platinum Stepped Shaker in Tinahely.
What gadgets were used in the kitchen in the 1970s?
The author’s collection of kitchen implements all seem to belong to the 1970s, with items like a soda stream, coffee percolator, and electric carving knife. These gadgets were often on display to impress visitors and never used. Other popular items in a 1970s kitchen include a toasted sandwich maker, pressure cooker, hand-held whisk, soda stream, and spice rack. However, the author believes they are ahead of the game and on trend. According to large department stores like John Lewis, 1970s kitsch is making a massive comeback in food and décor.
The upmarket magazine Country Living reported that 1970s kitchen wallpaper is creeping back on the market. Terracotta floor tiles and the hostess trolley are also back in fashion. Steamers, teasmades, and yogurt makers are back in fashion in cool vintage styles. Sales of old classics like prawn cocktail, Arctic roll, chicken Kiev, and angel delight have significantly increased lately. Waitrose has also seen a growing trend in retro dinner party recipe searches on its website since lockdown. The author has begun to make jelly with prosecco or margarita mix instead of water and topped with fresh coconut and caramelized pineapple.
What were two hallmarks of a 1950s kitchen?
In the 1950s, kitchens were characterized by bright pastels, bubble-shaped appliances, and colorful linoleum, creating charming spaces for families. However, design aspects have evolved over time. Brightly colored steel cabinets were popular, while particle board cabinets gained popularity in the 1970s due to affordability. Many homeowners opted for a rustic vibe with knotty pine cabinets. Formica countertops with metal banding were common, and colored appliances were popular to match the cabinets. The yellow and blue dishwashers of the 1950s are now rare.
How can you tell if something is hand painted?
Italian ceramics are hand-painted with fine brushstrokes, whereas Deruta pottery is individually handmade, resulting in unique pieces with minor variations and imperfections. Such imperfections serve to illustrate the artist’s manual technique and do not diminish the piece’s intrinsic value. It is advisable to exercise caution when encountering objects that appear to be excessively perfect.
How to tell a giclee from an original?
Giclee prints are a popular type of art reproduction, created using digital scanning in Los Angeles, CA. They capture high-resolution images with a minimum of 300 dots per inch, providing a greater level of detail in each area. The ink and paper used for these prints must be high-quality and considered “archival”, with pigment-based inks and canvas, specialty printing paper, or watercolor paper designated as such.
The printers used for these prints generally need to be larger models that can hold up to 12 ink cartridges, allowing for a wider range of colors to be produced. Giclee prints are generally higher quality reproductions, making them more expensive than other types of prints.
Artists are increasingly offering reproductions to maximize the money one can get out of a piece of art. Giclee prints allow thousands of people to purchase a piece of art at a lower price than they would otherwise have to pay for the original.
What is a hand painted lithograph?
A hand lithograph is a method of creating an image through direct drawing on a flat surface with a lithographic crayon or pencil. The image is then chemically treated to set the crayoned lines, after which an oil-based ink is applied to adhere to the surface.
How can you tell a vintage lithograph?
Lithographs are unique prints that are created using the immiscibility of grease and water when they come into contact with one another. Hand-pulled lithographs typically have a signature on the back, while offset lithography prints and reproductions do not. To distinguish lithographs from other printmaking processes, collectors should look for rows of dots and a dotted circular pattern in rows. The word “lithograph” comes from the Greek words “lithos” meaning “stones” and “graphien” meaning “to write”.
This printmaking process is unique because it more closely resembles painting than other printing methods, such as etching and other forms of imprints. Understanding the key characteristics of lithography is essential for those considering collecting lithographs.
What were the kitchen trends in the 60s?
The 1960s saw a shift in kitchen design, with women embracing brighter colors and open spaces for entertaining. The 1970s saw sleeker, more relaxed kitchens with white walls and neutral flooring, with warm woods replacing painted steel. Modern high-end kitchens featured built-in ovens, laminate countertops, and avocado green or harvest yellow appliances. The 1980s saw the Cook’s Kitchen, featuring oversized seating nooks, hanging pot racks, and creative backsplash tile.
