Family Heirloom Kitchen Items

[crinoidgirl]

Yes, please - and also, Jensen, would love to see a pic even if it's too shiny. I can't see the handle in my mind.

If you just want to take a picture of the hande, that's fine.

[andiesenji]

I have so many things I would be hard pressed to list them all. 

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Can we see a few?? Pretty please??

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Okay, charging camera batteries as I type. Will try to work some picture-taking in between finishing tax returns for some people who always leave everything until the last minute.

I filed mine in February!

[Rebecca263]

Ok, my mom's demilune. She used it for her American style charoset every year. I took a photo of it but I'm a newbie and I don't know how to get the picture loaded here. Anyway, it's stainless steel, Made in Japan, nothing special, the black paint long ago wore off of the handle, but it was Mommy's! My secodnitem is my mther's hand mixer, a gift for her bridal shower, 1961. It's beautiful, creamy white enameled and heavy, looks like a rocket ship. It has a delicious peculiar motor odor that sends me right back to my mother in the kitchen, mixing batters. Of course, looking for it just led me to find out what I'm getting for Mother's day, it needed some repairs and it has been REMOVED from it's hiding place! My kiddle is the sweetest!

[Jensen]

Yes, please - and also, Jensen, would love to see a pic even if it's too shiny.  I can't see the handle in my mind.

If you just want to take a picture of the hande, that's fine. 

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It's not a shiny as I may have described it as being...it just no longer has the lovely patina it used to. So, with that in mind, here is Great-Granny's griddle:

[kelautz]

I'll interpret "kitchen items" broadly with these three treasures I was able to retrieve from my family.

1.) My Mom's sterling flatware. I loved it as a kid, and could always be counted on to polish it, on the rare occasions it was put to use. The size and heft of the pieces suit my (still) small hands. I remember coveting the flatware for what seemed like forever. If I could give back the silverware to get my Mom back, I sure would, but since I can't, it reminds me of her and the stories she would tell about the various people who gave her the different pieces. Then there was the time someone decided to "polish" the silverware with Comet cleanser (not me.) That was a bad day! She put the best face on it and said that eventually the scratches would soften out, and it would be shiny again. Now, 40 years later, it looks okay, but I still remember that day. When I got the set after she died, I decided that I was going to use it as my every day silver. What was I waiting for, somebody important to show up for dinner?!

2.) My Mom's copy of the Joy of Cooking that she received as a wedding present. We were expats in Japan when I was a little girl. My Mom had two cookbooks, the J of C and Betty Crocker. I much preferred to read the J of C. My early ideas of what American food was like were formed by the delightful vignettes Irma Rombauer wove into her recipes. If you've read the biography of Irma Rombauer, "Stand Facing the Stove", you know that Bobbs Merrill printed the J of C on pretty crummy paper, so now I dasn't even open the cover, or pages break away from what binding remains. But I treasure it.

3.) A set of three nesting stainless steel bowls that were also my Mother's. They are of Japanese manufacture, from the era when things were built to last. They have a lovely shallow shape, perfect for tossing that tuna mac salad. They could not be replaced today.

Unfortunately, all of the moving around my family did boded ill for the survival of heirloom kitchen items. But I'm glad to have these.

I really enjoy reading about other people's treasures!

[ruthcooks]

I have lots of stuff which is from both sides of the family but my mother no longer remembers "what one was which one and which one was what."

My grandmother's cast iron Dutch oven

Lots of china made by Haviland, Limoges, etc.

My great-grandparents' set of china given to them by their 8 children at their 50th wedding anniversary (my grandparents were all born in the late 1800's)

A collection of wooden kitchen implements such as spoons, potato mashers, butter paddles and molds, some hand carved

Hand written cookbooks from both grandmothers and a great aunt

A few years ago I bought a "map table" coffee table. It has a glass top and pull out drawers so that you can display items. This is where I keep most of the non-kitchen family items small enough to fit.

Unfortunately, I don't think either of my kids is very interested in any of it.

