Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

What would you not part with?


Cronker

Recommended Posts

Inspired by discussion in another thread, what kitchen items would you simply never part with?

im thinking of things you might easily replace, but could never be happy- those items that have a grip on your heart?

it could be a veggie peeler, or a rolling pin.

what say you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mine would be this mixing bowl

It was my mother's.  It's from the late fifties or early sixties.

my mother (bless her) was not a great cook, but she kept food on the table, and inspired me to be a chef.

IMG_0613.JPG

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My Trudeau silicone spatulas and the set of 3 rubber-bottomed stainless steel bowls I bought in a City Market in Moab, Utah.  The bowls were so inexpensive, made in India and the quality is absolutely top notch.  After 15 years of constant use, not one bit of rubber has come off.

  • Like 4

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's stuff that has sentimental value that I'd never get rid of (like my grandmother's cast iron pans). Then there are things that I simply wouldn't want to be without. Out of everything that's in my kitchen that doesn't fit in the first category, I try to make sure that it fits into the second category. Knives are the main exception.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Cronker said:

Mine would be this mixing bowl

It was my mother's.  It's from the late fifties or early sixties.

 

My mother had an identical bowl. I wonder where it is now.

 

My choice would be this marble mortar and pestle set from Dali, Yunnan, China. No particular reason; I just love it.

 

5a2c8cee906b8_morterandpestle.thumb.jpg.144b90712f44cdd6912097c53f107c64.jpg

  • Like 8

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My great grandmother's ERIE cast iron griddle (Pre-Griswold) ca. 1889.  It was given to me in 1967.

And another great grandmother's dough trough that was made before the Civil War from a huge chestnut burl.  It is 2 feet long.  

You can see the marks of an inshave on the inside and the marks of a draw knife on the outside.  

It's not been varnished. It has been oiled and bone rubbed to get that polish and that was before I was born.  

It was passed to me when I got married in 1961.

 

5a2c934ed6c72_ScreenShot2017-12-09at5_47_34PM.thumb.png.159a4090ff26d12c47382d57fcc6d49c.png

5a2c93316ac81_ScreenShot2017-12-09at5_48_28PM.thumb.png.9866072618b2a0b1a50004367f8bf780.png

  • Like 15

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An 8 quart sauce pan from my parents household.  It was a wedding present that they packed in the steel chest bound for Canada from Derby England.

 

I remember the food that was made in this pot.  

 

It is quite thick bottomed with a stupid flimsy lid that jams on.  I suppose that’s good, at times.  It also has a steam basket insert.

I have copper pots but somehow I seem to reach for this family treasure.  Weird.

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Cronker said:

Mine would be this mixing bowl

It was my mother's.  It's from the late fifties or early sixties.

my mother (bless her) was not a great cook, but she kept food on the table, and inspired me to be a chef.

IMG_0613.JPG

Funny coincidence - I just posted a picture of this very bowl in another thread.  My stepdad's mum brought it for my mother from England many years ago - a "welcome to the family, even though you are a Yank" kind of gift.  Along with pudding basins that she taught Momma how to use.  We adore the bowl, but neither one of us can use it because of hand issues.  It is just to heavy.  But lovely nonetheless. 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well...there are utilitarian things I have no particular sentimental attachment to but use every (or nearly every) day: My Keurig, my CSO, my Instant Pot, my Anova.

 

There are just some really nice pieces of kitchenware/equipment I've come to love in the years I've had them -- my Misono gyuto and utility knife, my Kitchenaid stand mixer.

 

There are some sentimental, family pieces: my grandmother's cast iron corn stick and madeleine pans, the faceted glass "cranberry salad bowl" (because it was the bowl the cranberry salad went in every year), the sorghum molasses pitcher that's been in near-constant use by my family since before the Civil War.

 

And some cheap stuff I'd hate to do without unless I could replace them with the exact same thing -- my heavy bamboo spoons and spatulas, my silicone lids, my Circulon loaf pans. 

  • Like 4

Don't ask. Eat it.

www.kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, this is a bit strange but here goes.  My great uncle was the manager of an oil lease in the Inglewood Oil Field for Standard Oil in Baldwin Hills. CA.  This was in the 40's and 50's.   It was a well known site for ancient Native Americans and a place rich in fossils.  For several summers UCLA students conducted digs on the lease. For than once my "Unk' was gifted  with found items.  My treasure is a very primitive mano and matate.

It sits in a place of honor on our buffet.  

When our youngest daughter was in 4-H, one project involved a baked product using an old appliance.  She ground corn in the metate and made muffins.  Got to the Iowa State Fair and won a red ribbon.  Would have been blue but one old lady judge said they were kind of gritty.

