What cooking equipment have you inherited?

My mother, God bless her, had a pretty good set of kitchen equipment. Faberware pots and pans from a wedding gift in 1962 which a few are stull being used by a friend of mine. I got her aluminum collander, which is awesome. Also, a set of plastic measuring spoons that were purchased in 1980 or so from Crate and Barrel. There is no reason to replace these. Oh, a small polished cast iron frying pan which I think she came across with.


So what have you got?

I treasure my sifter from Great-Aunt Rose. I wanted to treasure my tube pan from my grandmother, but it was non-stick and my cakes would always fall out when I turned them upside-down.

Haven't inherited much else... happily, a lot of it is still being used! But I hope, one day, to pass some beautiful cast iron down to my daughter.

Jen

Hand crank grinder from my grandmother. My wife still uses it to make her chopped liver...

My grandmother's cast iron skillets -- possibly World War One era. They should be going strong for a few more centuries.

GM's wooden cutting board, also likely from the same era, cracked a few years ago so we tossed it. Perhaps just as well - we suspect the pictures on it were done with lead paint. Of course we only used the unpainted side.

Hi,

Where to begin?

Mom2 downsized recently, I received a large French baker's rack (which I have loved forever), a Boston baked bean pot and a lot of odds and ends to help my niece begin her kitchen collection.

Long ago, Mom2 gave me a garlic press when her husband bought her a new one for Hanukhah. My household instantly converted to fresh garlic from garlic powder. I was maybe 12 or 13 years old at the time.

When my maternal grandparents died, there was very little from their kitchen we took. There is a pink metal teapot they used to make some really strong tea. I sold or gave away their Currier and Ives dishes. I have since bought a lot of Currier and Ives dishes, which are our every day dishes and very often used for guests. I love their sense of Americana and how they were once A&P giveaways. My grandparents would be shocked at how many I now have and their influence for my collection.

From my Aunt Fran, I have a large spaetzle maker which looks like a giant garlic press. This was my Oma's favored tool for making spaetzle.

From my Oma, who died in 1975, I have many kitchen tools I use frequently as well as recipes I prepare pretty regularly. I lived with her for a few months, where I learned you could prepare really good food daily. Once I knew better, it was hard to return to my family's less than enthusiastically made fare. You'd be surprised how much influence this woman has over my family despite having died almost 40 years ago.

Regards,

I've gotten a fair amount of cooking equipment from my family over the years. Probably the best item, although it doesn't get much use now is a cast-aluminum griddle from my maternal grandmother, big enough for four pieces of french toast or large pancakes. The flip side is a grill pan, but it never was used for that. Now that my stovetop has a griddle, it never gets used. The matching soup pot (which I called the cauldron) appears to have disappeared.

I've actually inherited a lot more service stuff, including two sets of china, the silver, and a dining room table that seats 12 with matching buffets.

I have inherited quite a few things over the years that see more or less use in my kitchen—a large cast iron frying pan from my Great Aunt Emilia; a plethora of gadgets from my grandmother, including a meat grinder, an electric grill with rotisserie, and a fondue pot; casseroles and chafing dishes from my downsizing Aunt Helga. I’m not counting my mother’s nineteenth-century dishes or my grandmother’s candlesticks, Kiddush cup, and cordial glasses. One of my brothers has most of my mother’s everyday cooking equipment.

I too have inherited quite a few things over the years...heck over half my house is stuff I inherited. LOL. cookie cutters, tube pans, a square angel food pan, three heart shaped cake pans...trays, depression glass, Nippon china, crystal, stag head knife sharpener, aluminum etched trays, vintage cook books. This is only a small amount, and it came from my grandmothers and great aunts. My mother has tons more she does not currently use but much of it will be donated or sold as I can't keep it all.

My Grandfather's sharpening steel from his butcher shop that I still use to this day. An old fashioned ice cream scoop with a wooden handle and a gear lever.

Practically nothing in our kitchen is inherited by me. By the time I first started to equip a place of my own I had learned that I should look for things like seasoned cast iron skillets and other things as likely in a thrift story as anywhere else. Practically nothing my mother used was venerable or worth keeping.

I think regular replacement by the new, even if not of very good quality, seemed natural to them. The pans were too thin and the utensils too flimsy for good practice. No knife had a sharpenable edge. My mother caught a sleeve on fire in the one place we had gas and burned herself badly; she preferred electric ranges. It's easy to see now how much that must have limited the quality of results, and any capacity to refine technique.

Looking around a bit more, I have the large yellow bowl in which all my childhood cookies were made...and in which every cookie I have made my kids have been made.