The trend of watching celebrity TV cooking shows demanded a variety of kitchen gadgets, cookbook shelves, wine racks, and Cuisinearts. These kitchens reflected the changing tastes and preferences of the time, showcasing the evolution of kitchen design.
What home decor style was the 70s?
The 1970s saw a blend of bohemian and disco styles, promoting self-expression and individuality. Interior design choices should reflect this spirit, with earthy tones and rich jewel hues dominating the color palette. Natural materials like rattan, macramé, and wicker can create a boho chic vibe. Embrace the disco glam by incorporating mirrored surfaces, bold prints, and statement lighting fixtures.
Furniture design should also embrace comfort and relaxation, with plush sofas, oversized armchairs, and hanging chairs making a statement. Mirrored surfaces, metallic accents, and vibrant patterns became focal points during the disco era.
How to tell the difference between a painting and a lithograph?
Lithographs and paintings differ in their surface, signature, color saturation, and color shifts. Lithographs have a flat, smooth texture with uniform lines and colors due to the printing process, while paintings have varied textures, visible brushstrokes, and a three-dimensional quality. The presence of texture is a strong indicator of an original painting. Artists’ signatures, usually in pencil, provide insights into the authenticity and origin of the piece.
Lithographs may also have edition numbers or impressions indicating the total number of prints made from the original plate. Color saturation is another key factor, with lithographs having more consistent color saturation throughout the print, while paintings often exhibit subtle color shifts, gradients, and nuanced tonal variations, showcasing the artist’s hand in mixing and applying pigments.
What was the trend in the kitchen in the 70s?
In the 1970s, kitchen design trends included the use of tile backsplashes, embossed linoleum flooring, colorful foil wallpaper, wood cabinets, avocado-colored appliances, and the incorporation of new technological features into the kitchen.
📹 Repainting vintage kitchen utensils
These are three of the wooden handled utensils I have picked up recently to use in my kitchen. Wooden handled utensils were …
Thanks for letting me know I am officially OLD now; I knew what those gadgets were! Concerning the lemon press… Did you know that from the mid-1800s well into the early 20th century, serving tea was nearly an art form? It was as much about class and status as the tea itself. So fancy gadgets designed to, say, keep your well-heeled guests from squirting acidic citrus juice into their eyes or staining their gloves or dresses showed even more class and panache. Just a fun fact! And you have the nicest smile!
I watched my grandmother use the egg whisk in her kitchen when I was a child. She didn’t use it in a bowl, however. After frying the bacon, she would add the eggs to the hot skillet, then a little milk and seasoning. She then whisk it continuously until the eggs were fluffy. I remember her scrambled eggs were always so light and airy.
Someone else might have mentioned this but I didn’t read ALL the comments to find out. Regarding the pie crimper: you didn’t try the little knife edge which works great for cutting the dough. Also, you missed the opportunity to use the devise on the reverse side from the crimping wheel. The little design of 2 arcs and 2 dashes is for pressing into the top crust dough several times (before lifting from rolling surface) to make the steam vents. I have this gadget and use it quite often – because pies are the best of foods!
I think on the cheese slicer the tines are to give you uniform cheese slices. if you turn the slicer 90 degrees so that it’s parallel to the table and the tines are pointed at the cheese they will act as guides keeping the slices even an uniform. Also, the end of the jar opener is a can opener. The big side goes inside the rim of the can and the small side hooks against the bottom outside edge of the rim. then you pry against it forcing the large side into the can. Do that all the way around to open the can. Thanks for a great article!
The lemon wedge juicer I recall from my grandmother’s home, maybe 1970’s. A time when women were obsessed with putting lemon on their salads. I wouldn’t think that you would have had more than one of these–ladies had their salads and a bowl of fresh lemon slices on the table. Love that you do these vintage kitchen gadgets articles!
You are so good at this.. and Yes the citrus juicer end screw.. is more for citrus used for alcoholic mixed drinks…. You roll and squeeze the citrus before inserting the ‘juicer’. Then you just squeeze as you go. At least that is what I have learned from research… and Yes… fish recipes used this to get lemon for them..
The cheese slicer, when held with the “hoop” horizontal, the tines act as a thickness gauge. When held with the hoop vertical, the tool now becomes a cake breaker, for cutting and separating cake wedges. And, I seem to remember seeing in a survival guide a similar device that looked a lot like the orange juicer. It turned fruits of that sort into a canteen. By keeping the peel intact, the fruit wouldn’t dry out and rot very fast.