[racheld]

In the Southern Food Culture section, there was just recently a thread on preserves---I posted a bit about them, and though I didn't mention it at the time, I thought fondly of my Mammaw's Chinois (though neither she for all of her 79 years, nor I, until the past few, had ever heard it called that--It was the jelly drainer, or "that cone thing" for all those summers we picked plums and grapes and all kinds of berries, peaches and pears and cherries, all from our own fields and trees).

We would head out in the relative coolth of the dawn (85 degrees or so by 6 a.m.) and brave the thorns and snakes of the blackberry ramble, or the wasps' proprietary interest in all the plums and cherries. Later in the season, I would climb the peach trees, one after another, giving each rosygold velvet bubble a gentle fingersqueeze to check its readiness as she awaited below, holding a wide basketful of field grass to gently receive and cushion the fruit. No peach ever bruised in our care---we treated those miracles of juicy sweetness with the softest of touches, and besides, the time from tree to jellypot or cobbler was far too brief.

For jam or jelly, the berries and plums and grapes were all crushed and sugared, to sit for a while in the porch shade until they gave up their fragrant juices. A white-rimmed-in-red enamel dishpan was set on the kitchen counter, the silvery cone thing set sturdily on its three rocket-feet in the center. The heavy, pointed wooden pestle (called a "maul" by Mammaw) was pressed and turned steadily until the rows of holes gave up the rich nectar, like hundreds of small faucets pouring forth melted jewels.

I loved being allowed to "turn the maul" and became quite proficient at quite a young age. It was lovely to see the pulp dropping into the whiteness of that shiny pan. A further squeezing in cheesecloth was necessary to make jelly, but jam went straight on the stove for cooking.

So now I have it; it hangs in my pantry on a hook, with the maul in a neat cloth bag. I walk beneath it every day, though I use it seldom in winter, save for soups or ricing potatoes. Summer is its season, though summers here are a pale version of the burning, steamy days of those Mississippi summers of my childhood. But the Farmers' Market provides plums (though not the small golden ones which made Mammaw's jelly famous far and wide) and cherries and blueberries and all sorts of fruits of the season. They've all passed through that old jelly drainer at one time or another, and soon it will be time to take it down again, to smell the sweet juice cooking, and to remember.

Edited April 16, 2005 by racheld (log)

[Smithy]

Lovely, Rachel. Absolutely lovely memories, and writing about them.

Maybe I'll get around to posting photos of some of my treasures. I have a few from my grandmother, and as of the last year a lot from my parents as they downsized. I'm not sure which are the absolute favorites, but here are the three that come to mind:

The Wearever lemon squeezer that Mom rescued from a Navy bride about to ship back to the States. She didn't know what a treasure she had, but Mom knew a good deal when she saw one. Even though she was an Army Air Corps bride, she rescued that USN juicer. We made a lot of lemon juice and lemon meringue pies when I was growing up, and it's in almost constant use around my house now.

My grandmother's Wearever aluminum pot set. It has two cookpots that mate together to make a roaster, a lid that fits either pot, and a flat steamer insert that will fit either pot or fit between the two if they're mated. The bottom of one pot pooches up in the middle so it doesn't sit level, and water put into it tends toward the outside; the bottom of the other pot pooches out so the pot rocks on the burner. But that set cooked green beans of proper southern style - breaking every rule in the current cookbooks (except perhaps Southern cookbooks) by cooking too long, turning the beans army drab, and so forth - and the beans were meltingly tender, unctuous, and good. My cousin-by-marriage followed Nana around the kitchen more than once, taking notes, trying to work out how to cook those beans. I asked for, and got, the pot set after Nana passed on to Heaven's Kitchen, hoping the pots were somehow the secret. Nobody has managed the trick. A few years ago, Mom and Dad were visiting me here in Minnesota, and I pulled out the pot set to start dinner. Dad looked at the pot and said, "I remember when Mom got those." They were the hostess gift Nana had received for throwing a Wear-ever party - forerunner to the Tupperware parties of later years. Dad was 10 at the time. That makes these pots 75 years old. I cherish them.

