Nostalgia

Termyn8or

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I remember a stove we had with an infrared broiler a long time ago. It also had a motor for a spit and all that but what really stands out to me is the burner with a brain.

Has anyone else ever seen these ? You turn the knob and set the flame, after that push down and dial in the desired temperature.

I can see why they are not sold anymore, if someone sets it wrong, like sets the max flame too low so it won't light that can be big trouble. As in BOOM. As in people are not smart enough to realize that. We did and never blew up the house In fact we had two or three with them, all gas. We have never had an electric stove.

Another thing you won't see today is like the toaster we had. A Toastmaster. This thing had a motor that pulled the bread down. It was geared and when it was done, or whatever happened it would release and under spring pressure raised the toast gradually.

So those two little doodads were nice, but not the whole thing. I watched cooking show that was in black and white a few times, the channel was hard to get. Now that I kinda liked, though not captioned so I didn't "hear" it. But it was ral. Not "This is my Grandmother's recipe handed down since the days of King Arthur, and now I am going to put it into this handy $700 food processor and...". What did they have slaves pedaling those things in the old days or what ?

So this is not about the equipment itself as in that category, it is more about history.

Yeah, and over the years we had a couple of those can openers that hang on the wall. Remember those ?

So what kind of weirdo stuff do y'all remember ? Things we would never buy today except for a museum type stuff.

T
 
I've mentioned it before, but the first thing that springs to mind is that when we moved to the "new" house in 1972, my mom insisted on a wood cook stove, so that's what we grew up on. She had an electric one, of course, but once the wood stove was installed, the electric one sat largely unused. She cooked on that from about 1973 to the late 1990's.

We also made (nonalcoholic) cider using an ancient cider press (which I still maintain was actually a sausage press), and we also churned our own butter in a dasher churn.
 
Our mom had a manual ice cream maker when we were all kids. Boy, what a piece of work that was. You had to turn the hand crank to freeze the ice cream. Even though it worked, it was a struggle, & it sometimes made your arm feel as though it was about to fall off!! I couldn't use that today. I was diagnosed with severe tendonitis in both shoulders!! And it was way before the self-contained units were out in the stores!! :headshake:
 
Our mom had a manual ice cream maker when we were all kids. Boy, what a piece of work that was. You had to turn the hand crank to freeze the ice cream. Even though it worked, it was a struggle, & it sometimes made your arm feel as though it was about to fall off!! I couldn't use that today. I was diagnosed with severe tendonitis in both shoulders!! And it was way before the self-contained units were out in the stores!! :headshake:
We had one of those!
 
So did we. We'd nearly always make ice cream with family or friends and the dads did they cranking when all the kids were little, then when we got a little older we'd all take a turn because we wanted to help, then when we got a little more older, when we really could have helped, we'd all disappear and dads would do the cranking. LOL!

Oh, the dads would have us sit on the crossways piece when we were in the middle age group to help hold the machine down when the ice cream started to get hard. Cold butt, but it did help keep you cool after running around and playing.
 
Our mom had a manual ice cream maker when we were all kids. Boy, what a piece of work that was. You had to turn the hand crank to freeze the ice cream. Even though it worked, it was a struggle, & it sometimes made your arm feel as though it was about to fall off!! I couldn't use that today. I was diagnosed with severe tendonitis in both shoulders!! And it was way before the self-contained units were out in the stores!! :headshake:
Friends of the family had one out on the dairy farm. We skimmed the milk and sufffered just a bit for a while until there was enough cream to make ice cream.

One itme it was my turn to crank. The Father of the house (five kids of theirs and two of us) always ran things. Anyway, my turn, OK. I cranked and cranked, he kept putting in more ice and salt, and I didnt understnd why the salt at first biut it is a chemistry lesson in way.

"Is it done ?"
"Can you crank it ?"
"Yes"
"It is not done"
"Is it done ?"
"Can you crank it ?"
"Yes"
"It is not done"
"Is it done ?"
"Can you crank it ?"
"Yes"
"It is not done"
"Is it done ?"
"Can you crank it ?"
"No"
"It is done"

Yes, it felt like my arm was going to fall off. And you can't switch, no way to turn the thing around and put the handle the other way. If you cranked it backward it would not work right.

Of course the story follows:

One time the canisters on the counter got mixed up, there was salt in the sugar and sugar in the salt. Well the ice cream got made with salt.

Believe it or not I like it. In fact, salty frozen desserts. Make a whole new fad for the '20s !

T
 
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Thank God for machines like THIS one!! I have one. A far cry from the one that we had!! Can't go back to those olden days!! :headshake: :whistling:
 
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The first toaster I remember ever having was one similar to this:
62339



The sides flip open and you put the bread in, then close it back up.
 
62340

I'm willing to bet all of you that you are glad to have a much better toaster like THIS one!! Hah!! :whistling:
62343

Here's the vintage hand-crank ice cream maker like the one that we had.
 
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View attachment 62340
I'm willing to bet all of you that you are glad to have a much better toaster like THIS one!! Hah!! :whistling:
The toaster I have now is a $10US Proctor-Silex...cheapest of the cheap. Our last stove/range/cooker had two ovens, and the small oven had a toast feature that worked phenomenally, and that's what I always used.
 
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