I really enjoy hunting for vintage Gadgets because some of them are so hilarious and funny …and I kept smiling at all of these really unique pieces as somebody had taken lots of time in thinking them up . And all of them worked really well so we can say that they were successful. I like the bottle opener and the egg whisk very much. Thank you for this article. My grandmother bought that juicer in 1953 in England when things were made of orange coloured Bakelite and not lethal plastic. 60 years later during one of my annual visits there I was .’inspecting ‘ her kitchen chests to see which things I could “borrow accidentally on purpose…” grandma what did you use that for ..do you really use it now “and so on and so forth… until she got really exasperated and would say, I don’t use it, take it! These ruthless steps had to be taken because I knew that if I did not get these vintage items in my hand some other light fingered relative who would not appreciate their value would just walk away with them and never use them ever ever ever again. I think my Instinct was working overtime here because this was the only piece of Vintage stuff from her chest of drawers “”rescued by me because the next time I went to her place,she was dead aged 96 the whole kitchen had been cleaned out including her priceless wedgewood crockery and Limoges collection…nobody knows where it is and others are not telling… it happens in the best of families! Regardless of whatever we think that we have all the time in the world and we will say something or do something next time it doesn’t happen that way.
For the jar opener, you can use the bottle opener part to open jars that are too big for the jaws. The trick to opening any jar is to break the vacuum seal, so a bottle opener works wonderfully if a jar opener, grippy pad, or beefy-handed helper isn’t available. Just hook it under the rim like you would a bottle cap! 🙂
You mentioned that the cheese slicer has a Bakelite handle – if it does, that means that it is probably from the 1940s or earlier. Bakelite was patented in 1909 in Belgium and was very popular in the early part of the 20th century, especially for costume jewelry. It was phased out in the 1940s for the most part as manufacturers switched over to plastic instead.
most likely the lemon wedge juicer would be something either a chef or bartender would use, just because it looks nice and no seed worries. Once a seed falls in, its mighty hard to fish it out of someones drink or off their entree. Loved all of these gadgets and now I might even be able to pick out some of these from the local goodwill store. I actually have a plastic version of the orange juicer, but it was free in bags of lemons years ago. I think the plastic would be better because if you dont use all the juice you can simply save it still inside the lemon/citrus fruit, where with that metal one its probably a bad idea due to chemical reactions between the citric acid and metal. Works perfectly with lemons though especially for cooking which I use a lot of lemon in dinner meals.
Growing up in Florida we had the last juicer you used but they were plastic and orange. They work really well with smaller oranges than the kind you used. We used to pick the oranges in my grandmas backyard then she would microwave them for like 10 seconds and roll them hard on the counter before twisting the sipper in for us. We always got lots of a juice out of them and it kept us and her house clean from the mess oranges and little kids can make.
I love vintage kitchen items. The things of the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s were made to last a lifetime in contrast to the disposable plastic junk of today. Now with eBay you can even find a lot of things NOS! I have a lot of vintage gadgets and kitchen items from great American brands like Foley, Pyrex, Revere Ware, Tupperware, etc. Some are still around today but most of their products pale in comparison to the products of their past.
Nice one Emmy. We used to have a plastic version of that screw-in juice extractor made by Tupperware. I think the idea was that you cut a plug out of the peel with the toothed bit and then pulled it out and threw the plug away before putting it back in again and screwing it down. Being plastic it broke eventually of course.
You did pretty well with the gadgets… but the cheese slicer was made to slice larger hunks of cheese into slices. I mean the size you used, should be turned sideways. Then you could get the full use of the tool. Also, the orange juicer does much better and you get more juice, if you squeeze and roll the orange first, before inserting the juicer.
the orange juicer needs a bit of refining….you roll the orange several times to loosen the pulp and juice and then you screw it in off to the side so you’re away from the white pith. Many versions came with an attached top so you could seal it back up and keep a lemon in the frig for future use. My mom used one to give juice to my sister when she was a baby, drinking straight out of the orange. And the cheese slicer is from the ’30s…the bakelite handle gives it away…
The juicer you showed near the end is made more for squeezing a little juice out of a lemon or lime, then leaving it for more use later. You also need to remove the cut-out circle of rind before screwing it all the way into the fruit. Pampered Chef made a plastic version years ago that included a cap over the end that strained out the seeds and sealed the fruit, along with a storage container to keep the lemon in the refrigerator until it was needed again. It was called the Lemon Aid. I used to sell Pampered Chef at home shows and I once left the lemon in the container after the demonstration and forgot all about it until the next show. Boy, did that smell horrible when I opened it up again a week later!