The Ovenshire pot set that my grandparents gave my parents some decades back. Until recently I thought it had been a wedding present, but Mom has corrected me on that; it only dates back to the late 1940's or early-to-mid 1950's. It's pretty heavy. My sister thinks it's cast aluminum. There are some photos of it in action in the braising labs. The lid doubles as a skillet. Neither the pot nor its skillet lid has a handle; what they have instead is a spot to insert the handle, so both the pot and skillet-lid are oven proof. The handle is made of bakelite and metal. You'd swear that squiggly thing couldn't manage to hold onto the pot in question, but in all these years I've only dropped something once. That set was the main cooking utensil in our house for years, until Mom got an electric skillet and, eventually, "better" cookware. Then the set went into the camp kit, where it served us well for more years. When I moved out, Mom gave it to me, where I used it until I hooked up for far too long with a snooty boyfriend who didn't like that beat-up set. (That should have been a big clue to me, but I was younger and dumber then.) By that time Mom and Dad were seeing the continent in a travel trailer, so they took the set back. Recently I reclaimed it yet again when they downsized and sold the trailer. I don't know how old it is for sure, but I'm quite sure it dates back to the mid-1950's at the latest.

I have higher-tech cookware, and it serves its purpose well, but this is the stuff with memories.

[mizducky]

When my mom died in 1987, my dad was all set to give all my mom's belongings, including her cookware, away to Goodwill! Fortunately, my kid sister was still living relatively close by, and swooped in to rescue a whole bunch of stuff. So she's the one who has all of Mom's silverplate service, her good china, the old Mixmaster with the bakelite bits, her old copper-bottomed Revereware pots, etc. etc. etc. I suppose if I asked her to share she'd be totally okay with that, but I've been living far enough away from her, and often in cramped enough living arrangements, that it would have been awkward to ship and store the stuff. So I'm mainly glad it at least has a home somewhere.

What I do have of my mother's: an old cookbook, copyright 1949, entitled "Jewish Cookery." It's a battered old hardcover, the cheap cover all faded and cheap paper all yellowed, the interior devoid of pictures of any sort. The recipes are a rather odd mix of traditional Eastern-European Jewish, a smattering of Israeli, and some strange middle-American incursions (one example: there's a molded "salad" of beets in lime jello that would be right at home on the "Gallery of Regrettable Food" website). But it was my mom's go-to book for things like latkes and chopped liver--I have memories of her cooking from this book, and of it residing on her bookshelf next to the Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks--and I treasure it as if it were a trove of Cordon Bleu cuisine.

[racheld]

I got so carried away making jelly up there, I forgot to mention the butter dishes with covers---one has a groove all around that you pour cold water into. The lid sits in the water, ensuring that no stray ant or other marauder can get into the butter. With these came the butter paddles, two hand-worn flat brown wood things like flat spoons; one side of each flat is smooth, the other crosshatched with tiny carved incisions which were used to maneuver blobs of butter into golf ball-sized individual "pats." Butter consumption was taken seriously in those days.

I can see my Mammaw now, making those paddles move faster than knitting needles, flipping and rounding that glob into a perfectly round, checkered ball which could have graced the tables at Versailles. I never DID get the hang of that trick, but I was allowed to pack the drained butter into the two-piece wooden butter mold. A little wooden handle like those on a darning egg had a flat round "stamp" on one end. The handle was inserted through a hole in the bottom of a wooden bowl about 5" across and 2" deep. The bowl was then packed with the soft butter, and placed upside down on a saucer. Handle was pushed, butter emerged from bowl with the nice grooving from the bowl sides, plus a neat raised picture of a cow on top, courtesy of a carving in the "stamp" part.

And I DID learn to milk. Well, sort of. I was determined to learn, so I would sneak out to the one remaining cow, my short little five-year-old self with my long braids. I would push the cow over to the high wooden fence, then butt her up against it with my head, holding her there while I held a pint jar in one hand and milked with the other. Then I'd give the proceeds to the cats so no one would know what I'd been up to.

