Kitchen Tools - Old and New

I've been thinking a lot lately about kitchen tools.  Partly because I've been working at an office that's practically next door to Sur La Table, and sometimes after work or on the way back to the office during lunch, I'll pop in and take a look around.  Kitchen stores for me are like a proverbial candy store for a kid.  My eyes go wide, my palms go sweaty and I think about what I can cook that will justify buying some fancy new tool.  And Sur La Table is full of the best and fanciest kitchen tools.  But like most people in New York, I have relatively little storage space, so I really do try to keep my kitchen tool buying to a minimum (the tools that I don't use as often have already migrated out of my kitchen cabinets and into the wall unit in my living room).

The other reason I've been thinking about kitchen tools is because I've gone out to flea markets in Pennsylvania for a few weekends already this spring.  Flea markets are always full of old kitchen tools.  Some treated reverently as artifacts of a former age, others treated like old pieces of junk, all piled together in a cardboard box with a magic marker scrawl "Anything in this box: $1.00."  I have actually started a small collection of vintage kitchen tools, but like any collecting urge, it's a slippery slope.  Before you know it, my kitchen wall will look like this:

 

What I've found especially interesting is how much kitchen tools have NOT changed over time.  Except for electric mixers superseding hand egg beaters, and the more recent use of silicone as a material that many kitchen tools are now made of, a potato masher now still looks like a potato masher did 60 years ago.  Same with a whisk, a rolling pin, a pastry mixer.   And functionally, they are still the same. 

In 1990 (I'm totally freaking out right now because I just realized 1990 was almost 20 years ago...) a company called OXO debuted a line of kitchen products that were designed using the principals of universal design - the principle that objects should be designed to be useful to the greatest number of people - with a focus on making kitchen tools that were easy and pleasant to use.  They have a great line of products, and I think definitely influenced how cooks and designers thought about kitchen tools.  (Three OXO items, the paring knife, the vegetable peeler and the jar opener, are in MOMA's Architecture and Design collection.)  But functionally, these tools are not that different than some of the tools that have existed for decades. 

(Three vegetable peelers that I have vs. the OXO Good Grips peeler:  a basic cheapo peeler that was probably the first peeler I ever bought, a peeler with a handmade wooden handle that I got at a fleamarket, a newer peeler that I bought recently.  The OXO vegetable peeler)

For me, this just goes to show that incremental usability improvements, especially ones that are based on user testing and evaluation of specific user needs are just as or more important as giant re-designs that change a product significantly. 

Why do I have three vegetable peelers?  That is another question entirely.  Possibly because the first cheapo one wasn't sharp enough anymore, so I bought the red one.  The wooden one I bought because it looks and feels nice.  But in general, my new goal is to not buy new kitchen equipment and make do with what I have.   Here are some good tips on the essential tools for any small kitchen, and ideas on how to put your kitchen on a diet.  This is obviously how many of those kitchen tools ended up at a flea market.

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[Supra Skytop]

This latter-day business offers American-style sweets, like a multi-layer carrot cake, and Jamaican cooked food including escovitch and (Friday through Sunday) fish tea, plus the familiar patties and island pastries.