What was it like for you growing up at home?

[GadgetGuy]

How was it like growing up at home? As kids, we didn't have many modern conveniences in the kitchen. Our mom had a stand mixer, a dishwasher, a clothes washer, but no dryer & no microwave. We had very few kitchen gadgets. The only thing that I remember was a veggie peeler, a butcher knife & a few paring knives.

We had utensils, but there were a few of those. Food processor were not out back then. When it came to food prep & cooking for the holidays, most everything had to be done by hand. Slow cookers weren't even out then. We DID have a pressure cooker. We also had a hand-held mixer & one of those egg beaters,

There definitely was no Internet & no computers, no modern electronics such as CD players, DVD players & no VCR's, video games or printers & no surround sound! Cell phones & Bluetooth had yet to be invented. No streaming movies, TV shows or music.

But for the most part, we all got along just having the few things that we had, & we liked working in the kitchen helping our mom prepare the meals!

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I can clearly remember my parents getting very excited even the first microwave came out. Suddenly jacket potatoes were cooked in the microwave but equally suddenly the better jacket potatoes were to be found at my Grannie's home.

Prior to that everything was (mind you I think it still is!) done by hand. We did have a kenwood chef mixer which had numerous attachments the most used of which was the liquidiser. Next was probably the dough hook on it. The kenwood chef replaced mixing and kneading by hand. I still have a handheld egg beater which is used often. Its simpler and easier than getting out the mixer (another kenwood chef).

There was great excitement over getting a sandwich toaster but that's going back to the time of my first father. Prior to that toast was done over the open fire or under a very slow to warm up grill.

I am pretty certain that the only thing I don't miss doing by hand is creaming butter and caster sugar, whipping cream and whipping egg whites into meringues. All of those are really just niceties given they are party food (birthday cakes, meringues and such).

I'm not a food processor person. I've just never gotten on with them. They seem tho be more hassle than their worth given I can chop vegetable pretty fast and evenly and have less to clean up.

 

[Morning Glory]

As far as I remember there was no electric kitchen equipment at all except for the stove which incorporated a grill for toasting and I think we also had an electric kettle. That could be a false memory. Latterly we had fridge. We had no washing machine either - there was something called a copper which was for washing clothes - after which they went through a mangle to wring them out. Blimey! That was the 50's and early 60's in working class Britain - and we were the lucky ones as we had a new council house.

Mangling - for those too young to remember:

 

[GadgetGuy]

We had a single-door fridge that looked something like THIS, & it wasn't even frost-free! The freezer compartment that was in it was barely big enough to hold a week's worth of meat, much less other things. Our mom had to get a separate freezer.

 

[GadgetGuy]

As far as I remember there was no electric kitchen equipment at all except for the stove which incorporated a grill for toasting and I think we also had an electric kettle. That could be a false memory. Latterly we had fridge. We had no washing machine either - there was something called a copper which was for washing clothes - after which they went through a mangle to wring them out. Blimey! That was the 50's and early 60's in working class Britain - and we were the lucky ones as we had a new council house.

Mangling - for those too young to remember:

View attachment 28793

Is she washing clothes in that pic?!!

 

[GadgetGuy]

When we were little, our mom had a washing machine that looked like THIS. We always ran for cover because when it came time to put the clothes through the wringer, the thing would pop off & hit the ceiling!! This is before she got an automatic washer that spun the clothes after the wash & rinse cycles.

Maytag made these right up into the '80s!

 

[rascal]

Being a one parent family mum and us kids had no extras, we moved into a brand new government home when I was about 3, I remember the copper with fire underneath to heat the water, twin sinks for rinsing and cleaning clothes. Grandparents outside loo. I remember getting first fridge, washing machine(electrics) must have only been like 8 or 9? I Remember beating egg whites with a hand beater, I was the free labour,lol. Dinner on a Sunday was normally cheese toasties done in the fire embers. Now we have all sorts of electric tools. Kids have no idea these days.

Russ

 

[rascal]

View attachment 28796

When we were little, our mom had a washing machine that looked like THIS. We always ran for cover because when it came time to put the clothes through the wringer, it would pop off & hit the ceiling!! This is before she got an automatic washer that spun the clothes after the wash & rinse cycles.

Maytag made these right up into the '80s!

Our first looked like that, I was about 9 when we got it. Btw my fridge is a maytag.

Russ

 

[MrsDangermouse]

We were a single parent family and we didn't have much money so in my earliest memories (early 80s) I remember we had a fridge freezer, a sandwich maker, and the electric cooker which looked something like this:



I'm guessing we had a washing machine (though no tumble dryer) because I remember the clothes hanging on the line or an airer to dry. My abiding kitchen memory though is Tupperware...in all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes.

By the late 80s things were better and I remember Mum's excitement when she got a Magimix - she loved that food processor We also at various times in the late 80s/early 90s had an electric rotisserie and a slow cooker - most of which my step dad picked up at the local sale rooms or somewhere (they were all secondhand). I remember the rotisserie made fantastic chicken, but it was a right faff to get out, set up and clean afterwards so it was only used once in a blue moon.