Off topic but still cool.  I also ended up with an epiphysis.  It is the growth plate of a young whale and between 5 and 15 million years old.  Compared to most, this one is very big. 14 inches across.  It also sits on the buffet.  

Edited by IowaDee (log)
  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sentimental #1: When my mother cleaning out her house at 90 Y/O to move into an assisted living facility there was much I wanted from her home. What I did want was the 3 qt Revere Ware pan that was part of her cookware from my earliest memories and I had cooked in as a youth. I don't cook with it now. I just appreciate having that little piece of my history.

 

Sentimental #2. My 10" Mighty Oak chef's knife that my DW gave me for Christmas in 1982. Still my go-to knife.

 

Utilitarian: Our 6 qt KItchenAid mixer.

 

 

  • Like 6

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

;

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sentimental:  Great grandmother's cut stirring spoon, turning fork, wooden salad bowl and soap kettle.  Dad's knife scabbard.  Granddad's F.Dick beavertail steel.  My self-made knives.

 

Utilitarian:  3.5mm hammered tinned copper saute, egg clacker, a tapered wall Windsor, a round gratin/roaster.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/12/2017 at 12:26 PM, andiesenji said:

My great grandmother's ERIE cast iron griddle (Pre-Griswold) ca. 1889.  It was given to me in 1967.

And another great grandmother's dough trough that was made before the Civil War from a huge chestnut burl.  It is 2 feet long.  

You can see the marks of an inshave on the inside and the marks of a draw knife on the outside.  

It's not been varnished. It has been oiled and bone rubbed to get that polish and that was before I was born.  

It was passed to me when I got married in 1961.

 

5a2c934ed6c72_ScreenShot2017-12-09at5_47_34PM.thumb.png.159a4090ff26d12c47382d57fcc6d49c.png

5a2c93316ac81_ScreenShot2017-12-09at5_48_28PM.thumb.png.9866072618b2a0b1a50004367f8bf780.png

Beautiful 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/9/2017 at 6:41 PM, Kim Shook said:

Funny coincidence - I just posted a picture of this very bowl in another thread.  My stepdad's mum brought it for my mother from England many years ago - a "welcome to the family, even though you are a Yank" kind of gift.  Along with pudding basins that she taught Momma how to use.  We adore the bowl, but neither one of us can use it because of hand issues.  It is just to heavy.  But lovely nonetheless. 

 

It looks like a T.G. Green Gripstand bowl to me, indeed English.  I have collected four different sizes so far.  Never found a better mixing bowl.  Mason Cash makes a knockoff, but it's just not the same...

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, scubadoo97 said:

Really can't think of a kitchen item.  Now one of my guitars or ouds maybe.  Even my knives I love but an equally sharp well designed knife could replace a lost one and I'd move on.  Guess don't have attachment issues 

 Yes. Me too. Not one kitchen thing is emotional for me.  Maybe the cutting board or the old Vulcan I parted with easily.....Plenty are useful and well-appreciated eg Darto and CSO...but I guess I'm not wired that way. Perhaps a deficiency on my part.

Edited by gfweb (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I lost everything in a fire in the 70's. Most of the items but not the sentiments were replaced thanks to antique stores and later, ebay. The kitchen treasures now are fairly new, being gifts, mainly from my son.  One item I enjoy is this knife forged in pre WWII France.  A non kitchen treasure is this hat from my son.  When he was 5 or 6, we were in a dept. store. He saw this hat and said I had to get it. Why? Because people who are famous wear this kind of hat. He got up on a chair and put it on my head, adjusted it and said, "Say 'Here's lookin at you, Kid' "

20171212_093559.jpg

  • Like 8
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, scubadoo97 said:

Really can't think of a kitchen item.  Now one of my guitars or ouds maybe.  Even my knives I love but an equally sharp well designed knife could replace a lost one and I'd move on.  Guess don't have attachment issues 

 

Same.

Cheers,

Anne

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

I lost everything in a fire in the 70's. Most of the items but not the sentiments were replaced thanks to antique stores and later, ebay. The kitchen treasures now are fairly new, being gifts, mainly from my son.  One item I enjoy is this knife forged in pre WWII France.  A non kitchen treasure is this hat from my son.  When he was 5 or 6, we were in a dept. store. He saw this hat and said I had to get it. Why? Because people who are famous wear this kind of hat. He got up on a chair and put it on my head, adjusted it and said, "Say 'Here's lookin at you, Kid' "

20171212_093559.jpg

That's a great hat!,,

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...