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Unusual & mysterious kitchen gadgets

andiesenji

By andiesenji
in Kitchen Consumer

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chromedome

chromedome

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, liuzhou said:


People eat melon and sunflower seeds etc all the time. There are shelves of the things in every store. But they usually just drop the shells on the floor. 
 

 

That used to drive me crazy when I ran a Radio Shack in small-town British Columbia. People (mostly teens) would come into the store, spend a half-hour wandering around, and leave a trail of sunflower seed hulls in their wake. The crappy built-in vacuum wouldn't always pick them up, either, which meant a lot of stooping and manual pick-up at closing time. 

Of course, that's better than the farmers who'd come straight from their pig barn wearing the same boots...

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“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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Tropicalsenior

Tropicalsenior

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 1/22/2018 at 10:18 PM, liuzhou said:

Only if you are a melon.

Please, I need your help. I can't imagine what this wok would be used for. That piece in the middle is welded to the wok. Do you have any idea how this would be used? I saw this in my Chinese restaurant supply place and the young man that owns the store wasn't much help. The wok is about 14 or 16 in. wide. It looks like it would make a heck of a good chip and dip dish but I can't imagine the Chinese sitting down to a feast of chip and dip. Much less, eating them out of a wok.

20180126_114017(1).jpg

 I'm sorry, I can't get the second picture out of this post

 

20180126_114017.jpg

Edited by Tropicalsenior
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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted (edited)
45 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Please, I need your help. I can't imagine what this wok would be used for. That piece in the middle is welded to the wok. Do you have any idea how this would be used? I saw this in my Chinese restaurant supply place and the young man that owns the store wasn't much help. The wok is about 14 or 16 in. wide. It looks like it would make a heck of a good chip and dip dish but I can't imagine the Chinese sitting down to a feast of chip and dip. Much less, eating them out of a wok.

 

 

It's not actually a wok. It's a northern Chinese/Mongolian hotpot chafing dish.

A soup is cooked elsewhere then added to the outer ring. Various ingredients (lamb/mutton and vegetables) are added by the diners, who essentially cook dinner themselves in the soup - fondue style.  Very popular in winter. In fact, I hate winter food in China. It's the same every day.

 

Here in the south we don't have the dishes with the central funnel/pot. The central pots seem to have various uses. I'm not sure which is most traditional. (Your chip and dip analogy may not be so far off. I confess I had to Google 'chip and dip'.)  I will consult wiser people than me in the morning.

You caught me at bedtime - I'll add more tomorrow, unless someone chips or dips in first.

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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Tropicalsenior

Tropicalsenior

Posted
Posted (edited)
18 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

I'll add more tomorrow, unless someone chips or dips in first.

 

Thank you. Look forward to hearing more about that center section. Years ago I had a small little Mongolian Hot Pot that I was supposed to put coals in the center section to heat the soup. then somebody told me they could explode from the coals in the center section and I was afraid to use it anymore. Besides, to be perfectly truthful, it was a pain in the butt, but then, I always thought fondue was a waste of time also. Too much work just to appear ostentatious.

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rotuts

rotuts

Posted
Posted

I also thought this was for a Mongolian hot pot.   

 

I I too remember way back there were a few coals in a center chamber and then a chimney was added to keep food falling on the coals

 

Google returned these images :

 

images mongolian hot pot

 

you have to scroll down or click images

 

what was new to me is that many of the pots had two sections , no central section and some were

 

a bit Yin-ish/Yang-ish

 

Googingh ShabuShabu :

 

images shabu shabu

 

some had chimneys , but not many

 

shabu-shabu-thai-hot-pot-madosfoodhall-crocodile-26-cms-brand-golden-2_1024x1024.thumb.jpg.5eeb4ae361a648e59ce1821b46fdc1d6.jpg

 

and one had a central bowl as yours does and in it was a mushroom broth.

 

maybe chimneys have been eliminated in the restaurant setting ?

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Tropicalsenior

Tropicalsenior

Posted
Posted
53 minutes ago, rotuts said:

maybe chimneys have been eliminated in the restaurant setting ?

The one that I used to have looked just like this one. But it was kind of a flimsy, tin like affair, but then that was 40 years ago, too. When they said that it could blow up, it was flimsy enough that I believed it and stopped using it.

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted

After exhaustive research this morning (one brief phone call), I am informed that traditionally the central pot was indeed used as a heating element using solid fuel. However, today the hot pots are normally used on portable gas burners or induction cookers, rendering the central pot redundant. Today, the central pot is most often used to hold dry, uncooked ingredients to be cooked in the outer ring as and when required, or to hold cooked food so as to keep it warm without overcooking in the broth.

 

 

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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Doofa

Doofa

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, boilsover said:

OK, smart guys, what's this?  Hint:  It's not a Viking doll boat...

 

 

mystery tool.jpg

For opening shellfish. Probably oysters.

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Alex

Alex

Posted
Posted

It's pretty, whatever it is. I'm guessing it's for cracking something open, maybe a coconut?

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

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boilsover

boilsover

Posted
Posted
32 minutes ago, heidih said:

Coconut scraper?

 

Nope, but close.  It is a scraper.

 

When I was told its specific purpose, I asked the dealer his level of confidence and for the provenance.  He specializes in high-end culinary antiques, and the answer came back 100%.

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