I think we probably got a tumble dryer sometime in the late 80s and I know we got a microwave in 1988 (it was a huge brown thing) but we didn't get a dishwasher until the mid 90s.

 

[Morning Glory]

Is she washing clothes in that pic?!!

No thats what we called a mangle - maybe its called a wringer in the US. The washed wet clothes are fed through the rollers to squeeze out the water.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

We were a single parent family and we didn't have much money so in my earliest memories (early 80s) I remember we had a fridge freezer, a sandwich maker, and the electric cooker which looked something like this:

Same here through the 70's and (ex) step father in the 80's.
My memory of the council house (a very old house with loads of history and on the edge of a small village in tbe peak district) was no heating except for the 2 coal fires. Only 1 was ever lit unless we had guests over, then the sitting room was opened up and the fire lit. We never normally used that room. Toast was done on the fire or the grill in an oven just like that. I have no memory of a fridge or freezer, but do know we had a pantry. Milk was only ever had at school initially, then once winter came a few years later we started to get milk at home. Laundry was done at the laundrette, the boy friends or my grandparents house and brought home wet until my grandfather replaced their machine and we got theirs. It went into the conservatory. Clothes still went on the line, just as they do now. No change there.

I remember my step father getting a pressure cooker but we never had a slow cooker or food processor. The dishwasher came decades later. I have one now, but we don't use it at all.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I can clearly remember my parents getting very excited even the first microwave came out. Suddenly jacket potatoes were cooked in the microwave but equally suddenly the better jacket potatoes were to be found at my Grannie's home.

I remember when we got our first microwave, in the early 1970s. My dad was a biochemist, and he told us not to stand in front of it while it as cooking because he was concerned about the shielding on the microwave. I never heard specific cases of issues with microwave radiation, but I have to believe he was right to be cautious.

I can't recall us having anything else that was even remotely advanced back then. We had the usual things: electric range, blender, stand mixer, washing machine. We did have to hang clothes on the line before we got a dryer. I would have thought that clothespins were a relic of a bygone age, since automatic dryers are so common, but you can still buy them.

 

[Elawin]

There were 6 of us in our small house. My sisters had one bedroom, my brother slept in the boxroom, and I slept in the other bedroom with my parents until I was 6 or 7 - Dad worked nights during the week, so I slept in the double bed with my Mum and in a camp bed in the corner of the room at weekends.
There were coal fires in all of the rooms except the boxroom and the kitchen. If you wanted a bath, it was in a tin bath in front of the living room fire. Irons were heated up on a rack over the dining room fire, as was the kettle. The only thing that ran off electricity was the radio which plugged into an adapter attached to a light socket. The kitchen had a coke boiler to heat water, a very basic gas stove, a sink and a few cupboards. Any food which needed to be kept cool was put in a cool box or meat safe out in the lean-to. We did have an indoor bathroom and loo, but the bath was used mainly for soaking clothes because of the difficulty of getting hot water upstairs. There was a gas copper in the lean-to to wash clothes and a mangle to wring it all out.
All changed in the 1950s. The houses all got 250V electricity and we got an immersion heater, a washing machine (with an electric mangle as an attachment), a fridge, a TV, and a radiogram to replace out old radio and the wind-up gramophone. The washing machine was still in the lean-to - it as filled by hoses trailing across the floor and attached to the kitchen taps, and the dirty water was pumped into one of the old tin baths which was taken out to the outside drain. A couple of years later Mum got one of those newfangled spin dryers (!) with the water pumped out into one of the old tin baths, and the coal fires in the living room and the dining room were replaced by gas fires. She didn't get central heating until after I'd moved to Germany.
We did have a garage built in 1963 when my brother came back from Australia. He was one of only a few people in the whole street who had a car.

 

[GadgetGuy]

We were a single parent family and we didn't have much money so in my earliest memories (early 80s) I remember we had a fridge freezer, a sandwich maker, and the electric cooker which looked something like this:

View attachment 28804

I'm guessing we had a washing machine (though no tumble dryer) because I remember the clothes hanging on the line or an airer to dry. My abiding kitchen memory though is Tupperware...in all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes.

By the late 80s things were better and I remember Mum's excitement when she got a Magimix - she loved that food processor We also at various times in the late 80s/early 90s had an electric rotisserie and a slow cooker - most of which my step dad picked up at the local sale rooms or somewhere (they were all secondhand). I remember the rotisserie made fantastic chicken, but it was a right faff to get out, set up and clean afterwards so it was only used once in a blue moon.

I think we probably got a tumble dryer sometime in the late 80s and I know we got a microwave in 1988 (it was a huge brown thing) but we didn't get a dishwasher until the mid 90s.

Our mom made us go to the Laundromat to dry the clothes. And they were so heavy being wet!!

 

[Elawin]

Our mom made us go to the Laundromat to dry the clothes.

We didn't have such luxuries. Until 1958 the only nearby shop was a sweetshop in the local haulage yard! Then a small parade of shops was built on the estate - a butcher's, a greengrocer's, a hardware shop, a sweetshop/post office, a grocer's, and a draper's. My brother-in-law was one of the electricians who worked on the site - it was close enough for him to pop in for a cup of tea.