Food related collections

[Basildog]

Menus...we decorate the Toilet at the Bistro with Menus...so if you wish to add to our collection...feel free to send them to me!

[robert brown]

Being in the gallery business that highly emphasizes rare, expensive posters that I need to sell, I never got the collecting bug, even though I came from a family of collectors. I have been tempted to collect gastronomic-historical printed matter. If I were to start such a collection, I would hone in on one highly-defined area as this, in the end, is how one cashes in. Having the most complete collection of just about anything makes a collection highly desireable, even if it is mundane in nature (corkscrews, for example). Just as a goof and because it wouldn't be expensive, I would try to get menus from the great Nouvelle Cuisine restaurants in France. In fact, if someone offered me several hundred menus (and I bet there is someone out there who has them), I might be tempted to spring the several thousand dollars it would cost.

There are however, some great gastronomic posters such as A.M. Cassandre's for Maison Prunier, the famous London and Paris seafood restaurant between the wars, or Ludwig Hohlwein's 1909 poster for Wilhelm Mozer Delicatessen in Munich. There are certainly many hundred restaurant posters that were done, and it would take a very large commitment of time and money to get the most interesting ones. What I have been tempted to do, but, alas, never will, is to collect just about anything having to do with cheese. These could be books and pamphlets, but more likely posters and cheese container labels. Really marvelous labels come from Normandie. Oh, to be a kid again.

[marie-louise]

I have a weakness for sets of dishes.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Odd eating utensils and whatnots from bygone days...

I have numerous Absinthe spoons and glasses, oyster spoons and oyster plates, and marrow spoons. I am also proud of an antique foie-gras funnel (yes, that machine they force feed the ducks and geese with) which hangs on my kitchen wall.

The Victorians did such lovely work in silver for their various eatings... strawberry forks, bon-bon servers, bread tongs, asparagus and sliced-cucumber servers, et al. I love all those old things and buy most of them from eBay. I just adore serving a dish that requires a special implement, especially osso-buco!

I would love to own a duck press, but the CHEAPEST one I could find was $999.00 (excluding shipping!).

[Suzanne F]

My newest acquisition (Thanks, Mummy!)is a late 19th century sterling piece with screws and vise thingies that give it a truly Victorian/Kinky appearance.  I was stumped as to its purpose and had to give in and call the Font of All Knowlege.

Victorians had gizmos for all occasions.  This Thing clamps onto the leg of a bird so it can be held neatly during carving.  It works, but I never thought I needed one!

I saw one of those once at Bridge Kitchenware and was similarly mystified. They said it was a leg-of-lamb holder. Looks like an instrument of torture, but made from beautiful materials -- silver and bone or ivory (ah ha! leg-of-elephant holder!).

[kitwilliams]

milk jugs (mostly welsh and english). I will put myself into debt for beautiful dishes. and serving tea is such fun when everyone has a one-of-a-kind cup and saucer. I always end up having to ship things home when I travel and ebay has done well by my modest purchases.

my favorite: well used t.g. green pudding basins (cream colored only. none of the cornish ware stripes.)

[maggiethecat]

my favorite: well used t.g. green pudding basins (cream colored only.  none of the cornish ware stripes.)

Kit:

My favourite too; I still have my newlywed T.G. Green, bought with my employee discount at Crate and Barrel. (When there were only three stores in the world!)

[nyfirepatrolchef]

I have a stove top toaster...wish I could lay my hands on US Military issue cookware just for kicks...a friend who shares my passion for WW2 stuff once waved a WW2 Army issue muffin pan under my nose hed just scored. Id really sell my soul for a set of ANY vintage USMC issue recipe cards. You know...recipe for Shit On Shingle....two sides of beef splattered by multiple rounds from a .50 cal machine gun, 50 gallons milk, 100 pounds salt etc etc

[beans]

Old cool looking toasters. I've got about a dozen. All unique. All fabulous.

Oh, and wine keys. I've got a bunch of different shaped, quality, varied method and logoed types. To boot, I *adore* Moët wine buckets. My trophy to date is a double, very heavy champagne bucket embossed with lovely grape leaves all the way around. It is stunning.