The first juicer, the plastic one, would be found near a household bar for adding fresh lemon or lime use to cocktails. Today they are made out of stainless and mine is in the shape of a bird. The last item, the other juicer, isn’t for juicing oranges to drink the juice. Rather it is for having fresh juice to add to recipes. Squeeze the amount needed and put back in fridge nail needed again. Today’s versions are stainless with small blade like metal to aid in screwing it into fruit. I put a cork in mine before I put into fridge. Hope this helps! Oh! The wisk! I have a collection and the version you have was quite popular!
This article made me feel old old old. I’m only 63 and I knew what every single gadget was for and how to use them. Oh man Between my mom, my grandfather and some country gardening, canning great aunts, they covered them all. Nice to see them again the remakes of the cheese slicer isn’t nearly as good and neither is the orange juicer. New ones are chintzy plastic. You do still find these things at flea markets, estate sales and auctions.
OHMYGOD. DID I JUST… WAAHH I CANT BELIEVE IT.. I WAS ON 4TH GRADE WHEN IM SO ADDICTED TO POPIN COOKIN AND OMG. I JUST FOUND OUT TOUR website AGAIN AND I WAS LIKE “eait I know this youtuber she’s seems so familiar” AND THEN I REALIZED THAT YOU ARE MY FAV. POPIN COOKIN REVIEWER. WAHHH. I STALKED YOUR YOUTUBE ACCOUNT. AND PROVED THAT IT IS YOU 😭😭. skl
This is an awesomely entertaining vid, thanks! I go to a lot of antique shops, and the other day I ran across a Sunkist orange juice squeezer made of that green depression glass. It works great and we’ve been drinking fresh hand-squeezed orange juice almost everyday using our California oranges. Another feature of this glass is that it fluoresces bright green if you shine a UV light on it in a dark room. Very impressive but supposed to be non-harmful (hopefully, ha!).
The cheese cutter you used wrong. Hard to explain but the 2 “pokey” rods are used to make sure you always get the same thickness cheese slices. Turn the cheese up standing, lay the cutters “rods” on the cheese or butter block, with the wire facing away from you, and Drage the cutter in towards yourself. Hope it makes sense 😅❤️❤️❤️ Love these shows Emmy! 😍
You are using it wrong. – The FLAT egg-whisk is for use in deep plates (or flat bowls). Didn’t you notice that you only used about 1/3 of the egg-whisk (front tip only, basically) when trying to whisk eggs with it in a deep bowl? Large deep earthenware bowls were quite expensive for a worker’s budget 50+ years ago, so it was cheaper to buy a flat egg-whisk (that lasted long because it was difficult to break) and use it to whisk eggs in soup-plates, which one had at home as a matter of course and which were much cheaper to replace, if broken, than a large bowl. Edit: roll and press the orange/lemon BEFORE you insert the juicetractor, that way you get more juice out (works every time, not just with the juicetractor).
I don’t know if it’s vintage or not, but I have a palm sized, hinged, metal dumpling press that speeds up the process of making dumplings a lot faster than just using your hands and pinching the dough together. You just place a certain sized circle of rolled out dough (or you can use pre-made eggroll wrap dough) on top of it, add the filler meat and veg or whatever you want inside your homemade dumplings, move the left and right handles towards the middle and gently squeeze and release. Easy to use, edges are securly pinched closed, and you’re dumplings are ready to be steamed or fried. YUMMY!
