I liked this article. It made me think a lot. I might bring back something from my parents’ kitchen when I visit them later this year…
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I was pretty heartbroken when my mom’s ancient garlic press I took with me when I moved out broke last winter. I still have her veg peeler, which is equally old & still works like a charm 
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My maternal grandmother died several years ago and I wasn’t able to attend her last rites. My cousins did and took away almost every single object they could as keepsakes. My mum was determined to give me something to remember my grandmother by, so she did something which I was quite shocked by - she took my grandmother’s rosary beads from her hands before the cremation (I think my uncle was planning to have the beads cremated with my grandmother) and saved them to give to me. It’s all I have to remember her by apart from some photos. I wonder if it was the right thing to do, but I do hold and look at the beads often and remember how they used to look in my grandma’s hands.
A bit off-topic as rosary beads aren’t kitchen objects.
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That is such a wonderful thing for your mom to do, and I bet your grandmother would be pleased to know how much comfort those beads provide to you <3
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I don’t have emotional attachments to anything in my kitchen and never have, which is odd because I form emotional attachments to other things in my life (first bike I bought with my own $$, for instance). There are two kitchen objects I do wish I had, though, both of which belonged to my grandparents. First is the old glass stove-top coffee percolator. The second is a cast iron (?) rice pot (okama) with the traditional wooden lid. Both used to live on my grandmother’s stove, and they’re what I see in my mind’s eye when I think of her kitchen. I suspect both got tossed when my parents moved her into her senior apartment and she downsized considerably.
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During a storm, a large tree fell on my grandfather’s farm. He decided to use (some of the wood) to make each grandchild a cutting board from a thick slab (he cut off the trunk). My father saved mine for me until I was 18. I still have it and cherish it. I no longer have my father nor grandfather, but I still have this cutting board.
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“Even in our supposedly rational age, this is the power of objects; they keep those we miss in the room with us. A plate or a tin may not be much but it can be something to hold when hands are gone.”
So true. I have many things of my Grandma’s and Mom’s, almost all kitchen-related. Grandma’s “star pattern” colander, and her Bromwell flour sifter with a wooden knob on the handle are used frequently. But my most treasured item of Grandma’s is a dry sink that was in her late husband’s workshop in tiny Hartleton, PA, and was covered with detritus - old rusty tools, used sandpaper, dirt, dust, junk.
When my mother and stepfather retired and moved into the house in the early 1980s, my stepfather decided to empty out the shop and clean off the dry sink and refinish it. It needed some fixing - shims to replace gaps in the wood, among other things - but he did it and it was moved into their living room at the Hartleton house and then later into their living room in a house in Mifflinburg when they could no longer handle the stairs.
When he passed on, Mom made plans to move to MA to be near my sister and me. She asked both of us what we wanted out of things she wasn’t going to keep - and I claimed the dry sink, among a few other things. Problem was? I didn’t have room in my then 3-room apartment. So my sister stored it in her basement for the next 10+ years until I bought a place in 2011. It was moved into my place the autumn after I moved in. Soon after, I was preparing a dinner for myself one night, and opened the top cabinet to pull out a serving bowl. I was literally staggered by the “smell of Grandma’s house”. It hadn’t been in that house for almost 20 years. I started bawling right then and there, and said “Hi Grandma. I see you, and I miss you.”
THAT is the power of having a loved one’s item in your possession. It keeps them alive in your hearts.
Here’s the dry sink: the cabinet section above the two small drawers is separate from the bottom, but the entire shebang is still VERY heavy. But I’m thrilled to have it in my home, and I’ll be heartbroken to say goodbye to it whenever I’m too old to live on my own.
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That is a beautiful piece of furniture deserving of pride of place.
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My mom got me this little Oneida pot for Christmas 35 years ago. I remember her happy smile when I unwrapped it as she said “I know you like to cook and it’s so cute!” Always in the same cabinet place in all my kitchens, always think of her when I use it.
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Looks brand new! Is it for soup? Rice? Anything?
It gets used for pretty much anything. Like me, it cleans up well.
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My (paternal) grandparents and my husband’s (maternal) grandparents had the same pattern for their nice but not china dishes. I fave the whole set from my side and about half from his. A cousin wanted a few pieces
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I am the caretaker for 2 cast iron skillets that (by the mill mark) were made about 1920 and have cooked hundreds of meals for I believe 5 generations. I love thinking about the conversations theyve heard around kitchen tables.
I also have my paternal grandmother’s recipe box, and the wire whip with which she folded hundreds of angel food cakes for every birthday and anniversary in their little town. Sometimes when I make an angel food cake I swear I feel her standing behind me.
My maternal grandmother’s gravy boat still holds gravy on the holiday table.
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Wow!!
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What a story! And when you got to the part about smelling your grandma’s house so powerfully in a drawer… I could picture this so clearly in my imagination! Smells are so incredibly evocative and nostalgic.
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I’m pretty unsentimental (I think) with kitchen items, perhaps because growing up my parents could only afford cheaper pots and pans from department stores sales. None of these pieces were really ones you could save, and they got tossed out when a new sale years later presented an opportunity to buy new ones. My mom was a classic “If it’s a deal, let me buy it”. Some times we had quite an odd collection of terrible cookware. Her one better piece of cookware was her wok, and probably her old cutting board but even those got worn after decades of use so they had to be tossed.
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It doesn’t need to be something fancy to be worthy of an attachment, I suppose. My husband, who will be 50 years old this year, brought back some items from his parents’ kitchen in Australia (his parents have lived in that house since 1974) - these were a few cheap plastic and melamine cups and plates they got as part of fast food promotions. Back in the 80s, going to a fast food restaurant was a huge treat for him as the child of first generation Indian immigrant parents and he really cherishes these items as memories of those days.
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I have my mothers rolling pin, sifter, stoneware mixing bowl, circa 1920s?, and Fostoria cake plate. They all remind me of all the wonderful pies and cakes she used to bake.
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