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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Eoneren\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
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Civilization has come a long way from cooking every meal over an open flame. Over the last century and more, there have been a number of unique kitchen tools and gadgets that have had their moment. Some are still found in kitchens today, but for many others, their moment has passed, and it’s usually easy to see why. Electricity became the preference. Materials got lighter and more durable. Convenience became a greater priority for most people, especially those with a two-income household.<\/p>\n
We’re constantly trying to do things faster and with ease, saving time and money while giving us the same or better results. That’s certainly true in busy aspects of life, like food preparation. The kitchen is one area where technology has kept pace with our always-on modern lifestyles, giving us tons of shiny new gadgets that have completely replaced older, slower, less efficient counterparts. While decades past gave us essential kitchen appliances<\/a>, better options have come along to take their place. Here’s a look back at 15 vintage kitchen gadgets you might have once used, but probably don’t anymore.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n These days, most people do not make their own butter, nor do the majority of people know how to, but it wasn’t that long ago that each household making their own butter was the norm, not the exception. It takes very few ingredients and tools to turn cream into butter, and despite being time-consuming, it’s a relatively simple staple to make.<\/p>\n One tool involved in this process was the butter mold, which helped shape butter. It isn’t a necessary part of butter-making, as you can shape butter in other ways, but it allows makers to turn their butter into unique works of art. Butter molds are typically made of wood, but you may be able to find them in other materials, like metal, silicone, and plastic. Users would place their churned butter into the mold at room temperature and press it into it to take shape. It’s a fun way to add a little flair to a standard item, with some molds including details like floral and geometric shapes. Butter molds are making something of a comeback, though they haven’t yet reached their previous fame.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Being such an important kitchen staple, butter has seen its fair share of dedicated tools and gadgets over the years. It’s one of the very few ingredients that has specific tools to make it, shape it, spread it, store it, and keep it at the perfect temperature. It’s even got a whole section of some refrigerators dedicated to keeping it fresh.<\/p>\n In the past, if you wanted to keep your butter at room temperature, you might have used a butter bell, or butter crock. This two-piece tool helps to make butter spreadable at all times. Place your butter in the bowl-like lid, add a little water to the main base, then turn the lid upside down to rest on the base. The water creates an airtight seal around the inverted butter, to keep it fresh for longer. Since it won’t need to be refrigerated, the butter can be left out in the open, making it ready to spread whenever you want. This butter-focused gadget has been around since the 19th century, possibly even earlier. They’re still in use today, but not quite as popular as they once were.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Pies and pastries are truly works of art. People tend to get super creative with these desserts, particularly in adding fancy designs to the crust. Achieving those intricate edges and shapes doesn’t happen with a regular knife. Back in the day, bakers would use pastry crimpers to create decorative edges.<\/p>\n Pastry crimpers are similar in style to pizza rollers: a handle houses a sharp wheel that acts like a rotary cutter. Except, instead of the smooth, even blade of a pizza cutter, the wheel contains a beveled edge that presses and cuts the dough, leaving behind an artistic design. Crimpers allow bakers to create consistent, even markings on their pies and pastries, which makes them look more professional. They also help seal two sheets of dough that contain filling (think ravioli and filled pastries), so that what’s inside doesn’t leak out while cooked. Serious bakers still use pastry crimpers, but the average home kitchen chef doesn’t keep one in their utensil arsenal.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Bread boxes don’t fit the modern, minimalist aesthetic we see in kitchens today, but up to a few decades ago, having a whole dedicated box to store bread products in was the norm. A bread box is exactly what it sounds like: a wooden or metal box meant to house bread. It typically has a door on the front or the top to give you easy access to your bread.<\/p>\n Families would purchase fresh-baked bread that tended to go stale quickly, and so needed a dry, dark space to slow down mold grow. With a bread box, bread could stay fresher for longer, allowing families to get more of their money’s worth. Nowadays, the thought of a large bread box taking up valuable space on the counter might be too much to ask of consumers.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n When you think about birds in pies, you might be picturing the “four-and-twenty blackbirds” from the old children’s nursery rhyme. But that’s not what these pie birds represent. When baking pies, the filling becomes quite hot. All that heat needs a way to escape, ideally while keeping the top crust intact. That’s why some bakers used to add pie birds to the process.