Kinda deep...

I have two survivors of a set of four Corningware Gooseberry mixing bowls, a couple of ancient cast iron pans, and a wonderful huge cast iron Dutch oven and lid. I also have a collection of cookie cutters, though I very rarely use them, and a set of aluminum measuring spoons. I mostly got her extra stuff as she got replacements... her things would be in a box to donate to Goodwill, and being a starving student, I'd do my best to get my hands on it first. So I'm not sure if that counts as "inherited"; might be closer to "scavenged."

We have received a lot of hand me downs, over the years, but this is my wife's prized possession:



We stopped in, on the way by, to see my mom and dad about ten years ago. Mom had a crockpot of beef stew going for supper, and told my wife they were going to have it with bread, because there wasn't a tube of biscuits in the fridge and she didn't feel like getting out a cookbook and making them from scratch.

My wife makes her grandmas biscuits so often, she can do it from memory, so she made a batch for them quick. When we went to leave, mom came out of the back bedroom with this rolling pin. She presented it to Denise and told her it would be going to a good home. It was my mom's grandma's, so my great grandma's. My mom is 93 now, so this thing has to be well over 100.

Mom never used this one, it was kept as an heirloom. Denise told her the only way she would take it was if she could use it, and not store it away. That seemed to be what she wanted to hear. It's the go-to rolling pin in the cupboard, it gets used regularly.

Tim

FP--your posts are so great--thank you.

We have an electric waffle iron that my mother-in-law received as a wedding present in 1948. It still works very well and is frequently put into service by husband.

She still uses her original toaster, also a wedding gift from '48. That one, she didn't want to give up.

I have a ton of stuff, including my grandmother's grinder that she used weekly for making gefilte fish, a soup pot she used for the matzo balls, nutcrackers withthe pointy sticks to get out the nutmeats, and a bunch of little gadgets I can't bring myself to toss.

The one thing I have NOT been able to find is an old fashioned folding tool. For Passover she always made the 12-egg white cakes and had a wirelike tool that helped you fold the whites into the batter and remain super fluffy and high, I wish I could find that.

A number of years ago my mother offered me a large pot. It has very thin copper walls, is tinned on the inside, and holds about six quarts. As a result, it weighs a fairly paltry five pounds (compared to my thick-walled modern French copper pots whose two-quart pot weighs almost as much).



The pot belonged to her grandmother who used it for fleischig dishes back in Russia (or Belarus today). Fleischig means it was used for meat dishes (in distinction to dairy, or milchig), an essential dichotomy in kosher cooking.



To ensure that it would not inadvertently be used for the wrong kind of food, someone etched the Hebrew word for meat (or flesh, as in fleisch in German or fleischig in Yiddish) on the handle, בָּשָׂר. The puzzle is the cursive R to the left of that. (Very oddly, the R appears to be from our alphabet; there is no such letter in cursive Russian, even in old Russian.) Neither my great-grandmother’s maiden name nor her married name began with an R. Leading to the chance that it was even a hand-me-down to her! Given that my great-grandparents were married in 1880, that decade seems a likely age for this pot.

I had it retinned a number of years ago but somehow have never been able to bring myself to use it—the more fool I, I guess. Indeed, given the posts in this thread, doing so makes more and more sense. So I think I’ll bring it down from its display spot in the kitchen, or better yet, leave it there (it takes up a lot of room) but shlep it down from time to time and actually use it.

That is a very cool pot. I'm pretty sure בָּשָׂר is Hebrew for Kosher. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kosher

Gypsy Boy wrote:The puzzle is the cursive R to the left of that. (Very oddly, the R appears to be from our alphabet; there is no such letter in cursive Russian, even in old Russian.) Neither my great-grandmother’s maiden name nor her married name began with an R. Leading to the chance that it was even a hand-me-down to her! Given that my great-grandparents were married in 1880, that decade seems a likely age for this pot.

Perhaps R is for Rindfleysh or Rinderns, meaning Beef?
On the other hand, it could be a maker's mark.

JoelF wrote:

Gypsy Boy wrote:The puzzle is the cursive R to the left of that. (Very oddly, the R appears to be from our alphabet; there is no such letter in cursive Russian, even in old Russian.) Neither my great-grandmother’s maiden name nor her married name began with an R. Leading to the chance that it was even a hand-me-down to her! Given that my great-grandparents were married in 1880, that decade seems a likely age for this pot.

Perhaps R is for Rindfleysh or Rinderns, meaning Beef?
On the other hand, it could be a maker's mark.