I’m in love. If you put me in a room and tortured me for 10 years I couldn’t tell you anything about it or what its subject was except for the gorgeous host. 🙂 EDIT: Omg she even said “lickity split”! On a serious note a love married women who dont wear a diamond in favor of a band – particularly wealthy women. So classy. Understated class: “Yes, I’m married and yes we are wealthy. But I love my husband because of who he is – not what he makes.” But I digress.
Hi, Emmy! For big-lidded jars I find hard to open (the woes of a small-handed person!😑😫) I wrap a regular old rubber band around the lid until it won’t slide anywhere, and then I open the jar. Always does the trick! I heard you can also use rubber gloves to open jars, but since I don’t have any, I’ve never tried that.
As a note for the orange juicer – you’re supposed to remove the initial core before threading it in all the way, leaving a pocket for the juice to be squeezed into. My family had a plastic model as a kid, and smooshing and squeezing OJ right in the orange was breakfast bliss. Also, love the Opinel as a kitchen tool! A No. 8 Gardening lives in my pocket everyday, and it occurs to me much of my frustration with chef’s and pairing knives would be alleviated with a nice No. 10 carbon, well tended, in the gadget drawer. You’d be a blast to go flea-marketing with. Thanks for the vid!
Back in the mid-life 60′ my family went to Florida for vacation in pre-Disney Fl you went to things like Alligator Farms, places where swimmers dressed in mermaid costumes who swam underwater and you’d watch kinda like the way you’d watch polar bears swimming and Orange Groves. And I was only 4 but remember Dad buying us an orange from the vendors set up around the different parks and with the orange they’d insert a green plastic OJ gadget like your last gadget. Every one you’d see was walking around sucking on them, lol. I remember my mom bringing a lot of them home with us and using them for years! My friends always got a kick out of them,lol! You brought a great memory back to me, so thank you! Most of the other gadget’s were in either my mom’s kitchen drawer and/or my Nanies. They don’t make things that last that long anymore but I still have & use gadgets that are over 100 years old and they’re still going strong🍊😉
I love vintage kitchen tools, I actually own that exact same cheese slicer with the Bakelite handle, the whisk, and that pie crimper! I have a different kind of jar opener that I absolutely love, it has a twisty knob on top and jaws that open wide enough to open even big jars. I have arthritis in my hands so it has saved many curse words! I really like that lemon squeezer, I’ll be on the look-out for one of those. I use these old gadgets because they really do work better than modern ones. Great presentation! First of your articles I’ve seen, but won’t be the last. I subscribed immediately
Only vintage kitchen tool I have is a big-ass carving knife curved like a freakin scimitar, with sharpening steel. Was the only knife in Mom’s kitchen I wasn’t allowed to touch as a kid—after she passed, cleaning her place out, clear as day, when I picked it up I could hear her in my head “For God’s sake be careful–you’ll cut your arm off” lol. And yes, it’s still sharp af.
With the cheese slicer… from the camera angle, it looks like the tines don’t reach all the way to the cutting wire… could they be (thickness) guides? Rather than slicing downward, perhaps it’s meant to glide along the top of the block, with the tines riding along the top to create slices of uniform thickness? (Sorry if this has already been mentioned… I didn’t have time to read all 1500+ comments… but of the few I did read, I agree: What a beautiful voice… and it would be wonderful for narrating children’s books!)
In the late 1960s a company (Sunkist?) made plastic versions of the orange juicer. My mother bought about 3-4 of them (they were cheap). As kids we loved twisting them into oranges & drinking the juice. Oranges & tangerines were cheap in the winter, & my mom made sure we always had plenty of them in the house. (Sunkist?) also made plastic orange peelers which were fun to use & made peeling oranges & tangerines easier for little fingers. These gadgets helped get us kids to eat more fruit.
I see Youtubers that won’t even get up and grab an object they are talking about in their article because they are so lazy. Or can’t even take the time to google information like price or size so they just guess or say IDK. Yet Emmy is over here whipping up a whole pie to test a pie crimper for a 5-second shot. lol Never change, YouTube needs you, Emmy!!!