[alacarte]

Nutcrackers. Not the christmas kind though.

Advertising posters with food themes (when I can afford them!)

[Suzanne F]

Brought this back up because:

The October 15 issue of the NY Times had a little piece about hand-painted pie birds. So adorable. Made by Bob Carmack, in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Available through: Piebirds America.

[tryska]

coffee cups from all the places i've ever worked.

[maggiethecat]

Brought this back up because:

The October 15 issue of the NY Times had a little piece about hand-painted pie birds.  So adorable.  Made by Bob Carmack, in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Available through: Piebirds America.

I love you, Suzanne! I adored them, was saving the "Times" section for the address, and someone got a little zealous on garbage night.

I caught a truly cool kitchen collection at the beautiful home of Mrs. Dr. Varmint's parents in Raleigh. They've saved a lifetime of defunct espresso machines of every size, sort and condition. It's a museum celebrating the history, geography and geneology of the espresso machine.

[guajolote]

I caught a truly cool kitchen collection at the beautiful home of Mrs. Dr. Varmint's parents in Raleigh.  They've saved a lifetime of defunct espresso machines of every size, sort and condition. It's a museum celebrating the history, geography and geneology of the espresso machine.

that was super cool. Varmint's in-laws are so dreamy .

[FistFullaRoux]

Metal food advertising signs. I just started. My in-laws gave me one for Community Coffee, and I've found RC Cola, Sunbeam bread, and Morton's Salt so far.

My wife (I don't know if this is a collection or not) loves candles that smell like food. Buttercream, devil's food cake, vanilla wafer, and cucumber-melon are the current batch. When they are burned about 3/4 of the way down, she caps them and stashes them so she still has the intact jar, and some of the wax to smell later. The caramel candle drove me crazy.

[Priscilla]

Well, lessee. Hottles, for one, an incidental what appears to be a collection but started with a strange feeling of obligatory custodianship. Never set out to own even a single one, even though I do admire to get my coffee refill in one with old-fashioned hotel room service, especially if it's topped with the little pleated paper mobcap.

But here I've got, I dunno, 100? I am forced to apprehend their subtle differences, taller/shorter, lid/no lid (got one with the mobcap), smooth/indented for bain-marie usage -- and their not-so-subtle, as in the case of the freaky-ass fired-on-yellow-over-milk glass with wheat motif. They keep suggesting themselves across my purview, and what am I supposed to do?

Also little poury things, to the point where the Consort decreed, tried to decree, that I'm not to have any more little poury things. But, again, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO???

[LJC]

China, I have an almost complete set (serving pieces and all) of Noritaki Favorita. Egg Cups, my sister has over 150. Others: salt and pepper shakers, demi tase cups, old toasters (a friend has 36), ashtrays.

[tirgoddess]

I collect:

Bowls - I am a bowl freak

Colored Glass-platters, stemware, votives, vases-colored glass freak as well

Retro Linens

Bakelite Utensils

My Mom's Silver Pattern-since my Dad still has everything of hers in storage, and I don't know when/if I will see it again, it gives me comfort to have these pieces

Silver Pieces-in general

Colored Lights Shaped as Fruit- I have a peach, pear and apple on my counters

Flower Pots-I know, not food

Dish towels - from places I have been, not necessarily depicting the place, just ones I like, (inexpensive souvenier)

(I don't have a dishwasher, well I do, but when we bought our home and the new dishwasher to go with it, we neglected to measure the counters, so it doesn't fit and now it sits in our garage in the box it came in.)

Also, why aren't thongs food related?

[=Mark]

Menus.

[maggiethecat]

Also little poury things, to the point where the Consort decreed, tried to decree, that I'm not to have any more little poury things.  But, again, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO???

Withold sexual favours. The consort will soon appreciate that Poury Things are just part of what makes Priscilla so dreamy.

[Lady T]

Priscilla: Get your collection of Poury Things appraised. Once the Consort gets his attitude revised to view them as a *Long Term Investment* rather than a Waste of Time and Money, his objections will go away and you'll be free to do what you must when a sweet little Poury Thing clings to your ankle and cries to go home with you.

If that doesn't work...well, then you can always withhold sexual favours.