Since the Hebrew word for meat is already there, it seems unlikely to be repetitive, especially in a family that spoke only Yiddish at home; all the more so since Russian (not any Western European language) would have been the most likely second language. I do like the idea of a "maker's mark," though since it is highly likely to have been made by a local craftsman.... Thanks for the thought!

stevez wrote:That is a very cool pot. I'm pretty sure בָּשָׂר is Hebrew for Kosher. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kosher

Gypsy Boy is correct. בָּשָׂר (ba-sar) means flesh in Hebrew. כָּשֵׁר (kashér) is different. The first letters (on the right) are Bet in ba-sar and Kaf in kasher. Also the dot on the shin (the second letter) changes the "sh" sound when the dot is on the right to an "ess" sound when the dot is on the left. Many years of Hebrew school left me with a tiny bit of knowledge,

Let me add that the pot is very cool, Gypsy Boy. I would definitely use it but would feel weird putting dairy in it!

EvA wrote:

stevez wrote:That is a very cool pot. I'm pretty sure בָּשָׂר is Hebrew for Kosher. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kosher

Gypsy Boy is correct. בָּשָׂר (ba-sar) means flesh in Hebrew. כָּשֵׁר (kashér) is different. The first letters (on the right) are Bet in ba-sar and Kaf in kasher. Also the dot on the shin (the second letter) changes the "sh" sound when the dot is on the right to an "ess" sound when the dot is on the left. Many years of Hebrew school left me with a tiny bit of knowledge

What she said. Besides, Google Translate is a wonderful resource!

EvA wrote:Let me add that the pot is very cool, Gypsy Boy. I would definitely use it but would feel weird putting dairy in it!

Thank you. And agreed 100%. Who knows how many generations are looking down and frowning already!

That is a really neat pot. I also have some ancient crockery bowls the kind people years ago used for making bread. I don't have a clue where they are packed away somewhere. I really don't have one ounce of room in my kitchen for them.

I inherited some early 1960's Aristo Craft waterless cookware. So if we ever run out of water, we are still good to go.

EvA wrote:

stevez wrote:That is a very cool pot. I'm pretty sure בָּשָׂר is Hebrew for Kosher. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kosher

Gypsy Boy is correct. בָּשָׂר (ba-sar) means flesh in Hebrew. כָּשֵׁר (kashér) is different. The first letters (on the right) are Bet in ba-sar and Kaf in kasher. Also the dot on the shin (the second letter) changes the "sh" sound when the dot is on the right to an "ess" sound when the dot is on the left. Many years of Hebrew school left me with a tiny bit of knowledge,

Let me add that the pot is very cool, Gypsy Boy. I would definitely use it but would feel weird putting dairy in it!

Guess I should have been paying attention in Hebrew School. Right now Rabbi Ellison is looking down at me from above and smirking, "I told you to pay attention."

sujormik wrote:The one thing I have NOT been able to find is an old fashioned folding tool. For Passover she always made the 12-egg white cakes and had a wirelike tool that helped you fold the whites into the batter and remain super fluffy and high, I wish I could find that.

Was it something like this? Many months ago I came across a similar implement and couldn't guess its function. Or would that thing be used for something else entirely?

Rene G wrote:

sujormik wrote:The one thing I have NOT been able to find is an old fashioned folding tool. For Passover she always made the 12-egg white cakes and had a wirelike tool that helped you fold the whites into the batter and remain super fluffy and high, I wish I could find that.

Was it something like this? Many months ago I came across a similar implement and couldn't guess its function. Or would that thing be used for something else entirely?

Well, that is certainly not a tool for deep frying but it is an old fashioned egg white whisk.

Among a few other things, I inherited my Danish great-grandmother's aebelskiver pan.

We inherited a bunch more stuff but had to sell quite a bit of it after my mom passed. The kitchen aid will go to my son and he got the white dishes, utensils and knives, Revere ware and faberware pans, cookie sheets, and various other sundry kitchen items. Its a good thing he has a large pantry to store it in. I am trying to get him to cook though.....

I have quite a few kitchen things of Mom's and a lot of things she gave me for homes of mine: silverware, glasses, dishes, old reliable pots and pans and casserole dishes. The two things of hers that come to mind first that I use all the time are her crockpot and her measuring spoons.

Until about a year ago, I was still using the gas stove from my parents' house, even though Sweet Baboo thought it was old and embarrassingly low-tech. Someone he knew got a new stove and gave him their old one, so in came that one and out went Mom's old stove, which had worked fine for maybe thirty years, to the curb. At the time, I bowed to progress, but I was sorry to see it go and still am. Now we know why that friend wanted to get rid of the stove we have.