What's the Oldest Thing in Your Kitchen?

[Peter the eater]

I have a 100-year old Brazil nut pod in my kitchen.

That sounds serious. Is it a cluster of nuts from a Brazil nut tree that simply got picked a century ago? Does it do anything?

[Special K]

I have a bunch of Griswold cast iron pans, all sizes. I got them from Goodwill and Value Village, so I don't know how old they are. I know I could sell them for way more than I paid for them, but I bought them to use, and I do.

Of the things I've bought myself, or received as wedding gifts 40-some years ago, I think the oldest things are my original Magnalite pots and pans, which are still going strong. (The Chinese are making something called Magnalite now, but it's not the same.) I saw an old Magnalite stock pot (with lid) the other day at Value Village and almost bought it, but I thought, I really don't have room for it. Too bad; I'd like an extra one. Maybe I'll check again today to see if it's still there - I'm sure I can fit it in somewhere!

[LizD518]

I snagged a few things from my Grandmother's kitchen after she passed, as well as from her brother's kitchen when he went. Most things probably date from the 1950's or more recently so the oldest is probably the copy of Joy of Cooking from the mid-forties, complete with a few old grocery lists and hand-written notes by my Grandmother.

[BarbaraY]

I have a number of old items in the kitchen. Not sure which is the oldest, though.

I have my grandmother's butter churn from the early 40s. I know that because I can just remember her getting it to replace a worn out one that had wooden paddles. This one has metal paddles, aluminum I believe.

I also have a number of her depression glass pieces including the cookie jar that still has the lid. Seems like lids were easily broken.

Another thing is a tea tray, obviously Japanese but made for the American market as it has abalone inlay but the pattern is a western style flower basket. I don't know how old but the person I got it from had traced it back to the 40s. It has to be pre-WWII.

Unfortunately one of my daughters fell with grandma's iron skillet and broke it but it had been there all my life.

I have a couple of battered cook books from 1914.

The best thing to me is a set of silver demi-tasse spoons, also grandma's.

[sparrowgrass]

The oldest food tool I have in the kitchen (but don't use!) is a 900 to 1200 year old (according to local archeology) stone cutting point. It's siting on the window sill now but we found on a walk up on the mesa behind us. The point was apparently made and used by one of the Anasazi tribes that lived and hunted in this area.

I have a worked chert stone about the same age that I picked up in a bottomland field in Indiana, and I do use it in my kitchen. It fits perfectly in my hand (how cool is that--a thousand year old tool!) and I use it to gently mash garlic cloves so I can peel them. Somebody a thousand years ago used it to crush bones for the marrow or to crack hickory nuts, and it now has a place on my window sill.

[andiesenji]

I have these two cast iron gem pans, the top one is marked with the letter 'R' and the bottom one is completely unmarked. The bottom one has gate marks on the middle two cups (on the underside) while the top one as sprue nubs on the outer four cups. As far as I know, this means that these are from the 19th century. While cast iron made this was was popular in the 1700's, the small size of these pans means they were probably for use in a home of modest means, and people didn't have ovens in their houses until stoves became popular in the mid-1800's. An older item would have been used by a professional bakery, and probably larger, with more cups.

Anyway, I love these! I love making brownies in them, since everyone in my house is a 'corner lover' and this means that everyone gets lots of chewy crispy edge. Cornbread is also wonderful from these, and very attractive to serve to company.

I love your pans and they are 19th century, but they are actually called "turk's head" pans as "gem" pans are smooth with no scallops (and are actually more common in the early days).

Pans like yours were harder to cast well so they are rarer - they are sand cast and required a good deal of hand finishing after casting and those scallops made it more time consuming.

Gem pans are either half a globe rounds or shallow ovals with a slightly flattened bottom.

Like these...

The "golfball" name they use is very recent and seldom used by serious cast iron collectors.

Here's another site that has gotten a fair amount of my money in recent years but not for cast iron pans, I inherited those but they have some wonderful figured molds.

antique molds and pans

I have a couple of the turk's head pans that hold a dozen muffins one is made by Griswold and the other by the Chattanooga Foundry and it is quite rare.

The early muffin pans did not have to be used exclusively in an oven but could be placed on a tall trivet in front of or at one side of the kitchen fireplace and thus bake the muffins.

I used to take mine on camping trips many, many years ago, and baked plenty of corn muffins with a reflector oven and a wood fire.

Edited April 8, 2010 by andiesenji (log)

[andiesenji]

The oldest food tool I have in the kitchen (but don't use!) is a 900 to 1200 year old (according to local archeology) stone cutting point. It's siting on the window sill now but we found on a walk up on the mesa behind us. The point was apparently made and used by one of the Anasazi tribes that lived and hunted in this area.

