Old Kitchen Utensils Seldom Seen 2008

As I sit here peeling potatoes and look around this kitchen I see several kitchen items or gadgets no longer used.  If I glance up to the top of the cabinets I spy a set of blue canning jars.  We used these for food preservation in years gone by.  To can in this type jar one needed zinc lids that had a glass piece in the bottom and also needed would be a rubber ring to go around the neck of the jar prior to applying the lid.

As I open the knife and fork drawer I spy what I call a “church key” and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but really that’s the only thing I know to call it.  I’ve never heard another name, but I don’t know how I could get along without it.  Years ago, before flip-top cans, the church key was used to open beer cans.  I use it now when I need tomato sauce and such — the church key punctures the top in a triangular shape to allow the contents to pour out — be it beer or tomato sauce.

My Grandmother Lang’s bread dough tray is another item I can see from my vantage point.  I dare say very few, if any, use such an item anymore.  To begin with, almost nobody makes biscuits anymore, but Granny Lang had four boys and she made lots of biscuits in her day using this tray made by my Granddaddy.

Mother’s churn sets here in the kitchen floor (it’s a grand dust catcher) and it still has the churn dash made by my daddy.  Along with churn we used butter paddles and butter molds. Milk pitchers were

also necessary, too, and they required cloths made the right size to tie around their tops.  Strainers were another item needed in processing milk in farm houses.  Some people had metal strainers; however, my mother used a flour sack for milk straining.

I have a recipe for syrup cake laid out just waiting for me to make one.  I’ll use Sand Mountain Sorghum and we keep that item in a syrup pitcher.  Another recipe I plan to make soon is gingerbread.  We have a friend in the nursing home who loves gingerbread and it’s my aim to make such and take him a generous helping  How many people even know what a syrup pitcher is?  Let alone use one.

In years past before one could make cornbread, the meal had to be sifted and I can see an old sifter on top of these cabinets, too.  It’s nothing more than a shallow pan with the bottom made of fine wire.  This was used to separate the brand from the using meal. My mother could use this utensil and never move anything but her arms.  When I try to sift with this every part of my body moves and/or shakes.

Wood-burning cook stoves are another item we see no longer.  We old folks have fond memories of the warming closet, which sat above the cook stove and held good things we found when we came home from school.  Although the Lang cook stove did not have such, many stoves had a reservoir attached to the side where warm (or hot) water could be found for bathing or whatever.

Ice picks were necessary kitchen utensils in the days before electricity when we sometimes got a 50 lb. block of ice.  Ice picks were used to chip off pieces of ice just the size to put in drinking glasses — or even better to put in the ice-cream freezer.

The water bucket and dipper were also necessary items to have in the kitchen.  The list could go on and on — milk coolers, kraut cutters, meat cleavers, etc.

Perhaps you can name other seldom-used kitchen tools, which were necessary in olden days with that style of country living.