Kitchen Legacies

One of the many great things about my Mom is that she's always gotten it about me and cooking. She gave me my first Le Creuset pieces when I was 18, and has continued to gift me with good quality cookware and dishes whenever she notices I need something. But my favorite gifts are the pieces she doesn't want anymore. Fortunately she knows better than to ever, ever get rid of any of her kitchen items without asking me first.

Pictured at left is a nut grinder jar. This was gifted to me a few years ago for Christmas. My Dad painstakingly cleaned it up and removed as much rust from the grinding teeth as he could. The decal is worn away and the grinding teeth are looking a bit fragile, so it mostly sits on a shelf and makes me happy by just being there. As a child I used to crank walnuts through it while my mother started assembling her Lemon Nut Bread batter.

One item I use almost every day is an old vegetable peeler, like this one. I love this peeler. I have three or four fancier peelers of various types and while this one is not up to the job of getting the peel off of butternut squash, it does an absolutely perfect job of creating the long paper-thin slices of carrot required for my  Smelly Fingers Salad, or "carpaccio" of zucchini.

My one and only corkscrew, which looks exactly like this one, was discarded by my parents ages ago and is used pretty much every night before dinner. I like the way it looks, I like its simple practical design, and I like the satisfying pop! sound when the cork comes out of the bottle.

But the real treasure is my cast-iron skillet. There is no photo, people, because I had enough trouble photographing the nut grinder. I'm sure you all know what a well-seasoned cast iron skillet looks like! My mother rescued it from the trash when her mother decided to get rid of it, and then passed it on to me when she upgraded to better cookware. I cannot begin to tell you how perfectly seasoned this thing is. In fact, when my ex-husband and I separated it was the only kitchen item we had words over. My skillet makes Shepherd's Pie, Pineapple Upsidedown cake and perfectly fried eggs. It makes cornbread and gingerbread and a beautiful big puffed German Pancake.

I have a lot of other wonderful kitchen items passed on to me by my mother and grandmother, like an old cut glass cake stand, a depression glass lemon juicer, a set of Spode dishes and a colbalt blue teapot (my grandmother's Great Aunt Julia's, according to family lore). I love them all, but I love the nut grinder, the vegetable peeler, the cork screw and the skillet best of all.

Which venerable old kitchen pieces do you love best?

Comments

[Pieds Des Anges (Kyla)]

Hey -- looove this post. I hoard old kitchen stuff as well. I guess my favorite is the 1955 Kenwood mixer that I paid $50 for about thirteen years ago. It still works perfectly and has a blender, dough hook, pastry paddle, sausage maker, meat grinder, citrus juicer with whatchamacallit remover (pith? zest? can't remember the word). I was going to post on some of my old kitschy china soon...

How great are the old nut grinders though. Very cool.

[Ann]

Kyla, you know... my mother has an old Oster blender (beehive chrome model with two speeds) I've been trying to talk her out of for YEARS. I even bought one that looks like hers in the desperate hope that it would perform like hers. Alas. All to say that I completely understand your love for your Kenwood mixer. :-)

[Marla]

I have a wonderful cast iron skillet and a tea infuser that was my grandmother's. Probably not particularly unique or even better than anything else -- but it reminds me of baking bread and grinding up tomatoes for piccalilli and just spending time being loved unconditionally. When she died my ignorant bachelor uncle tossed a lot of her things thinking no one would ever want that "old stuff" -- foolish man.

[Susan from Food Blogga]

It sounds like you have lovely parents. I don't have any old pieces since I live in CA and family lives in RI (and cooking utensils didn't make the cross-country journey). But I'd have to say the grapefruit spoons my mom still has from when we were kids. Just seeing them at her house brings me right back.

[JEP]

This was a lovely post! I have old tea cups and sterling silverware from a great-great aunt. I would like to pass some of my favorites onto grandkids when the time is appropriate :)

[Lisa]

Why don't I have any of this stuff?! I'm very jealous....your sister xox

[Ann]

Marla, hey, a well-seasoned cast iron skillet is nothing to sneeze about!

Susan, small items can easily fit into checked luggage. Just a thought for your next visit home. :-)

JEP, and those items will be very treasured, I'm sure. Thanks for stopping by-- I recognize your handle from Serious Eats.

Lisa, as I recall you have Grandma's cast iron corn sticks pan, her clear glass plates, the black square plates and first call on Grandpa's old butcher block... your loving sister xox :-)

[Manggy]

Hmm... I could use one of them grinders-- never seen one till your picture, though. I wish I could say there's something inheritable here-- but my grandmother doesn't have anything unique (just a lot of giant generic pots and pans good for feeding 30+ people, which I can never use anyway). My parents are not the culinary types either. :p