I have a worked chert stone about the same age that I picked up in a bottomland field in Indiana, and I do use it in my kitchen. It fits perfectly in my hand (how cool is that--a thousand year old tool!) and I use it to gently mash garlic cloves so I can peel them. Somebody a thousand years ago used it to crush bones for the marrow or to crack hickory nuts, and it now has a place on my window sill.

Now those are REALLY old and extremely cool! I am envious indeed.

[Darienne]

I have a worked chert stone about the same age that I picked up in a bottomland field in Indiana, and I do use it in my kitchen. It fits perfectly in my hand (how cool is that--a thousand year old tool!) and I use it to gently mash garlic cloves so I can peel them. Somebody a thousand years ago used it to crush bones for the marrow or to crack hickory nuts, and it now has a place on my window sill.

Hi Sparrowgrass. That is THE coolest of all!! Thanks for sharing.

[qrn]

just remembered, Fannie Farmer Boston cooking school Cook Book Little Brown and Co (1922).

Bud

[Dave the Cook]

In age, this beats anything else in my kitchen by at least 130 years, and maybe a few more. After me, I think the next oldest things are a GE handheld mixer (I'm guessing it's from the early 70s), then a skillet from the original Cuisinart cookware collection (1978?)

I hope we don't have to actually use the stuff we post here. The fragility of this set (not to mention that I rarely need that much vinaigrette at one time) mean that it's purely decorative. Then there's it's provenance: I inherited it from my mother, who inherited it from her father, whose wife's family had inherited it from the original owner generations before. Here's the monogram:

This set actually belonged to a rather famous person. Anyone care to guess who? Here are your opening clues:

• Seems to be Sheffield plate, so . . .
  
• . . . it was probably made prior to 1840 or 1850
  
• "W" monogram
  

[maggiethecat]

William Wordsworth?

Dave, if that's real Old Sheffield Plate (sheets of silver pounded over a base)rather than silverplate (espn) take good care of it. Old Sheffield plate in good condition is rare and valuable. Take good care of it anyway -- it's lovely.

Edited April 9, 2010 by maggiethecat (log)

[Dave the Cook]

William Wordsworth?

Dave, if that's real Old Sheffield Plate (sheets of silver pounded over a base)rather than silverplate (espn) take good care of it. Old Sheffield plate in good condition is rare and valuable. Take good care of it anyway -- it's lovely.

Wrong side of the Atlantic, Maggie.

I'm not certain that it's Sheffield plate; I'm guessing based on the dates that I know, and the fact that the copper is showing through in some areas. It could be a combination of Sheffield and electroplate (on the fancy parts).

[maggiethecat]

Henry Ward? (Copper showing through is probably espn.)

I have a lot of stuff in my kitchen that's older than I, most of it courtesy of my parents, dedicated silver collectors, auction goers and generous parents at Christmas and birthdays. Eighteenth century British sterling with dazzling and important hallmarks -- a Hester Bateman spoon serves up the stuffing come Thanksgiving.So I thought I'd show a couple of items we use every day. This is the fabulously useful mesh spoon inherited from my Nonna-in-law Annunziata Rovai. I'm thinking 1918. Works great.

These are our huge, heavy sterling dinner forks, c.1810, from the French Huguenot silversmith Francois Dormieux, who pulled up stakes and set up shop in Calcutta. This is a hefty, substantial fork (as French silversmiths like Cristofle still make.) Here's the scale between the Dormieux daily fork and it's puny modern equivalent:

And then there's that set of mid seventies Arabia Kilta, and a 1913 edition of Fannie Farmer. and that can of beets.

Edited April 9, 2010 by maggiethecat (log)

[djyee100]

This set actually belonged to a rather famous person. Anyone care to guess who?

Ok, I'll give it a try. Daniel Webster?

[Peter the eater]

This set actually belonged to a rather famous person. Anyone care to guess who?

Ok, I'll give it a try. Daniel Webster?

That's a good guess. I'm totally stumped.

[sparrowgrass]

Here is my rock, on the windowsill and under inspection by Stella the sorta Dalmation.

[maggiethecat]

Here is my rock, on the windowsill and under inspection by Stella the sorta Dalmation.

I wish there was on eG, as on Facebook, a Like button. Sparrow, there's so much to like -- nay, LOVE about your pix. The Stone (I'm in awe) the eggs and the sorta Dalmation. Thank you.

[Dave the Cook]

Here is my rock, on the windowsill and under inspection by Stella the sorta Dalmation.

I wish there was on eG, as on Facebook, a Like button. Sparrow, there's so much to like -- nay, LOVE about your pix. The Stone (I'm in awe) the eggs and the sorta Dalmation. Thank you.

Not to mention the Stud o' Utensils, which is awesome.

This set actually belonged to a rather famous person. Anyone care to guess who?

Ok, I'll give it a try. Daniel Webster?

That's a good guess. I'm totally stumped.

It's such a good guess that it's correct. There's a Webster rocking chair, too, but that's not in the kitchen.

[maggiethecat]

Walt Whitman?

