Kitchen Retro - Everything Old is New Again

"They just don't make them like they used to," we decry as we microwave our lunch in state of the art appliances. We refer to things we may have only seen in pictures, heard about from our parents or our parents' parents.

No, they don't make them like they used to; they make them up to 21st century performance standards, using 21st century technology. But that doesn't keep us from yearning.

For many of us, however, they harken back to a gentler time, the good old days, the mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked gingerbread cookies, apple pies cooling on window sills, massive cast iron dutch ovens, tiny bright ceramic salt and pepper shakers, World War II recruiting posters, victory gardens.

Now we have running water in our kitchens, telephones in our homes and our computers, even our pockets. Miracles of modern science that make our lives ever so much easier than those our grandparents had in their time. Our stoves aren't burning coal unless it's by choice or we overcooked the dinner rolls.

Our furnaces are far more energy efficient than the giant basement sawdust burning behemoths. Our air systems cool far more effectively than burlap sacking draped over huge blocks of ice in wash tubs resting in front of fans.

My grandmother's kitchen was magical and, when I was a child it was huge. It was quite a bit smaller, of course, when I moved back as an adult, but my most vivid recollections come from when I was three or so.

Its floor was linoleum, battleship gray with a pink overtone, just about the color you'll see in the little floorplans throughout this lens. Speckles and lines had been painted on by hand, forming a gentle randomness accentuated by several depths of wax sealant. It was a good floor that broached no argument, was comfortable to play on and scoot around on, and it was always clean.

I don't think they make floors like that anymore. You can get linoleum floor polish and linoleum blocks for Speedball crafts. But it's been a long time since I saw wall-to-wall linoleum flooring that you could actually paint on (and get away with it).

A good-sized refrigerator with an inside top freezer rested against the south wall near the back door. I recall helping defrost it once a month, hauling out the ice cube trays and taking them to the sink, then layering the floor with dozens of raggy towels to keep water from flooding the entire room. It was an all-hands scrambling affair of boiling saucepans of water, carefully chiseling sheets of ice away from the coils, and swamping out the freezer compartment with buckets of rags. The fridge had no evaporative drainage system, so the half-day process was one of constant vigilance and boiling, and celebration as we raced to save (or consume) popsicles that would have otherwise been lost to the world.

These days, refrigerator storage containers are sealed to perfection with color coded lids, and can often go from refrigerator to microwave or oven to serving dish at the blink of a modern eye. But for purely retro modern, nothing beats good old heavy Pyrex refrigerator dishes with their matched-size heavy fitted lids. We didn't dare stack them very high in a cupboard or in the fridge... not that they were fragile by any means, but moving a stack of them took real willpower!

The ones we had were clear, and if you can find them in mint or great condition, snap them up - especially the lids! The bodies come in a wide range of colors.

A house can never have too many mixing bowls, baking pans, cookie sheets and downright great gadgetry. The fun part comes four decades down the road when you try to replace it with the same great big sturdy ceramic and glass that you grew up with, or find the heavy squat stainless steel mixer that never gave up even in the face of the stoutest dough. Nonstick was not a term in use, naturally, so every bit of baking gear had to be kept spotless, scrubbed with care after each outing. But it was sturdy enough to stand up to repeated elbow grease applications, and if scouring powder and steel wool were what it took to do the job, that's what got used.

Face it. Nothing cooks like a perfectly seasoned, well cared-for cast iron dutch oven, fry pan or griddle. A pot of stew simmering on the back burner can be left to bubble to itself most of the day without fear of burning or scorching, since well conditioned cast iron disperses heat with expert perfection. I still have four pieces of cast iron from the 1950s, although I am far from a specialist in using them to their full potential. Instead, I baby them, keep them oiled, keep them seasoned, keep them safe, and cherish them. My small cast iron skillet, on the other hand, is used almost every time I cook, and spends as much time in the oven being seasoned as it does in active duty.

Big. Key operative word here is BIG. It had one oven, but in that oven you could probably cook a third of a cow. Ok, I'm exaggerating just a bit, but it was large enough to cook a large turkey, the pan of dressing to go with it, and a flat of rolls beneath on the lower rack. All four burners worked, though one of the knobs misbehaved slightly. This was easily fixed with the insertion of a matchstick, then all would be well until the matchstick broke a few months later.

In between all the cast iron that worked hard on the stove was a huge collection of Revere stainless steel pots with copper bottoms. Ah, heavenly.

one-woman band

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