My mom used to collect antique kitchen tools and decorated the walls of her kitchen and laundry room with them. The green handle of the whisk was popular in the ’30’s/’40’s and the bakelite handle cheese cutter may be that old as well! The lemon squeezer is probably the newest of them all, im guessing ’60/’70’s
What memories your egg whisk brought. It works best whipping large flats (skillets, stirring egg drizzle into soups, etc. (at home we used ladder-style potato mashers for blending fruits in deep-round baking or mixing bowls. We also cheesecloth wrapped it with spices like crab boil in the gauze for quick dip-n-stir without the ‘gravel’ing the stew, and to gauze strain bacon drippings into our Tappan’s bacon cup. Spreading fresh berries on cookie pastries or cheesecakes gave a little more gentle handling and more space to see where berries were, than spreading with a knife or spatula. Some spoon springs were flexible enough to slide toward the handle (to scrape a scalloped potato serving dish bottom loose while leveling the potatoes) and toward the spoon-tip for stirring getting chicken noodles gently off the pot bottom. 2:40 is lime sized (bartender use or chef use) and so nice as a “no touch” style. Pyrex juicers for limes (xs), lemons (s), tomatoes (m), oranges (l). Presses will be metal, for garlic, etc. To clean glass, plastic, or metal, allow a stainless steel flatware utensil in the rinse water. Chemical reaction will rinse the strong smell off the item (and your hands too). The beauty of your juicer is seeds remaining in the base cavity. For tabletop use, your juicer’s sculpted top piece allows showing off juice as it bursts from peeled wedges. Nice touch. 4:27 and 4:30 The reverse side shaping can be used for “hole punching” the crust vents before laying it on the pie.
I wish you could’ve shown a folley fork. These were made by the folley company. They were made by others as well I think. They were quite popular and sold for quite a number of years. From way back when they had wooden handles like the vintage egg thing you showed until the last time I saw them sold which was in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. The folley fork was a large fork used for mixing and stirring what was cooking. Not great for nonstick unfortunately, lol. I have a small collection and use them often. Not only for mixing and stirring but also for mashing potatoes and beating eggs. One of the best vintage kitchen tools I ever had.
@Emmymade On the Pie Crimping tool the pointed end at the top on the other side is used to cut Pie Dough, and in my experience it is much easier, accurate, and efficient especially with cutting rounded or curved shapes out of Pie dough. It can c unt a perfect circle in the exact size of a pie dish, and you can Freehand cut the attractive decorative shapes to add designed to the top or bottom crust of your pies.😁✌
The item you think is an egg whisker is actually a bread toaster. Those sets always came with a regular old whisk for beating. But just like us, women used forks to scramble eggs! You would lay a piece of bread on the ‘toaster’, hold it over the gas oven flames (or wood stove flames), then flip it over and toast the other side. Bingo – toast to go with those scrambled eggs if you didn’t own one of those expensive new-fangled electric jobbers in the 40’s and 50’s. 😊
The “egg whisk” is for picking up eggs from boiling water. I have a whole set with red painted handles, from my grandma who raised her family from 1900-1930s. The paint has lead in it, though, so for the chipped ones a few coats of clear varnish should seal it. As long as paint particles aren’t dropping into the food it’s fine.
For the juicer: Use it to first cut a circle of peel, just like you did here…BUT, then remove the juicer and the “plug” of peel, then reinsert the juicer all the way into the fruit and squeeze the fruit. Much more juice comes out. I’ve seen cheap plastic versions if this which don’t work very well at all, but this metal one you have here seems to do the job quite well. Also, I’m sure you know the trick of microwaving citrus for a few seconds to almost double the juice output. Of course, you’d have to chill the juice afterwards, but it might be worth the trouble for maximizing the amount of juice😊
Oh god, you’re using the whisk all wrong! You keep it flat and move it back and forth. It’s like a regular flat wire whisk. Pie crimper, you turn the pie, not the crimper… For the juice valve you put in the orange, you roll the orange first to soften the whole inside and break the pulp, then you insert the valve. Also, velveeta is a cheese product, it’s not cheese.
So after reading through 100 comments (probably more), I see nobody has given the way I open a one-piece jar lid, like that of jam or pickles. Take a regular spoon, the same as you would use for stirring your coffee or eating soup, and place the tip of the bowl of the spoon, right-side up, just barely under the lip of the lid, between the “bumps”, with the underside of the bowl of the spoon (possibly) resting against the side of the jar itself (depending on the size of the jar and the size of the spoon). Apply just a bit of downward pressure on the handle of the spoon, and you should hear a little “pop”. Your lid should now unscrew quite easily, as the seal has been released.
