Miscellaneous kitchen tools and equipment in the past

Potato peeler. Note the string round the handle which helped to keep the blade in place and gave a good grip. The string always got wet and mucky in use, so was very unpleasant to hold. It took ages to dry.

How much better today's plastic handles. 

Mint and herb chopper. Mint grew in most gardens, and mint sauce was the accepted accompaniment to roast lamb. The mint leaves were placed in a chopping board and the tool was repeatedly rolled over them.

Food cover against flies, made of a metal mesh.

It was awkward to store because it couldn't be flattened.

How much better today's squashable fabric versions.

Steel (not stainless steel) kitchen knife.

It tarnished and needed to be sharpened regularly which gradually wore it away as shown on the blade (See the next image for the home knife sharpener, although if you didn't want to do it yourself, knife grinders came round the streets regularly).

Knife sharpener. The steel blades of the knife were drawn repeatedly across the sharpener, blunt edge first. Note the wooden painted handle.

Various aluminium and copper cooking pots: back left, a kettle; back right, a pressure cooker; front left, a copper saucepan (whose handle would have got very hot and needed a cloth to hold it) and front right, a regular saucepan with a Bakelite handle.

Egg saucepan. Before non-stick coatings, a small saucepan was kept specially for boiling eggs, because the scale from the boiling water built up inside it.

Wooden stamp for stamping out designs onto butter pats (when entertaining) and the resulting pat of butter.

No, not a darning mushroom! It was much larger. It was a cabbage squeezer. When boiled cabbage was a common vegetable, it needed to be dried after boiling. So it was placed in a colander and the 'cabbage mushroom' was pressed into it to force the water out through the colander holes.

Toasting fork with an extending handle to keep hands reasonably cool while holding slices of bread close to a fire to toast.

A more elaborate everyday toasting fork for making the bread face the hottest part of the fire.

There were also elaborate brass toasting forks.

Butter knife, used in the more up-market families for removing butter from the butter dish. (My own family used an ordinary knife unless they were entertaining.)

Steamer. The food to be steamed is put into the top pan which has holes in the bottom. The lower section contains water. When boiled, the steam goes into the top pan and cooks the food there. Note that the pans are made of enamel.

Cream maker. A specified mixture of unsalted butter and warm milk were put into the top container and forced through a nozzle by repeatedly pumping the lever up and down. This combined the milk and butter, so making cream drop into the glass jug. It was hard work and also time consuming as all butter was sold salted. So, before use in the cream maker, the salt had to be removed by pouring hot, but not boiling, water onto the butter, which dissolved the salt, then cooling the mixture until the butter almost solidified and scooping it off.

Glass butter dish, used widely when butter was weighed out and patted into shape at the time of purchase.

Meat mincer. When the remains of the Sunday roast had to last for the rest of the week, the remains had to be minced up for hash. The mincer screwed onto the edge of a table which kept it firm; then lumps or slices of meat were fed into the top and the handle was turned. There was a screw arrangement to force the meat through small holes and into an awaiting bowl. There were different fittings with different sized holes.

Jar for preserving fruit, generally known as a 'Kilner' jar. The glass jar was sterilized and heated in the oven, boiling cooked fruit was poured in, filling the jar to the brim, the lid was sealed shut using a rubber ring and a pressure clip to keep out air.

Wooden breadboard for cutting bread onto. At the time, sliced bread was not normally on sale.

Enamel bowls and pie dishes.

One cup tea maker. The loose tea was placed in the mesh case which opened or closed by squeezing the handle. Then the tool was placed in an empty cup and boiling water was poured on - rather like using a modern tea bag.

Tea cosy to keep the tea in a teapot hot. It is made of knitted wool, layered to trap air for lagging.

Corkscrew with a wooden handle, once painted red but with the paint worn off.

Tin opener and corkscrew.

Glass orange or lemon juicer. The fruit was halved and pressed into the central spike. The pips were caught in the inner ring of smaller spikes while the juice flowed out into the larger ring from where it could be poured off.

Butter coolers. See the page on food storage for how they worked.