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Unusual & mysterious kitchen gadgets


andiesenji

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47 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

I have a "gadget" currently on ebay - a 4-section "pipe tin" or round loaf pan, obviously used, and I so state.

Instead of posting a question I got a rather convoluted private question about the uses for it.

 

So, if one sees an ad for a bread pan (or cake, if one is an expert) that forms the shape when the dough rises into the top part, 

WHY WOULD someone ask if it could be used as a JELLO MOLD???

 

I have been puzzling over this one since early this morning.  I answered, no it was not suitable for a Jello mold.  I'm not even sure it would hold a liquid.  I have baked pound cakes and sponge cake in it but I've had a fair amount of experience knowing how much these cakes will rise.  Then I thought, why does anyone want to make a Jello log?  I asked but the questioner has not replied.

Pipe tin pan 1.JPG

Pipe tin pan 2.JPG

 

I recall the first time I used mine. I wanted to make cheese bread just like we used to get at the National Bakery.

 

I had to take the side rails off my Miele oven to get it in there. I had no idea how much dough. Suffice it to say there was dough coming out of all it's little cracks and crevices - it was days before I was able to pry it open and get it clean again.

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About a week ago, I had a sudden urgent need for a carrot, so I headed for the nearest carrot store. It's about five minutes from my home. I seldom go there, not that there really is anything wrong with it other than their selection being a bit limited - they only have the essentials.

Anyway, after selecting the carrot most suitable for my exacting needs, I spotted these things on a shelf. I had no idea what they were, so I asked the sole member of staff - apparently a 12-year-old-girl. The only way I can accurately translate her Chinese is to say that she said "Dunno!" in a tone of voice which rather suggested she left off the second part "and I don't *^&^^% care!".

 

Sold! I bought it!

 

thing.jpg


Just as I was leaving the tiny palace of delights, if you find carrots delightful, I spotted a bit of cardboard on the floor near the pile of things, on which were a mere two Chinese characters accurately describing its intended function. Any guesses?

 

The "bowl" has a capacity of about half a litre.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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Chinese lacrosse?  

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On 1/4/2016 at 3:40 PM, MisterKrazee said:

Any ideas what this happy thing might be?

 

 

IMG_0740.JPG

 

 

Hi MisterKrazee from your home state!

 

Unfortunately, I can't help on the identification of your obscure kitchen gadget but I sure do love the little smiley face cut into it and the this year's crop sweet potatoes in the background. I picked up some beauties myself at 49 cents a pound at my local Food Lion the other day. Sad for the farmers who got flooded out by nasty old Hurricane Matthew and had their sweet potato crop rotting in muddy, flooded fields. Good to know that it did not take out all the crop, though. Did you know we live in the largest producing area in this country for sweets? We are absolutely dwarfed by China's production, though, I found out recently.

 

I'm not real sure your gizmo is a corn scraper. It looks from the photo to be convex on what I imagine to be the working side with the two teeth over the smiley. Wouldn't it work better with the teeth on the concave side?

 

It does not bode well that @andiesenji who owns or has owned every obscure kitchen gadget devised by man posted right after you and didn't weigh in? She is our resident expert on these matters. 

 

And andiesenji, I believe you're right on your hinged loaf pan. If you overfill with batter, it would leak out on rising and baking, and there would be no way to make a round log of gelatin in your device. People ask dumb questions because everyone is used to pressing buttons to make stuff happen now. Try not to worry about it. I hope you are more successful than I am. 

 

I asked a coworker for a jump for my car battery years ago, and she said she did not know how to open her hood. 9_9  Nevermind, I took care of it all and was able to drive off.

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> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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That's a corn zipper made by either Rosle or Kuhn Rikon.  I've got one around her somewhere, though mine has a plastic handle, the business end is the same.

 

I finally got an answer back from the person who inquired about the bread pan.  They were confused, they want a pan for paté or terrine.  They didn't realize the thing is as big as it is.

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"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

 

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4 hours ago, liuzhou said:

About a week ago, I had a sudden urgent need for a carrot, so I headed for the nearest carrot store. It's about five minutes from my home. I seldom go there, not that there really is anything wrong with it other than their selection being a bit limited - they only have the essentials.

Anyway, after selecting the carrot most suitable for my exacting needs, I spotted these things on a shelf. I had no idea what they were, so I asked the sole member of staff - apparently a 12-year-old-girl. The only way I can accurately translate her Chinese is to say that she said "Dunno!" in a tone of voice which rather suggested she left off the second part "and I don't *^&^^% care!".

 

Sold! I bought it!

 

thing.jpg


Just as I was leaving the tiny palace of delights, if you find carrots delightful, I spotted a bit of cardboard on the floor near the pile of things, on which were a mere two Chinese characters accurately describing its intended function. Any guesses?