The egg whisk was designed to be functional from the mixing bowl to the serving bowl. When the eggs went into the (cast iron, no Teflon back then) skillet, the same spoon could be used to stir and whisk any newly discovered lumps of albumen. The egg bits on the whisk would cook along with the rest of the egg in the skillet, so the same whisk-spoon could ladle the egg onto the serving plate, leaving any untidy bits of leftover water (oops!) back in the pan.
My mom had an egg beater similar to the first gadget, but instead of a spring it had what looked like stainless steel miniature chicken wire (with the pattern making hex-shaped holes). Growing up in the ’60’s and ’70’s, I remember her beating egg whites into meringue with that thing, each pie’s worth taking several arm-exhausting minutes. Mom’s are great! 🙂
Are use chopsticks for a lot of scrambling and staring. Wayback when I was very young, our camp went on a camping trip. Somebody forgot to include utensils. One of the girls, had lived in Japan for a number of years. She showed us how to make chopsticks. After that I was sold on chopsticks. It did not take me long to master using them. I learned what kind a grip worked best by use and the length of the chopsticks. I even have cooking chopsticks. Unfortunately I wasted my money on some stainless steel ones, I do not like them. My favorites are wooden, bamboo and ceramic, I don’t like the plastic at all. The only stainless steel ones I have are two-piece travel ones that I carry with me all the time.
I use another jar opener that is still working. It is from Sweden called Burki and it really works well (burk is jar in Swedish). It says it’s patented but I assume It was never exported. I have a vague memory that we got it in a giftset together with small jars of marmalade…. but I might be wrong. img.tradera.net/images/990/408518990_a1c7ef34-eac2-4e1e-b175-710ff2f70050.jpg I have had various others but this is the perfect one.
The citrus juicers are great. Sadly I don’t have the tabletop lemon wedge juicer, esp bc there’s little worry about squirting anything or one. The twist in juicer works very well for the larger lemons. Don’t remover the circular cutout. It keeps the fruit from going bad. I have a smaller one that is perfect for regular size lemons. Great vid, t y.
I found a French fry cutter in my mom’s appliance drawer, along with an egg holder (so that you can slice it), a tomato slicer and an apple corer/slicer. The one that we had trouble figuring out was this little blue thing that looks like a tiny Plunko game. Turned out that it was an individual cheese grater.
On the pie crimper: I think you are using it backwards, as the curved ‘knife’ edge is for cutting excess dough as you go around the edge. On the juice extractor that you screwed into the orange: I have a plastic one and you use the end to cut the hole, remove that bit of peel, then fully insert the extractor. You’ll get a lot more flow without the peel in the way. Never saw the ‘egg scrambler’ before. Neat. Loved the little citrus wedge squeezer: you won’t get squirted with that and it looks to be extremely efficient. Very cute.
please cherish and hold on to these old items…because todays tools etc…are made cheap and half of the time will not work correctly. Plus, anything made in the US is becoming a rare thing to find…its no telling who owned these items back then…imagine how many holiday, bdays, heck regular everyday dinners these devices have seen. I personally cherish old belongings for numerous of reasons <3
I never knew these were vintage. My gma has them all. My mom has them all too except the pie crust crimper and metal juicer. They still sell most of these. I bought my cheese cutter, lemon wedge juicer, and egg whisk exactly like what she has at Home Goods here in NC. And the can opener I got at a store in SC.
Actually I’ve seen something like the orange juice thingy made today from plastic. The trick is to really roll the orange around on the counter top, like you would a lemon, to produce the juice first then put the thingy in and even put a straw in and then drink. Like your website! I subscribed today.
I just stumbled upon this article and it’s great! I remember my grandma using the egg whisk and my aunt had a similar cheese slicer…not for slicing cheese but she collected Bakelite and had them for the handles. My treasure is my grandma’s garlic press/onion juicer from the 1930’s. She got it as a wedding gift and I remember perusal with fascination as she pressed the whole garlic and got bits. I thought it was magic! I managed to obtain it when she passed and it sits on display in my kitchen. Due to a crack in it, I don’t use it but I think of her when I see it.
