Some gone but none forgotten

By Deborah Salomon

In my eight years at PineStraw I’ve observed how writers like to reminisce over objects representing a time or place. To be kinda corny, these are mileposts on life’s highway, more Route 66 than I-95. Most of mine belong in the kitchen — relics exhibiting a patina, a glow, when viewed beside microwaves, food processors, Keurigs, blenders and non-stick Bundt pans.

Some have gone to pots-and-pans heaven; others I cling to for dear life since they outperform successors. Let’s look beyond the here and now to way back when:

The eldest is my Greensboro granny’s “stew pot,” a wobbly aluminum WearEver vessel with a clip-on lid and two small grab handles rather than one long. Nanny was born in 1875, married in 1899. In this pot, easily a centenarian with another 100 years possible, she boiled beef with a cut-up onion and a jar of home-canned tomatoes. This simmered on the back gas burner or the woodstove all afternoon until the chuck roast fell apart and the liquid almost evaporated. If I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I can smell it now. I also have her biscuit cutter and wood bread tray, its bottom worn to splinters, worth hundreds to Southern antique collectors.

The jewels in a Jewish cook’s crown are matzo ball soup and chopped liver. My mother-in-law made divine chopped chicken liver (with hard-boiled eggs and caramelized onions) in a Hamilton Beach electric meat grinder that weighed a ton. It must have been 20 years old when she relinquished the chore to me in the 1960s. Chopped liver perfected, I discovered superb hamburgers made from home-ground meat. The upper part is made of a metal which, on assembly, sounds a strange clunk. When our basset hound heard this he came running, anticipating scraps. Presently, my countertop behemoth stands, statuesque, rather like a headstone, on a storeroom shelf.

The only item from my mother’s kitchen is an odd-sized brownie pan made from dark embossed metal. She talked a good game, but made her “famous brownies” about once a year, for bridge club.

My wedding gifts included an enamel-on-cast-iron oval Dutch oven from Royal Dru in, where else, Holland. Oh, the briskets this friend has simmered, the coq au vin. Its green exterior is chipped, the white interior stained. Yet 57 years later the stalwart outperforms any replacement.

You wouldn’t want to see my two warped aluminum cookie sheets. With blackened bottoms and curled edges, they are beyond disreputable. No matter; after more than 50,000 cookies, I cannot remember one burned batch. Humbug to the dark non-stick kind. I keep the top side bright with Brillo and will use them as long as I can find cookie lovers. Which is never a problem.

Two percolators have followed me from apartment to duplex, four houses, a condo and back to an apartment. One is stovetop — a tall, stainless steel number memorable because my toddlers used to take it apart and put it together like a puzzle, causing a happy clatter. The other (both Farberware) is electric. Drip coffee cannot compare in flavor, aroma or temperature. I see that both are again available in retro catalogs.

As for ordinary pots, I’ve always preferred copper-bottomed. They never wear out but do become aesthetically challenged. Time to replace. I bought just one, same brand, except it weighed so much less that I returned it. After all, only the contents matter.

One cherished icon that got away was Nanny’s iron skillet with an iron lid that doubled as a shallow frying pan. She fried chicken (raised “free-range” in the yard, terminated and cleaned on the back porch, soaked in salt water overnight) and cooked it the pre-deep fryer way: dredged in seasoned flour, browned in Crisco, covered with the lid and into the oven for 45 minutes. When tender she removed the lid and crisped the skin over a burner. Other times, the lid-skillet turned out perfect free-range sunny-side ups.

Another gone-but-not-forgotten relic: an aluminum cauldron with tall lid and basket for sterilizing baby bottles. I tried it on soup but the metal was too thin, resulting in burned split peas.

No, I don’t have a kitchen clock with a cord; the electric skillet and wok (always red, never hot enough) have gone with the wind, as have the wood-handled knives with blades worn down by sharpening against a stone, something my father insisted on doing.

What will become of this trove? My grandsons are more interested in eating than cooking. I have no granddaughter.

Sounds rather maudlin, but not really. My kitchen tools were friends — dependable, capable and, unlike their newer counterparts, long-lasting. I salute them, with thanks.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

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