They don’t make ‘em like that anymore

[mercerquietman]

There’s a lot of things they don’t make like they used to, whoever this “they” is. I have things I use around the house that many people would find really odd, like I’m living in the 1960s; stuff that many households discarded years ago in favor of newer products. I have them because they do the job they were designed to do, and despite new products that have replaced them, they still work better, store in less space and/or clean easier, etc. By and large, these items are either no longer made, or if they are, they are hard to locate. Thank God for eBay, it helps.

Then there are some products you can buy now that don’t hold a candle to the quality of those same items from years past (unless you spend a small fortune). A great example of this is egg beaters. Often, when I am cooking and I need a beaten egg, just breaking it up in a quick motion with a fork is all I need to do. But sometimes, beating it is necessary if you want to whip the egg to a foamy consistency. Just try to find a decent egg beater nowadays. I own two that have to be as old as I am, one at home and one at my cabin. They are made with a great deal of quality, the gears mesh perfectly, the blades are stainless steel and the handles are solid and enable the user to grab it like a suitcase in a more natural easy position. They’ll last long after I’m gone. Why is it you can’t buy them anymore of that quality? If you can even find them they tend to be flimsy or designed more awkwardly. Has everyone gone to using those infomercial products like the magic bullet? I don’t understand.

Another example of decades old gadgets I use are those old full sized shredders. I love the size and durability of these things. I use them to make potato pancakes or shred carrots or cheese for recipes. A set of three is perfect, with a coarse, medium and fine grating. Fortunately, I found mine at the Salvation Army; they are not real easy to find.

A few years ago when I was at our state fair one of these smooth talking guys pushing his wares had one of these things up there and made fun of it suggesting it is dangerous and you can grate your knuckles on one. He jokingly suggested it used to come with a box of Band-Aids and suggested no one even has these old things any more. I told him I use them all the time and that I’ve seen gadgets here at the fair with razor sharp blades that are far more dangerous than those things. I quietly moved along as I could see he did not appreciate my comments with his crowd of pigeons closing in. You can buy new shredders of course, but they are flimsy cheap junk. Typically, they are rectangular with the coarse, medium and fine settings each on a side. The last side typically has blades for slicing. The grating surface is much smaller and it's not much sturdier than some heavy aluminum foil. You try to grate a potato on one and you’ll bend it. Or you find those that are about an inch and a half wide that double as potato peelers. I have other examples of things like this, but I’m curious, does anyone here share my quirk at holding onto items made decades ago because they don’t make ‘em like that anymore?

[Trish]

I still use my mother's old 4-sided grater. Nothing better.

[carol machulski]

I have a 4-sided grater but found years ago that cubing raw potatoes and adding them a bit at a time to my 45 yo Oster blender results in pureed (?) potatoes of the right consistency to make potatoe pancakes. I do grate zucchini on the small grater. My mother's toaster grill still makes really good grilled cheese sandwiches...I just dislike cleaning the plates afterward. I also have a 35 yo handheld mixer for the times that I make a cake which isn't that often any more.

[Leftygrl]

I just used my old box grater this evening!  I also use an old flour sifter, one with a wooden knob on the handle.  These items are not only useful, they are nostalgic, and give great results.

Oh what I'd give for my mom's old egg beater! *sigh*

[Ursula]

I think the old graters, whether the single ones pictured above or the box graters, will turn out to be the most common gadget many of us have.  Although I don't use it often, I have my mother's meat grinder.  She never bought ground beef, but preferred to buy chuck and grind it herself.  She always said you never knew what the butcher had put in that package.  Although I cook mainly from scratch, no cake mixes in my pantry, I never developed the habit myself.  But I hang on to this gadget because I like the weight of it in my hands and the memories it brings of my childhood.

[Trish]

I have a cast iron frying pan from my mother. Also, a pressure cooker. And a beautiful old metal soup ladle that was my grandmothers.

[Grandma Helen]

I don't have any old egg beaters or graters, but I sure wish I had one of those old cast iron frying pans.  I liked them because they heated up evenly, which the aluminum ones don't.  I had two for years and my ex threw them out, because he didn't like them. 

[mercerquietman]

Those, you can still buy. Shop at a store you trust and be willing to spend enough though. I got lucky and found big cast iron skillets at a TJ Max for about half the going price. I love them. They not only heat up evenly but they stay hot longer. I use them all the time.

[Elayne Bullis]

I love to use my cast iron skillet. They are still available in many stores just make sure they are made in the USA and not China.

[mercerquietman]

I'm with you on the microwave. I still have one at my home and cabin (in the basement there) but I vastly prefer a regular oven. I use one about once a year.

[mercerquietman]

Here's another:

A an old style drip coffee pot. Yes, I actually boil water in a tea kettle to make coffee. When I was a kid my parents had a coffee pot like this. The piece that sits atop the pot has two chambers. The bottom chamber is where you put the ground coffee. The underside of this piece is full of these tiny almost pin sized holes for the fresh coffee to drip through to the pot below. After you put the ground coffee in there you put a tight fitting dispersal filter over it, a disklike piece also having little holes for the boiling water to drip through to the coffee grounds in the bottom chamber. You pour boiling water in the top chamber. These things pretty much found their way to landfills with the invention of the common plug-in drip style coffee makers like Mr. Coffee. After years of using the plug-ins though, I longed for the taste of coffee I remembered as a kid. I happened on one of these on my thrift shop visits and picked it up. It makes a big difference. Plus, nowaday, I can use standard paper coffee filters in it to prevent coffee grounds from getting into the fresh coffee, the only flaw there was in this method. I don't know if it is the temperature of the water, the consistency of the dripping water or what, but I think coffee made in this thing tastes much better. I do think the fact that they are much cleaner makes a difference. Realistically, you can't clean a Mr. Coffee like you can one of these. Mine is stainless steel. It will certainly outlast me. You can also enjoy coffee during a power failure, if you have a gas stove. I also don't get roped into those overpriced K-cups.

 

[Leftygrl]

While vacationing with three other women several years ago, one of the gals brought a smaller version of mercer's coffee pot pictured.  And yes you are right, makes wonderful coffee.

This is what I use at home.  I've got a smaller version that I keep in my desk at work.  I buy coffee from a local coffee shop that roasts the beans and their coffee is YUMMY!

Alright . . . I took the photo around Christmas time! ;-)  But I lOVE that mug! ;-)

[Ursula]

And another, but without a picture: I still use my mother's juicer.  It's not electric; you cut the lemon or orange in half, drop it in and squeeze.  Been using it for decades; make lots of lemonade as I have a lemon tree in my back yard.  When my husband was alive, he was the king of gadgets and he bought me a bread machine and an electric juicer.  Neither was worth the effort, especially cleaning the juicer, and the product was inferior, in my opinion.