Yes!
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I think these handles are elegant, and at the same time whimsical.
The shape of the pot also shows elan, something rare in cookware design.
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On the Etsy copper daubieres page there is a beautiful old daubiere with ivy handles. Even if you donāt buy it, it is worth admiring.
Iāve still got my carbon steel Sabatiers. My bare aluminum saucepan - a Toro - that I was so proud to find (long before the days of knowing about restaurant supply stores) is gone. I have my heavy tinned copper, including a pristine Windsor-shaped saucepan only marked āFranceā that I bought at a going out of business sale of a local cookware store decades ago. Iāve got an induction range now so my copper is retired - not thinking of getting rid of it. I have some small Pillivuyt pieces. My sheet pans are old-ish and not nonstick, my whisks are old, I am old, and I donāt have any molds aside from corn stick baking molds because, well, thatās outside my realm. I miss not being able to use aluminum- even from before the days of my induction range, simply because it fell out of favor in the consumer space, except for non-stick, which for me starts and stops with a frypan. I also must be the last person standing who still has and sometimes uses a rotary egg beater.
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I started my serious cookware journey in 2016, so too little experience.
But if this forum exists in 20 years, and Iām still around, I will predict that I still own these items:
- Pillivuyt porcelain ovenproof dishes
- Mauviel & Falk 2.5 bimetal copper pans
- De Buyer Mineral B Pro and Darto carbon steel pans
- Most of my many kitchen knives
- Le Creuset & Staub ECI cookware
- Mauviel 5-ply and Demeyere 7-ply cookware
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My wifeās grandfather was a machinist. Ca. 1950s, he made many of these knives (also many with wooden handles) for friends and family. Weāve got 10 of them and her parents and uncles have many more. (Edit, correction, 16 counting my daughters have 2 each that Iād forgotten about - one home from college this weekend looked over my shoulder and said āhey Dad that reminds me I brought mine home because I need you to sharpenā.)
The top two, more regular kitchen sized knives, have a full tang blade and 3 rivets (which now that Iām looking better are kind of hard to see in my photo - sorry). The handles are single piece of aluminum stock. Blades are some kind of stainless, but are attracted to magnets.
The bottom one is more of a utility knife with a heavier blade and no rivets, so Iām not sure if itās full tang. Iām not a machinist so I donāt know how he secured the unriveted knife but I assume he used some sort of press to force the tang down the bore of the handle. This oneās heavy enough that I use it a lot for camping - will slice tomatoes readily but sturdy enough to hack off and sharpen sticks for hot dogs and the like.
These sharpen relatively quickly and hold the edge pretty well. Iām very happy with them, and after ~ 70 years of being tossed around in peopleās utensil drawers theyāre all in good shape.
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If this were a contest youād at least be a finalist and likely the winner!
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That pot is gorgeous! Lucky for you, daughter has taste!
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āMy parentās Revere Ware pots and pans & inserts; my kettle aquired 36 years ago
āTheir Corning Ware plus my accumulation of ramikens and baking dishes
āPyrex and Fire King baking dishes and measuring cups
āTupperware for food storage
āMy Lodge Dutch Oven, not a long ago purchase, but Iād never sell it. Its a keeper.
āCheapo bread knife, no discernable brand, that lives on and on
The kids are not interested in inheriting these treasures, so someone, sometime, somewhere will be picking them up at a thrift store.
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Haha, thanks. Iām thinking maybe but only if one of the goals/criteria is verbosity!
Today, the top 3 on my list, in no specific order, are (no big originality there, Iām sorry):
Heavy tinned copper, with a special fondness for saute pans
Carbon steel frying pans
Old CS and SS Nogent/cuisine massive and Sabatier/ideal forgƩ knives
10 years ago, this list would have included ECI, notably my vintage LC dutch ovens designed by Enzo Mari. But the criterion of regular use firmly disqualify them today.