Continuing the theme: One milk can, the kind so popular on porches or as mailbox stands the past few years; one 3 gallon churn, with lid, (dasher lost to time, but I DID churn out quite a few pounds of butter with it when I was young).

We used it for pickles or kraut for several years...today it's on the patio, under an octagonal marble slab on which summers our biggest fern, which went outside just this morning.

Several small cut-glass salt dips, only one wee corroded spoon remaining.

One fancy high-footed china cup and saucer, deep burgundy with flower paintings inside and out, one of a set of six different flowers and colors, ordered from Sears in the Fifties for $1.00 a set. One each alloted to my Mom, my aunt, and us four granddaughters. Mammaw had a way of making what we referred to as a "walk and pat" will. For YEARS before her death, she would take each visit as a chance to walk around her house, pat an object or two, and name the person for whom it was intended on her demise.

And when the time came, we all spent a couple of days cleaning out the house, reminiscing, dumping past-their-prime fruit jars, and taking home exactly what she had intended, down to her reading glasses, of which she must have had twenty pairs, all from Woolworth's, and which we children had delighted in wearing while prancing round her lawn. Looking through those things made you step around in a hilarious manner, and it was one of our favorite games. (Besides, by the time of her death, I used a 1.25 myself).

Lots of embroidered tea towels and cup towels (difference subtle but definite, known to every Southern housewife); tablecloths and napkins worked in cutwork, lacework, embroidery and tatting; several lovely old mismatched silver serving spoons that I have used daily for years; her wonderful old gray crock which held exactly two boxes of Morton's salt. It sat inside the bottom cabinet, and she could reach in, grab a handful, and season four pots on the stove without bending down again.

A strange old green-painted metal contraption (promotional giveaway from the local Gas company, on years they did not give out wall calendars, flyswatters or flue covers) which hung beside the stove. It held one big box of matches and dispensed them out a little lipped cup in the front. A long open slot on each side allowed striking of match against box.

Her kitchen clock, a yellowed white octagonal Bakelite one with red hands and a little red circle in the middle which clicked open when the power was interrupted. We'd come home or get up in the morning and she'd say, "Current's been off!!" and pop the button on the clock back to white. The cord will probably snap in two if I handle it one more time, but last time I plugged it in, it ticked away to itself, little red button shining...current had been off for probably ten years.

Knives, all wooden-handled, honed half a century on my Grandfather's stone to the thin rippling configurations of a warrior's kris. Spoons and the red-handled potato masher and a long-handled round-headed meat pounder which she used by scrupulously putting a sheet of Cut-Rite waxed paper over the meat. I just wrap it in Saran, way up the handle, and pound away.

Her gold-rimmed, floral-painted Homer Laughlin pieplate with a chip out of the rim. I serve in it proudly, though I wouldn't put any other chipped dish on the table. Her hefty solid-maple rolling pin, though I have not the touch for rolls or cut cookies, and all my piecrust is courtesy of Pillsbury.

Saucers and salad plates and her "best china," also Homer Laughlin, with all the gold scrollwork faded to shadows on the glass.

Wearever pots and lids---they turn out incomparable potroasts, steak 'n' gravy, and most recently, hundreds of pounds of homemade fudge every Christmas.

The "devilled egg" tray, a heavy clear hobnailed one which is used often.

The egg beater, which was used to beat even just one egg for a child's breakfast. It was kind of like it was the law...beat eggs--have to use the beater.

Mammaw had a "magic teapot" which amazed and confounded us all with its ability to keep pouring, round and round the table, with sometimes ten of us at Sunday dinner. I have not to this day figured out the secret. She would scoop a handful of Lipton leaves into the squat, eggplant-colored pot, a store premium from McCormick Tea Co. In went a potful of boiling water from the kettle, and she somehow poured directly onto ice in the big old heavy grape-etched goblets without getting a leaf into anyone's glass. And everyone got a refill. Same pot, same tea, no more boiling water required. It went round as long as the dinner lasted, and there was no explanation. We were all married, had children and homes of our own, and STILL we homekeepers with our OWN teapitchers to maintain could NOT figure out how she did it. It's still a family mystery to this day.