[maggiethecat]

I posted amid other posts. The devil made me do it. Daniel Webster -- how cool.

[emilyr]

My parents are auction goers, so we have several antique pieces in our kitchen. My mom loves Graniteware, and we have pans, pots, mugs, plates, and buckets of all shapes and sizes from the early 1800s on. We also store extra spoons and things in a crock my great-grandfather used to make bootleg liquor in in the 1920s.

It's not in the kitchen, but in our front hall we have the iron cooking pot my pioneer ancestors bought in West Virginia in the late 1790s and traveled with to Missouri in the 1800s. My uncle recently found the receipt for it.

From the other side of the family, my grandparents gave my mom and dad some mixing bowls they received at their wedding and my grandpa cleaned up a Revereware copper-bottomed sauce pan that they bought used in their first year of marriage. We still use it all the time. In my teen years, it was the preferred mac-n-cheese pot.

Our kitchen is actually pretty young, comparatively. The house was built in 1895, but it didn't have an inside kitchen (beyond a cast iron stove in the pantry for the winter) until the late 1930s.

The oldest thing in the house is technically a kitchen item. We have a lead platter from the 1500s from my mother's father's side of the family. They were quite well-off and proud of their history. It's from the home of a baron or something (the story is foggy and has a tendency to be stretched and aggrandized depending on the audience), but my great-grandmother took it to a metallurgist in Chicago in the 60s who confirmed the age of the lead and said the repair that is in the rim is from the 1700s.

[pax]

I have a Devonian fossil my kid found, 450 million years old. A brachiopod.

for actual cooking stuff, I have my husband's great grandmother's cast iron Swedish pancake pan. As far as we can tell, she brought it with her here to America in 1870, when she was 14.

It had fallen into disuse and had to be sand tumbled and reseasoned, but now I use it a lot.

[Lapin d'Argent]

I have a set of willow ware stamped Enoch Wood & Sons, which I believe dates from before 1846.

But the oldest verifiable items is a copy of "The Cook and Confectioner" printed in 1849. I also have a copy of Mrs Putnam's New Receipt Book, the 1867 edition, and The Ladies' Own cook Book from 1891. These were all from my Grandfather's library; no idea how he acquired them.

But my favorite item in daily use is the original Westinghouse double oven, with stainless steel, side-opening doors (!), installed when our house was built around 1963. (We're not the original owners -- only had the house about 18 years.) Imagine -- stainless steel in 1963. And I wouldn't give up those side-opening doors if you paid me.

[jsmeeker]

A wood cutting board. I took it from my parents when I moved into my own place. Not exactly sure how old it is, but I seem to recall it being used my parents forever. So, I'll say it's at least as old as me. (I'll turn 40 later this year)

[Lisa Shock]

I have these two cast iron gem pans, the top one is marked with the letter 'R' and the bottom one is completely unmarked. The bottom one has gate marks on the middle two cups (on the underside) while the top one as sprue nubs on the outer four cups. As far as I know, this means that these are from the 19th century. While cast iron made this was was popular in the 1700's, the small size of these pans means they were probably for use in a home of modest means, and people didn't have ovens in their houses until stoves became popular in the mid-1800's. An older item would have been used by a professional bakery, and probably larger, with more cups.

Anyway, I love these! I love making brownies in them, since everyone in my house is a 'corner lover' and this means that everyone gets lots of chewy crispy edge. Cornbread is also wonderful from these, and very attractive to serve to company.

I love your pans and they are 19th century, but they are actually called "turk's head" pans as "gem" pans are smooth with no scallops (and are actually more common in the early days).

Pans like yours were harder to cast well so they are rarer - they are sand cast and required a good deal of hand finishing after casting and those scallops made it more time consuming.

Gem pans are either half a globe rounds or shallow ovals with a slightly flattened bottom.

Like these...

The "golfball" name they use is very recent and seldom used by serious cast iron collectors.

Here's another site that has gotten a fair amount of my money in recent years but not for cast iron pans, I inherited those but they have some wonderful figured molds.

antique molds and pans

I have a couple of the turk's head pans that hold a dozen muffins one is made by Griswold and the other by the Chattanooga Foundry and it is quite rare.

The early muffin pans did not have to be used exclusively in an oven but could be placed on a tall trivet in front of or at one side of the kitchen fireplace and thus bake the muffins.

I used to take mine on camping trips many, many years ago, and baked plenty of corn muffins with a reflector oven and a wood fire.

Thanks! I had always figured the 'turk's heads' were pans where the grooves came down at an angle, like babba molds. But, hey, live and learn!

I really like these pans and wish that a modern manufacturer made them. When I was a kid I had a toy set of pans that had a mini version in aluminum, and I baked all sorts of treats in it. So, as an adult I went looking for a similar pan and wound up having to buy them at antique stores. Someplace, I also have one that makes mini, two-bite sized treats.