<\/p>\n Pie birds are ceramic bird-like figurines that are hollow on the inside. Rather than being fully enclosed, the bottoms are completely open, and the bird’s mouth is open like it’s singing. This design allows steam to escape during the baking process, which prevents the filling from bubbling too much and destroying the pie before it’s done. When they’re being used, it looks like the bird has been baked directly into the center of the pie. At least it seems happy to be there.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Cookie cutters weren’t the only way to get fun-shaped cookies at home, nor were they the most efficient. Using regular cookie cutters meant having to roll the dough by hand, which meant your cookies were vulnerable to variations in thickness. Then, you’d have to repeat the process with the leftover dough after the shapes were cut out. It was a lot of work, which is why many people opted instead for a cookie press.<\/p>\n Decades ago, home bakers would use a cookie press to get consistently shaped cookies. You’d load the dough into a long storage tube, then add a patterned template at one end. Then you’d attach a twist handle to the other end, which would push the dough through the template. It was easier than it sounds, albeit a little messy at times. The result was perfectly shaped cookies in a variety of fun designs, like Christmas trees, stars, or wreaths. This was a gadget most commonly brought out around the winter holidays.<\/p>\n The biggest downside was that it doesn’t work for all cookie dough, as things like chocolate chips can’t squeeze through the template. Some people still use cookie presses for their tried-and-true family recipes.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Peeling produce like apples and potatoes is a mostly manual chore now, just like it was back then. The difference is that most of us use smaller, handheld peelers that fit neatly in a drawer, while families back then had giant peeling machines that took up a lot of cabinet space.<\/p>\n Made of pure metal (which made these very heavy), these medieval-looking peeling machines use a spike to secure the item. A hand crank moves the item forward while simultaneously rotating it against a blade, which removes the peel. These gadgets struggled to work for all types of produce, especially those that were irregularly sized. Plus, they’re big and heavy, so it’s no surprise that today’s home cooks can do without them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Most refrigerators at home these days have built-in ice makers<\/a> that can crush ice. For those that don’t, there are standalone countertop-sized ice makers that can form ice in tiny pieces (the “good ice,” as some will call it). There’s no need for completely separate ice crushing machines.<\/p>\n Yet, that was a thing people spent money on back in the day. These were popular back when most people made ice using plastic ice cube trays that only came in one size. Older models were powered by a hand crank, and there were usually different settings to choose from. Later models were electric and did about as good a job as the ice crushers built into freezer-door ice machines.<\/p>\n Today, having a standalone machine that can crush ice isn’t really necessary unless you’re a big fan of shaved ice, which is something that your fridge ice maker probably can’t do. If you’d like one, you can still find manual ice crushers<\/a> for sale.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n These days, most people just use a fork to break up egg yolks, but it wasn’t that long ago that egg beaters were a common kitchen tool. This hand-powered gadget consists of two beaters that look similar to the beaters of a stand or handheld mixer. But instead of running on electricity, you’d use one hand to turn a handle and the other to stabilize the beaters. It was a popular way to make meringue by hand, and was a game changer when it was introduced in the 1850s.<\/p>\n These weren’t used\u00a0just for eggs, either. Before electric beaters became the norm, egg beaters were the go-to choice for mixing just about anything. They could easily combine ingredients\u00a0wet and dry with much less effort compared to using whiskers or a spoon. Now that electric mixers have taken over kitchens, old-school egg beaters have been edged out.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Ask any coffee aficionado and many will agree that nothing compares to freshly ground coffee. Grinding the beans right before you brew tends to bring out more flavor, since there’s no time for your coffee to go stale. Before there were electric grinders for the home, many people used manual coffee grinders to get the freshest brew possible. Nowadays, the coffee grinder has gotten the tiny appliance treatment to fit in smaller kitchens<\/a>, and is more efficient while taking up less cabinet space.<\/p>\n Manual coffee grinders were large and boxy. After adding the beans, you’d turn a big crank on the top of the box to crush them into fine grounds, which would collect in a drawer at the bottom. Today, if you want fresh ground coffee beans, you can use a countertop-sized electric grinder\u00a0or a\u00a0small, modern manual grinder<\/a>. Pre-ground coffee tends to be the most popular since there’s less work involved, and coffee pods and capsules offer an even faster shortcut to your morning cup of Joe.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Vintage hot dog cookers are still around, but they’re mostly seen as a novelty item rather than an actual kitchen help. Most people now prefer to cook their hot dogs on the grill or on the stovetop, but many years ago, dedicated hot dog cookers were more common than you might think.<\/p>\n One hot dog cooker made by Presto in the 1970s, the\u00a0Presto Hot Dogger, was especially well known. The device had individual spikes upon which you’d impale the hot dogs, then the machine would essentially electrocute them. There was no timer on these things, so you’d just have to guess about if your hot dog had reached the ideal temperature (and hope it didn’t burn in the process). Overall, Presto said it took about 60 seconds to cook a hot dog in the device, but it didn’t say that your hot dog might be burnt, taste smoky, or fall apart after cooking. You had to find out the hard way.