I clearly donāt plan to get rid of my tinned copper and CS pans anytime soon but I canāt say for sure that I never would consider selling them at some point. Cooking on gas might cease to be an option in the future. And heavy pans might one day become too heavy. So maybe I should strike both cooper and SS pans off my listā¦
That would free some slot for more original items like my old trustworthy cast aluminum garlic press cum olive pitter cum nut cracker cum bottle opener which is for sure the one essential tool every cook should seek to obtain, maybe second to none but a good long pair of finely silicone tipped tongs.
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Fire King 4 quart light green mixing bowl. Found at a garage sale for $1.00.
4 items from Grandma:
her stainless steel 2 part strawberry masher with red wooden handle ( although most of the paint is gone)
a collapsible folding aluminum measuring cup that looks like camping equipment, except she and my grandfather hated camping and they never went camping.
Texas Ware speckled mixing bowls in different sizes: one brown, one green, that she used exclusively for tossed salad and Jello desserts- larger bowl for Jello and the smaller one for salad. Made of thick melamine or something similar, probably from the 1940s-1960s.
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Iām in the process of clearing stuff from my MILās house and ran into this one, dated Christmas 1937. So the knives above might be from the 1950s as I (my wife) originally thought, but they might be quite a bit older, too.
Itās the only one of his that Iāve seen stamped or engraved, so it may be that this was a first effort, or it just might be that it was a āspecialā gift, given that they were dating as of Christmas `37 but I believe not yet engaged (they got married in 1938).
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It is fun to see this thread pop back up and remind me to add how much I love my old appliances: a Russell Hobbs kettle and a Kitchen Aid lift bowl mixer, both bought in the 1970s; a Dualit toaster from the early 1980s; a Landers Frary waffle iron new to me NIB from the early 1960s; and an Elektra Micro Casa a Leva from the late 1960s. Appliances dating from those days were built to last and, just in case, repairable.
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Ooops. Waffle iron was early 1950s.
Wow, those are keepers!
The shorter, wider clip point reminds me of the famous Kabar. There were many knives like this that were homemade gifts to our fighting men in WW2. Sort of the ultimate āCome home safeā gestureāhard to defend yourself with a fruitcakeā¦
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Weāre still using this Sunbeam automatic toaster in the country. Still works a charm. They really made stuff in those days.
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Depends on the fruitcake!
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Sweet! I found this one while thrifting thatās in perfect condition for 5 or 6 bucks, and spent another $12 I think it was re-wiring it. The cord would get hot - too hot to touch - near the plug end. I gave it to my GF daughter so she wouldnāt have to share a toaster with her roomies.
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Coronerās Inquest indicates the victim was done in via blunt force trauma.
That one is my favorite - I use it mainly for fishing and camping, and also for very tough stuff to cut like rutabagas, because the blade is very stiff. Note the absence of rivets - I guess he just force fit it and I donāt know how far the tang goes into the handle, but itās rock solid.
Iāve seen many of his knives, at a rough guess ~ 40 or 50 between what I and my daughters have, whatās at my MILās house, and other of my wifeās relativesā homes weāve visited, and Iāve yet to see another one of his in that style.
Speaking of 80+ year old knives, and specifically WW2 knives, I donāt think Iāve shown this one before because I couldnāt find a photo of it on my phone. When my mom died (25 years ago) I got a $2 bill and this knife, which she had described as a ādeer skinning knifeā. I just use it for camping and fishing like with the other, and didnāt bother to trace its provenance until a year or two ago.
Itās styled the āCattaraugus 225Qā, with the Q meaning āas specified by the US Army Quartermaster Corpā which commissioned the Cattaraugus Cutlery Company to produce them. First issue was 1942, but apparently there was considerable surplus still in stock and being sold even after the war. Not sure you can tell in the photo, but the handle is stacked leather ācoinsā or rings which are still in good shape.
I bought a cloth grinding wheel and rouge set but havenāt āgotten round tuitā in terms of cleaning up the blade.
(Note some of the users on that forum I just sort of randomly grabbed to describe the knife dispute the titular āSpecial Forces Knifeā, arguing it was more just general issue. But another P.S. - the Gettysburg Museum says it really was an SF-issued knife. Who knows? (the āmuseumā appears to be mostly a military antique shop.))
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