What do we NOT have in the kitchen these days??

lemon, we like butter and like to have a spare butter dish so we can have seamless supplies.

We eat Cornish sea salted from Waitrose which is almost as good as the actual stuff we bought in Cornwall.

My nan had one of those tea making spoons but it wasn't a good fit and tea leaves always escaped - yeuk! I make tea for one in a tiny pot with real leaves!!

But I don't have a cheese fondue set, yoghurt maker or a wooden steak hammer and I fear I threw out my grapefruit knife as we can no longer eat grapefruit - and which I looked for last week as it would have been handy for getting the innards out of of the marmalade oranges.

I do still have (and use) a big aluminium preserving pan. Lakeland do a nice stainless steel one - do you think I should change? I seem to remember reading somewhere that aluminium saucepans were really bad for you.

I have a steamer that fits on top of a saucepan. However, I don’t have a microwave, neither do I have a tumble dryer.

Oh, yes, the cream maker!

My children, now in their fifties, bought my balance scales for me one birthday when they were small. I would never get rid of them, They are brilliant. I bought metric weights for them some years ago. I also have a lemon/orange squeezer I was given in Sudan over forty years ago. It’s better than any modern squeezer!

I had one of those pastry makers once Honeyrose
What I do recommend, as I also like the best butter, is an insulated butter dish from Lakeland. It keeps the butter just right.

What is a spong mincer?

I still have my cast iron Spong mincer bought in 1945. Have kept it because I saw one in a museum. Might be worth something on Bargain Hunt!
I no longer have a pressure cooker. Had to give it up because unsteady on my legs which are painful because of arthritis Same with Frying pan, steamer and mixer. Cake tins.
Have Lakeland butter dish (never use margarine).
No longer use tea bags. Have a strainer which fits into a cup for loose tea.

Pippa22

Esspee, lots of people buy butter, sales are going up. The brands you mention are processed in some way. Butter, actual butter that goes too hard in the fridge is purer and that’s why more people are buying it now. Does anyone remember in the 60’s the cream maker was very popular? You put in whole milk and hand pumped the handle on the side and ended up with cream. Noe batteries or electricity required. I can’t remember the name of it and will annoy me all day. Can anyone help me out here ?

BEL cream maker. My Mum had one. thevintagekitchenstore.co.uk/en/butter-cream-making/45-cr.html

I don’t have a pressure cooker any more - used one for several years after I was first married in the 1970’s as my parents bought us one for a wedding present. Mum had always used one, very successfully, but one day she made black currant jam in it and the top blew off with jam volcanoed all over the ceiling. My dad was horrified as he said boiling hot jam could have scarred us for life. Fortunately no-one was injured. I was always frightened of my pressure cooker and was glad to dispense with it. It felt like “light the blue touch paper and retire” when cooling it down. I guess my mum’s encouragement (jam incident excepted) kept me using it for as long as I did, but I gave up with it when we moved house in the 1980’s. I did have one contents-on-the-ceiling incident (lentils rather than jam) on one occasion. Scary! The one thing my mum always used and I also use is a pastry blender (see photo). I’ve had one for years. I don’t like getting fat and flour under my fingernails so a pastry blender is the answer. Generally though, some gadgets are a bit of a waste of time and take longer to clean than the time they actually save you.

MiniMoon

I meant to say that I have a sort of bomb in which to steam a pudding. Made from aluminium, it is in two halves, with a trivet and a handle which acts as a clamp. I have never seen another like it.

Amazon sell them. www.amazon.co.uk/Silverwood-Spherical-Round-Pudding-Mould/dp/B000IAZOQM?tag=gransnetforum-21
And my Mum had a butter curler, for special occasions.

Purpledaffoodil, that’s it , thank you. Bell cream maker is it. I don’t think it made very large quantities and took a long time to make and was quite hard work as I remember.

Pulley - not pilot lol

Oh yes and in the utility room we have a pilot clothes aired/dryer. I love it.

I recently bought tea strainers due to tea bags containing microbeads of plastic. We have 2 teapots which get used every day. We still use a butter dish. We still have a toaster which isn’t necessary as we have an Aga which toasts. We don’t have a kettle-we have a Qooker tap. I must get one of those 4-egg poachers though...

Redhead56

I gave a fondue set to a charity and regretted it straight away. I went to a kitchen shop in Chester with the intention of getting another. I walked out with expensive balance scales with weights instead. It reminded me of my childhood I use them all the time. Still need to get a fondue set though.

My son and his girlfriend wanted to do a fondue evening and asked to borrow mine. I searched high and low including loft and garage but must have got rid of it. I found a brand new, unused M&S one in a charity shop for £3.50 and gave him that. He was delighted and they are currently doing different kinds of fondue.

Stoker48

Easiyo yogurt maker. I bought one years ago and have never used it. Always seems a bit of a mysterious process. Is it a faff?

I used to make yogurt regularly and it is easy but not quite as easy as ordering it from Waitrose.
I lent my yogurt maker to someone who wanted to try it and never got it back.

(Other supermarkets are available if you can find a slot)

My niece posted my DS’s small weights from her balance scales into the grilles of the underfloor heating, never to be seen again. At least that can’t happen with modern scales - although the battery can run out I suppose. Nothing is perfect.

We don't have a ceiling airer, as there was in the kitchen when I grew up. Many wooden slats, many pulley things, many hooks on walls to stabilize the many pulley things.

Stoker48

Easiyo yogurt maker. I bought one years ago and have never used it. Always seems a bit of a mysterious process. Is it a faff?

I have an Easiyo yogurt maker but never used the special mixtures they sell, too expensive. I have made plain Greek style yogurt with it but it didn’t keep the temperature evenly warm unless I put the whole thing inside and African style cooking bag that I bought on a whim from a home exhibition a few years ago. It’s basically a drawstring bag filled with polystyrene beans which supposedly keeps anything at the same temperature it was when put in the bag. I have attempted to put a pan of stew into it to continue cooking with dubious results.

I've a few things like pickle forks and sugar tongs which belonged to grandma - I've never used them but they take up little space so I'm reluctant to throw them out.

Mum used to have a washboard which was borrowed by a friend of my elder brother to use in a skiffle group and she had to request its return more than once but she got it back.

I use cups and saucers every day as I just think they're more elegant than mugs. I used to have a little butter knife with a handle in the shape of a duck but it must have been accidently thrown out. I hanker after it a little.

Ramekins make good trivets if you don’t have saucers. I use a slow cooker for steaming puddings, no danger of it boiling dry.
What I don’t have are bottle brushes, wish I had.

Easiyo yogurt maker. I bought one years ago and have never used it. Always seems a bit of a mysterious process. Is it a faff?

I have three of these . Never use them they just sit on the dresser .