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Single use kitchen gadgets and tools are now considered a waste of money and kitchen space<\/a>. It’s expensive to buy one tool for each little job, especially since those gadgets will need to be individually cleaned when you’re done. The cherry pitters are one example of vintage kitchen gadgets most people feel like skipping nowadays.<\/p>\n The cherry pitter did exactly what it sounds like: It was used to remove the pits from cherries so you didn’t have to eat around them (or found yourself accidentally biting into one). This gadget made the most sense if you were baking cherry pies using real cherries. In these moments, it was one of the few kitchen tools that actually save you time<\/a>. The result wasn’t usually pretty, but that didn’t matter for something like a cherry pie. If you’re an avid eater of cherries today, there aren’t many gadgets that can do the same job. But for most people, a dedicated cherry pitter isn’t necessary.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Electric skillets came in all shapes and sizes, from small ones for single-serve sides or meals to massive ones that could feed a whole family of four. Regardless of size, they worked the same. You’d plug the skillet into a wall outlet and turn the temperature dial, and a built-in heating element would heat the skillet to cook your food. You could use them for frying chicken, making pancakes, or scrambling up a large batch of eggs at once, for instance. The skillets came with a cover to prevent grease splatters and to maintain consistent, even heat.<\/p>\n These are actually still sold and used today, but not to the extent they were in the past. Some are handwash only, which adds extra cleanup to the process, but you can find some that are dishwasher safe. They were most useful when modern cooktops weren’t the norm. Now that most people have stoves, the electric skillet is just another redundant appliance that most people can do without.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n If you’re one of the many people who have a Keurig or some other brand of automatic coffee maker, you’ve probably never thought twice about using a percolator. These pitcher-looking coffee makers continuously cycle hot water through the coffee grounds, instead of offering the one-time drip of modern alternatives. Some of those who still use percolators say the flavor is usually richer and full-bodied. Others who have tried them in the past think the coffee is too strong or bitter.<\/p>\n Percolators got edged out by French presses, espresso makers, and the drip-style coffee makers we know and love today<\/a>. They don’t allow as much control over the brewing process. They’re also more difficult to clean, which makes them less appealing than other ways to make coffee at home.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n Mandolin slicers do things that are hard to replicate with just a knife, allowing you\u00a0to get thinly sliced veggies in seconds, and some even let you adjust the thickness. Mandolin slicers consist of a flat board with a handle and an integrated blade. Holding the board in one hand, you can run your veggies back and forth across the blade with the other hand to get consistent, even slices.<\/p>\n These tools work well, and that was never the real problem. What matters more is safety. Using mandolin slicers turned out to be a dangerous chore that often resulted in cuts. Many people decided it wasn’t worth the risk, and as a result, they’re a rare find in today’s kitchens. Also, a knife can still do a decent job of slicing veggies, albeit inconsistently, so lots of people struggle to justify the extra risk and space taken by this kitchen tool. Other trendy kitchen gadgets<\/a>, like a food chopper, can also get the job done (and do so a little more safely).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Butter molds<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Nobtis\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\nButter bells<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n David Dea\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\nPastry crimpers<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Arina P Habich\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\nBread boxes<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Fotoduets\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\nPie birds<\/h2>\n
Manual cookie presses<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Arina P Habich\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\nManual apple and potato peelers<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Leotenorio\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\nIce crushing machines<\/h2>\n
Manual egg beaters<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n John Brueske\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\nManual coffee grinders<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Oleh Strus\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\nHot dog cookers<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Sergei Scherbak\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\nCherry pitters<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n OkiWorks Studio\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\nElectric skillets<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Donnichols\/Getty Images<\/span>\n <\/div>\nPercolators<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Hike Kayak Fish\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\nMandolin slicers<\/h2>\n
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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n siamionau pavel\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
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