My Sister got the pot, but I have its twin, from an antiques store, just cause I wanted one like it. And the magic was not inherited.

Nobody got the table forks, I guess. Every single fork in the house had three regular tines and one short one, courtesy of Mammaw's mayonnaise-making. She could grab an egg, some vinegar, oil and a dinner plate, and beat up the fluffiest mayo on the planet. But it sure took a toll on those forks.

Edited April 16, 2005 by racheld (log)

[Chris Amirault]

What wonderful posts, everyone!

[andiesenji]

Here are a few things that are very special to me:

First, some breakables:

Old bowls, bean pots (Bauer), Stangl pottery, English ironstone,

porcelain, English and French.

My grandma's waffle iron in the center. A green FireKing bowl (one of several)

And the big covered casserole from France.

And here are some of the metal things that remind me so much of my childhood.

My other grandmother's copper jam pan, various baking molds, two of my Griswold skillets,

The long fry pan that was made to fit over two top openings in a wood/coal range.

And two lamb cake molds, one from one grandmother, the other from the other grandmother.

The big sauce pan in the right rear was my great-grandmothers which she brought from England. I have three, this is the largest, holds 12 imperial pints.

[robyn]

Technically this isn't a kitchen item. It's the metal cup my grandmother used to get water on the boat when she was emigrating from Europe to the United States.

I also have the silver spoons her mother sewed in her skirt to use in case she needed "money". Robyn

[racheld]

Glorious keepsakes/heirlooms/pieces of your rich history. By the sewing of the spoons "to use" did that mean she left her family behind, and braved the new country alone? Can you tell more about her arrival, the life she made for herself, etc.?

[Chris Amirault]

Technically this isn't a kitchen item.  It's the metal cup my grandmother used to get water on the boat when she was emigrating from Europe to the United States.

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What an amazing thing -- it takes my breath away to think of that cup's import on that journey!

[robyn]

Glorious keepsakes/heirlooms/pieces of your rich history.    By the sewing of the spoons "to use" did that mean she left her family behind, and braved the new country alone?  Can you tell more about her arrival, the life she made for herself, etc.?

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My maternal grandmother came to this country alone when she was about 13. In about 1905. Her older sister was supposed to come. She had all the papers. But she got "cold feet". So my grandmother left. Her family was Orthodox Jewish - and she didn't want to have her head shaved. My grandmother left all of her family behind and never saw them again. She had a lot of brothers and sisters. Some died of natural causes - like flu - but of those remaining - all except one died in the Holocaust. I'm pretty sure my grandmother never saw that sister again - she wound up in Israel. But my mother and I both met her children (and some of their children) - some live in Israel - some live in Texas. She got married to another immigrant who arrived a few years after she did. They became American citizens when he joined the Army in WWI. My grandfather was a garment worker (also a compulsive gambler although he certainly couldn't afford it!) - my grandmother was a housewife who tried to make do without much money. They had 2 children (my mother and uncle). Both children went to college despite tough times (Depression - etc.). My grandfather died pretty young (59). My grandmother died at about age 80.

Like millions and millions of immigrants - nothing extraordinary about their lives (or the lives of my other grandparents - also immigrants). The most moving experience I can remember about them was going to the Ellis Island Museum in New York. Thought it would be a yawn - and wound up spending half a day there. You think what you have is unique - just yours. And you see that it's an experience that's been replicated millions of times - down to the items people brought with them (from Bibles to baking pans). Simply overwhelming. It's a great place to explore American history - and I highly recommend it - whether your family came here 300 years ago - or 3 years ago (or has been here forever). Robyn

[racheld]

Thank you, Robyn, for that wonderful recounting of what had to be a long, grim journey. And not just the voyage---the arrival (alone at 13??!!) into that stormy, moving mass of people moving along in line after line like cattle, having their belongings seized and their bodies deloused and their names changed to suit the interviewers' interpretations.

