A Collection of Vintage Cooking Equipment/Techie's Toys

[rotuts]

we had a very similar toaster .  

 

I think the slots went 90 degrees differently than the one above.

 

pointing to the handles.

 

it also had a cloth braided cord , same as the Griddle

 

but Im guessing all cords were like that in the ' 50's

 

made great toast  , burnt and stuck all eng;loishMuffins    which were too thick.

[boilsover]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

made great toast  , burnt and stuck all eng;loishMuffins    which were too thick.

 

I agree--the narrow slots are the only defect.  

[andiesenji]

On 3/13/2018 at 11:01 AM, TechieTechie said:

Sorry, it is an unused Sunbeam CG-1, 1250 watts. Mmm, grilled prosciutto, mozz, tomato and pesto sammie, here I come

The best consumer waffle iron ever made.  I've been using mine since 1961.  I had the cord replaced about 25 years ago.

[andiesenji]

On 3/13/2018 at 9:19 PM, TechieTechie said:

 

No, thermowells were a Chambers brand distinction only found on Chambers. I chose OKM over Chambers because the OKM oven was larger, it had a 2nd full size oven, the burner BTUs are higher than Chambers (12/15k versus 9k), and I'd prefer 3 more burners rather than a thermowell. But Chambers have their devotees, so they must be doing something right!

 

Good news is that I just found a Antique Stove repair guy in Greater Boston. Whoo Hoo!!!!!

 

Deep well cookers were available on several electric ranges. GE introduced one in 1938, later their Hotpoint division offered them after WWII.   I had a Norge in 1960 and when we built our house in 1962 we considered a Frigidare but eventually decided on gas instead of electric.  Kelvinator offered one - I looked at one when I was buying our Kelvinator Food-O-Rama refrigerator. 

This is a 1948 GE Airliner.

In the late '50s some of the ranges offered a "fryer pot" which was taller and projected about 4 inches above the stovetop to make it safer for deep frying.  My stepmother had one of those.

[andiesenji]

22 hours ago, boilsover said:

 

Here's a tip:  If you're into the good old stuff, I recommend the Sunbeam T-21 toaster.  It had an electric eye that measured the degree of browning.

I still use mine.  I have three.  The oldest T20 got a new cord in 1999.

[boilsover]

17 hours ago, andiesenji said:

Deep well cookers were available on several electric ranges. GE introduced one in 1938, later their Hotpoint division offered them after WWII.   I had a Norge in 1960 and when we built our house in 1962 we considered a Frigidare but eventually decided on gas instead of electric.  Kelvinator offered one - I looked at one when I was buying our Kelvinator Food-O-Rama refrigerator. 

This is a 1948 GE Airliner.

In the late '50s some of the ranges offered a "fryer pot" which was taller and projected about 4 inches above the stovetop to make it safer for deep frying.  My stepmother had one of those.

 

Bingo.  That is my model at the farmhouse.  The clock needs help, and I need new colored indicator plates behind the control knobs

 

Notice how many "turns" there are of the coils compared with modern coils!

[lindag]

A lot like the one my folks had in the late fifties, don't remember what the make was but I do think the deep-well was on the right in the back.  Mom made some mighty fine meals on that stove.

chexking photos of these stoves on Google tells me my memory is off; the deep wells are all on the left side.

Edited March 17, 2018 by lindag (log)

[boilsover]

6 hours ago, lindag said:

A lot like the one my folks had in the late fifties, don't remember what the make was but I do think the deep-well was on the right in the back.  Mom made some mighty fine meals on that stove.

chexking photos of these stoves on Google tells me my memory is off; the deep wells are all on the left side.

 

 

On these Airliners (and a modern $$$$ Lacanche I cooked on last year in Paris), the wells are actually another hob, but designed to be lowered into the body of the range to accomodate the pot.  By the time I inherited the Airliner, the pot and cover pictured in Andie's photo were long gone, and the coil was moved up.  The only sign that hob is different is a wider SS trim ring.  I scrounged another pot and cover.  It's really a nice feature, along with the warming drawer.

 

The Lacanche's moveable hob was an induction coil.