 

The "bowl" has a capacity of about half a litre.

Bamboo sieve.  I've got a couple, different shapes.  One round, one like this.  I used to use the big one like this for scooping dumplings out of boiling water and also for scooping curds when I made cheese.  

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"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

 

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3 hours ago, andiesenji said:

Bamboo sieve.  I've got a couple, different shapes.  One round, one like this.  I used to use the big one like this for scooping dumplings out of boiling water and also for scooping curds when I made cheese.  

 

It was described as being for a very specific purpose. Not dumplings and certainly not cheese.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

 

It was described as being for a very specific purpose. Not dumplings and certainly not cheese.

At the market it had a sign that said "bean strainer" but since a lot of their signs are somewhat enigmatic, I figured it was just a sieve.

"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

 

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16 hours ago, andiesenji said:

I have been puzzling over this one since early this morning.  I answered, no it was not suitable for a Jello mold.  I'm not even sure it would hold a liquid.  I have baked pound cakes and sponge cake in it but I've had a fair amount of experience knowing how much these cakes will rise.  Then I thought, why does anyone want to make a Jello log?

 

Why, to make red and green bûches de Noël, of course!

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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."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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35 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

At the market it had a sign that said "bean strainer" but since a lot of their signs are somewhat enigmatic, I figured it was just a sieve.

 

Well, I suppose it could sieve most things. However, beans were not what they were advertising.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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11 hours ago, liuzhou said:

About a week ago, I had a sudden urgent need for a carrot, so I headed for the nearest carrot store. It's about five minutes from my home. I seldom go there, not that there really is anything wrong with it other than their selection being a bit limited - they only have the essentials.

Anyway, after selecting the carrot most suitable for my exacting needs, I spotted these things on a shelf. I had no idea what they were, so I asked the sole member of staff - apparently a 12-year-old-girl. The only way I can accurately translate her Chinese is to say that she said "Dunno!" in a tone of voice which rather suggested she left off the second part "and I don't *^&^^% care!".

 

Sold! I bought it!

 

thing.jpg


Just as I was leaving the tiny palace of delights, if you find carrots delightful, I spotted a bit of cardboard on the floor near the pile of things, on which were a mere two Chinese characters accurately describing its intended function. Any guesses?

 

The "bowl" has a capacity of about half a litre.

 

Catching fish from the tank before consuming them!

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I have two in two sizes and they hang as decor on our dining room wall.  I am enamored of baskets, collect them, display them, wish I could still make them. 

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Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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A wall decoration!  ;-}

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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."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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12 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

 

And andiesenji, I believe you're right on your hinged loaf pan. If you overfill with batter, it would leak out on rising and baking, and there would be no way to make a round log of gelatin in your device. People ask dumb questions because everyone is used to pressing buttons to make stuff happen now. Try not to worry about it. I hope you are more successful than I am. 

 

I asked a coworker for a jump for my car battery years ago, and she said she did not know how to open her hood. 9_9  Nevermind, I took care of it all and was able to drive off.

The "trick" for using the round bread pans - I have singles too - is to liberally grease them with solid shortening. I slather it on with a 3" brush made for applying wall paper paste, which gets into the crannies.  I used it a lot when catering, baking white bread in two and rye bread in two.  I had a Blodgett commercial oven then so no problem with it fitting.  

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"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

 

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14 hours ago, liuzhou said:

About a week ago, I had a sudden urgent need for a carrot, so I headed for the nearest carrot store. It's about five minutes from my home. I seldom go there, not that there really is anything wrong with it other than their selection being a bit limited - they only have the essentials.

Anyway, after selecting the carrot most suitable for my exacting needs, I spotted these things on a shelf. I had no idea what they were, so I asked the sole member of staff - apparently a 12-year-old-girl. The only way I can accurately translate her Chinese is to say that she said "Dunno!" in a tone of voice which rather suggested she left off the second part "and I don't *^&^^% care!".

 

Sold! I bought it!

 

thing.jpg


Just as I was leaving the tiny palace of delights, if you find carrots delightful, I spotted a bit of cardboard on the floor near the pile of things, on which were a mere two Chinese characters accurately describing its intended function. Any guesses?

 

The "bowl" has a capacity of about half a litre.

 

Spice infuser for making broth/stock?

I use to have smaller version of similar design for tea making.

 

dcarch

 

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6 hours ago, Alex said:

A wall decoration!  ;-}

 

Well, that's what I use it as, but not the advertised function.

 

4 hours ago, chileheadmike said:

I was going to guess that it's used to catch fish from a tank. 

 

Second guess is tofu strainer.

 

Neither.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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