The first implement, the egg-whisk, is meant to be used with a plate or any other shallow container, but not a high bowl like you used. If you want to make French toasts or if you want to cover something with panko, for instance. When you look closely, you can see only 1/3 of the device is used because you cannot hold it flat in that bowl.
My parents have a vintage lemon squeezer that does half-lemons. My grandparents owned a grocery store and sometimes brands will give goodies to local distributors… This was Sunkist brand and it says it big on the side. It works still and it was used a lot when my mom was a kid for fresh summer lemonade. It’s bigger and looks like an oversized garlic press.
When I was a kid there was a plastic version of the citrus juicer that was super popular in kid’s lunches with oranges. The trick to getting the juice out is that before you insert the device you roll the orange around until it’s kinda mushy. Then you do pop out the rind piece (as you suspected) before you put in the devise and continue to squeeze and squash the orange as you drink it. Eventually you can kinda rub it between your palms back and forth between sips. I know it’s usually a kitchen tool, but we had serious fun with those things in our lunches.
Not an egg whisk, It’s a Gravy Whisk for making gravy in the the pan from the drippings after frying the meat in the pan. It stirs and breaks up the clumps of flour that might form, using an side to side and circular motion holding flat to the bottom of the pan. You add flour to the drippings and stir to cook the flour and de glaze the pan. Then add milk,cream or broth depending on what type of gravy you are making. Making pan fried gray like this, the gravy is usually not much deeper in the pan than the head of the gravy whisk. They are still made today in a more modern form.
For the orange juice extractor, you roll the orange until soft (we actually used our feet as kids) Then you have cut a hole in the top(that’s why you couldn’t get much juice out) then put the extractor in and squeeze. You can actually get a good bit out, but as kids, we just rolled them and cut holes and then squeeze the juice into our mouths. No extractor.
Emmy, Velveeta is cheese slices. Neither are classified as cheese because they do not contain enough by per cent ratio with other ingredients to be called cheese. When Velveeta was first introduced it was called a real cheese now it is made with a mixture of whey protein concentrate, milk protein, fat, and preservatives which you don’t want to know about. ‘nuf sed. plamuk aka travellingchef
I’ve seen the first tool used to beat egg whites to stiffen them and also for whipping cream. Also the other side of that pie crimper would be used to make vent holes in the pile. Often the crimper would have an intial letter as the vent hole stamp so you could emblazon with your family’s last name initial as the vent hole decoration. I have (and use) my grandmother’s which has S-for-Smith.
I feel like the egg whisker is a more common industrial tool where you may need to whisk dozens of eggs at a time. I have seen homemade versions of this where they have taken a table spoon and cut four holes in the bowl leaving a nice little cross for Sunday Brunch The last citrus juicer might have worked better of you used the opposite end of fruit and sliced off a dime sized area of the skin OR maybe just pulled it back out extracting the core of the fruit prior to squeezing
💕 Great article ! I can’t believe this was 2016 ! These products were cool ! I’d like the cheese slicer ! Do we even have a similar cheese slicer today, that works ?? Soft cheeses get stuck to my knives ! And I believe with the last juicer, it would’ve helped to press & roll the orange on the counter first, plus cut a hole in the orange the size of the juicer. 😉😊 Thanks for a great article, Emmy !! 🌼♥️
i don’t know if someone already said this, but to get the most out of your citrus juicer, roll the fruit on the table or counter pressing down with the palm of your hand before inserting into the rind– if you bust up the pulp before in this way, you will double/triple the amount of juice produced. 🙂
You will find that almost all old pieces of kitchen gadgetry are a lot better than new ones. They were engineered properly, unlike today’s versions. Todays are engineered purely for ease of production and cheap manufacturing costs. My mum had many if these as well as others in her kitchen. The only problem with some of these older gadgets could be ease of cleaning and some would on occasions rust if not looked after correctly.
I have an boiled egg slider from the 60’s. The base is plastic and ugly while the slicer part comes down and has these thick wires that are hard and still strung to this day. We used to use it daily. But then I became allergic to eggs and now my life is sad and it just sits in the cabinet. Alone. Unused.