And just the first step out into a strange land. If you'd care to share more----it's a beautiful, scary story, and a part of the heritage of most of us. I'm kind of one of the "been here forever" group---arrivals in 1700's of most of one side of my family--just hop off the boat and grab a shovel. This tale and your telling of it really touched me, and the stark, battered lines of that cup and its history will remain in my memory for a long, long time.

[hjshorter]

A set of 6 silver plate fruit knives that were given to my maternal grandmother by my great-grandmother (her MIL) in 1945 as an engagement present.

My great-great-grandmother's roasting pan, from the early 1900's. It makes the most amazing gravy and drippings.

Edit: I almost forgot an entire box of embroidered tea towels, and pillowcases from great grandmother. She made money by taking in sewing in the 20's and 30's. These were part of my grandmother's trousseau. Grammy gave them to me because I was her only grandchild that did needlework.

Edited April 17, 2005 by hjshorter (log)

[tpogue@comcast.net]

A glass knife used primarily for tomatoes. It lives in it's original box in my kitchen utensil drawer. It's from my husband's Grandmother. It probably 75 years old. I also have her "cookbook" which is date 1890, with her notes. Then from the 40's I have a cream dipper. Cute little spoon that was used to take the cream off a bottle of milk. I use it today as a serving piece. Actually, I remember these and milk in bottles with cream.

terry

[peppyre]

My mom and I both kept most of my grandma's kitchen items. We just couldn't bear to part with it and I am so glad that now we have almost everything. My mom had also kept most of her wedding gifts from her first marriage and I was slowly getting most of that stuff too as my mom upgraded. Unfortunately, after a nasty divorce from her second husband, he took most of it.

I'm heading over to my mom's today and will borrow her camera to take pictures of what is still at her place and then what I have. My paternal grandfather was a butcher and I was lucky to inherit quite a few of his tools when I moved out on my own. I will be sure to get a picture of those as well.

I love this thread and I think that this is a beautiful way to share your life experiences with other people. It all comes right back to food! The kitchen is always the soul of a home and the heart of the family.

[Chris Amirault]

A glass knife used primarily for tomatoes. It lives in it's original box in my kitchen utensil drawer. It's from my husband's Grandmother. It probably 75 years old.

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Edited April 17, 2005 by chrisamirault (log)

[andiesenji]

I had forgotten about grandma's glass tomato and fruit knives. They always lived in the linen drawer so they wouldn't get chipped.

I have a green one somewhere around and another crystal one with hand-painted flowers on the handle, it is in a box from Marshall Fields, Chicago stamped Christmas, 1936.

Edited April 17, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[Susan G]

This is my first time posting a photo..........it's a four quart pot, much loved. Gram used to bake casseroles in it; I make tapioca and soups!

Edited April 18, 2005 by Susan G (log)

[Susan G]

http://www.risingmoonstudio.com/grandmaspot.gif

Let's try this again.........

[jgarner53]

I have my grandmother's 1950 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook. The cover's falling apart, but at least since it was put together as a binder, it holds the recipes in place pretty well. There are a lot of paper-clipped pages, or notes in the front of the book in her handwriting.

I also have my grandparents' popcorn popper. Every Sunday after church, they'd eat brunch or a heavy mid-day meal, so that they didn't really want dinner and would usually have popcorn while they watched shows like "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" or "Lawrence Welk." The popper is a rectangular metal (iron?) box, with long handle and a sliding lid. There's a depression with holes in it in the top where you'd place the pat of butter to melt as the corn started to pop. While I don't use it, it has always had a place of honor in my kitchen.

One of the only other things I have is Nana's tool for folding in egg whites. It's sort of like a whisk, but shaped differently. There's an oval ring of heavy gauge wire, crossed by wavy, coiled, thinner wires. Hmm. I can see I'm going to have to take a picture of this.

My mom has most of the other stuff, as well as my great-grandmother's cast iron skillet.