Monday, October 19, 2009

How to cook one's goose...

Go on. Ask me a question. Anything. (Well, try and avoid anything mathematical, scientific or about cars obviously.)

How about something to do with roasting meat? Thanks to my new useful little gadget I can probably come up with the answer. Temperatures, cooking times and suggested accompaniments. My teensiest complaint is that the temperatures are not in celsius - but back in the day no one trusted foreign muck like olive oil, garlic and metrification.
Doesn't it just knock spots off the give-aways in today's papers and magazines? CDs and DVDs, multi-size summer flip-flops, Directories of Decorating Ideas, Free Seeds and gee-gaws galour - all transient dross. Look, it even has a little hole so it will hang on a handy nail next to the cooker. How old is it? Something about the graphics suggests Festival of Britain - those brave new world Formica colours, neat tri-colour pointer and charcteristic type face. (I think it's one of the Modern family of fonts - can anyone confirm that?) So 1950s perhaps. Perhaps though, having read 'Woman and Home' magazine and concluded it's never actually been at the forefront of trendy living I could confidently add 2 decades to that.

Still, 50p well spent I think.

15 comments:

rachel said...

Fabulous! I hope you're going to work your way round it? In a nice flowered pinny, of course.

And in the process, perhaps you could report on how rare the meat ends up - my theory is that we are almost at the stage of eating raw meat these days, compared to what was considered medium-rare as I was growing up. (Something to do with the current reign of male chefs, as opposed to women cooks who understood that children balked at bloody meat?)

Annie said...

Oh wow. What a fab blast from the past. A x

Zoƫ said...

what a great gadget - and would agree, definitely has a 1950s feel to it.

I love kitchenalia, and have many bizarre gadgets, that I can vaguely recall my grandmother using, but they mainly decorative in my kitchen.

Friko said...

watch out whom you call foreign muck, olive oi, garlic and metrification....
I shall be stood hiding in them woods yonder waiting for a woman with no stick and no dogs.

Haven't I been here once before already today?

Twiglet said...

I wondered how we all managed before being able to "Google - it". Now I know!!!

Scriptor Senex said...

I'd reckon 1950s as well. I seem to recall something similar being in the back of Mum's home written recipe book.

muddyboots said...

hells teeth my mother had one of those, she married in the early 1950's

Pondside said...

Someone should start making those again, with Celsius. I'm sure that there's be a market. My mum has all sorts of funny little things like that from the 50's and 60's and we all depend on seeing them when we're home.

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

If I didn't have my trusty Newnes Household Encyclopaedia , I might be tempted to splash out on such a gadget .

TIGGYWINKLE said...

Yes it is fifties, mountaineer. We had one at home. I love and use most my kitchen gagets. Have many old ones from home which have great memories. I have a similar chart for my old upstairs prestige Pressure cooker that was also bought in the fifties.Woman and Home was always a good mag.

her at home said...

Gosh I remember my mother having one of those in her pile of recipe magazines ( not that she ever used it or them) waht fun! I collec told Kitchenalia which would explain why my kitchen leans more towards a scarp heap than a country living cover for its look.

LITTLE BROWN DOG said...

Oh, Mountainear - that is totally fantastic! Where on earth did you find it? No good on fonts, I'm afraid, but my mum had a Be-Ro cookery book (had? I wouldn't be at all surprised if she doesn't still have it) dating from the early 1960s, which has very much the same sort of feel.

Chris Stovell said...

You do come up with some intriguing finds!

Pam said...

What a great find!
I always love those wheels that align and give you options - a bit like the Weight Watchers chart they give you. Takes you about 3 days to work it out but then you realise how ingenious it is!

hand-knitted muesli said...

Hey come on 'M' it's now 27/10 you heven't posted since 19/10........
What's a girl supposed to do? :)