Edited March 18, 2018 by boilsover (log)

[lindag]

I do remember the burner on our range could be lowered or raised depending on usage.  I'm thinking that it had to have been a GE or a Hotpoint for that timeframe.

[andiesenji]

16 hours ago, lindag said:

A lot like the one my folks had in the late fifties, don't remember what the make was but I do think the deep-well was on the right in the back.  Mom made some mighty fine meals on that stove.

chexking photos of these stoves on Google tells me my memory is off; the deep wells are all on the left side.

 

Not really.  My stepmother's was on the back right.  It was a Westinghouse with two ovens and a broiler under one of the ovens plus a warming drawer.  Like this one.  It also had a florescent light which put out a weird blue light. She never used it because it bothered her (migraines). 

My dad mounted one of the jointed "architect's" lamps on the wall above the stove so she could have good lighting.  

The other photo is a late 1930s Westinghouse that I came across while looking for info on an electric roaster.

 

 

 

 

This was the stove we ended up getting.  Roper Town & Country.  We had to do a lot of entertaining because of my husband's job and a regular range just did not have enough output. It has two ovens and a broiler which can be converted to an oven by locking the lift mechanism down and installing one or more racks - it came with extra racks.  The griddle is much larger than on most ranges and we used it a lot.  We did have to get a larger gas line put in because that thing demanded a lot of gas.  We did not have a range hood - it was on an exterior wall and my dad (he was a contractor and built our house) installed two 12" exhaust fans with a small copper "hood" that was only about 8' deep. There were louvers on the outside that opened automatically when the fans were on.  

Edited March 18, 2018 by andiesenji (log)

[DianaB]

This is a fascinating thread, for readers in the UK I’m guessing that we will all be stunned at the sophistication of cooking ranges from decades when at best the average family here had four rings over an oven.  The more modern might have enjoyed the luxury of an ‘eye level grill’, for US readers I think you would call our ‘grill’ a ‘broiler’ but I’m sure others will correct me if I am wrong.

 

For us children of England in the 1960s / 1970s a division was whether your parents cooked with electricity or gas.  Electric stoves had either solid heating plates or the snail shell style.  The latter probably has a name more appropriate but I don’t recall it.  My family cooked with a gas stove and in the early 1970s the country gradually shifted from manufactured gas, known as town gas, to ‘natural’ North Sea gas.  Supply companies offered incentives to households to update their stove to suit the new ‘natural’ gas.  We enjoyed a subsidised new stove: four burners, an oven with warming drawer below and, of course, an eye level grill.  There were additional plate warmers either side of the grill I think.  Our neighbours, perhaps anti-waste before such became a trend, refused the ‘upgrade’ insisting that their pre-WW2 stove be converted to suit the new fuel.  My parents found that ridiculous at the time but with hindsight perhaps they had the right idea.  Certainly my mother cursed the new stove on a regular basis but she cursed many things and not always with logic.  I can still visualise that old stove, ‘cooker’ as we called it, on its curvy iron legs.  Probably a masterpiece of early 20th century design.

 

Today the size of homes in England limits most to some variation of a four burner hob with a single, or 2 ridiculously small, cavity oven.  Only those fortunate to have a larger than average property might enjoy the comparatively expensive to buy and to run Aga or similar.  The vast ranges that were apparently fairly widespread in the US would have been beyond imagination for the vast majority at a similar time here.  Largely perhaps a result of the amount of space available per person.  Rural England is crowded in comparison to many parts of Canada or the US (I do appreciate that I am generalising hugely here).  A few miles south, across the English Channel, holiday makers have long been jealous of the Godin and similar ranges more common in France.  Of course one needs to live there rather than simply visit for a couple of weeks each year to appreciate that for the average family a hob and small free-standing oven is more usual than a range.  For the average urban living French family a UK style cooking set-up would, in my experience, be out of the ordinary.

 

It is always fascinating to see to see how everyday objects have evolved, or not; and to appreciate regional differences.  Good food can of course be made with the simplest of appliances.  Toasters are a good illustration: toasted bread is equally good from a modern device or from a fork positioned over a fire.  The former is no doubt more practical for families .