17 Kitchen Gadgets from the Past You Never Figured Out
Old kitchens were packed with strange gadgets that would leave you scratching your head today.
- Sophia Zapanta
- 5 min read
Cooking in the past wasn’t just about pots and pans; it involved some pretty weird tools, too. Some of these gadgets seem totally pointless until you realize how clever they actually were. Let’s take a peek into the kitchen drawers of the past and guess what on earth they were thinking.
1. Butter Mold
SteinsplitterBot on Wikimedia Commons
Back then, butter had to look fancy at dinner parties. These little wooden molds shaped butter into flowers, shells, or whatever else made the hostess feel classy. No one wanted a boring blob of butter at a fancy table. Honestly, butter deserved to be dressed up if it was going to be the star of the breadbasket.
2. Cherry Pitter
Carl Steinbeißer on Wikimedia Commons
Hand-pitting cherries was a messy business, and nobody wanted stained fingers all day. This gadget popped the pit out in one neat little punch. It’s like a tiny medieval torture device, but for fruit. Plus, it made baking cherry pies way less of a crime scene.
3. Toast Fork
Cielquiparle on Wikimedia Commons
Before toasters became a kitchen trophy, people roasted bread over open fires with special forks. Toasting was serious business and deserved its own tool. These forks looked like tiny pitchforks, ready to fight breakfast battles. A little char was just part of the flavor experience.
4. Cake Breaker
Nigel Jones on Wikimedia Commons
This wire gadget looks like something from a dentist’s nightmare. It was used to slice delicate cakes without squashing them flat. Knife? Too basic. Only true cake connoisseurs needed a breaker’s gentle touch.
5. Egg Coddler
Raimond Spekking on Wikimedia Commons
Cooking an egg perfectly soft inside its shell is harder than it sounds. Enter the egg coddler: a tiny porcelain cup with a lid. It made soft-cooked eggs feel like a royal event. Plus, it sounds fancy enough to impress your brunch guests.
6. Nutmeg Grater
Pharos on Wikimedia Commons
Forget pre-ground spice jars—real kitchens grated their nutmeg fresh. These tiny handheld graters got just the right amount without shaving off a fingertip. Imagine risking a minor injury just for slightly better cookies. Now, that’s dedication to flavor.
7. Ice Cream Scoop with Sweeper
Evan-Amos on Wikimedia Commons
Old-fashioned ice cream scoops had a built-in metal sweeper to get every frozen bit off the spoon. No more wrestling with stubborn scoops or licking the spoon like a savage. It’s the unsung hero behind perfect ice cream balls. Yes, your dessert deserved that much drama.
8. Rolling Herb Cutter
Fæ on Wikimedia Commons
Picture a pizza cutter, but it’s out there living its best life chopping herbs. Multiple blades rolled through parsley or basil at lightning speed. No more sad, bruised leaves from clumsy knife work. It was the Formula 1 of food prep.
9. Pie Bird
Oleg Bor on Wikimedia Commons
This little ceramic bird sat in the middle of a pie while it baked. Its job? Let steam escape without making the crust sag. Bonus: It made your pie look like it had a secret garden gnome hiding inside.
10. Sausage Stuffer
Daderot on Wikimedia Commons
Homemade sausage was a big deal, and you needed a special device to cram all the meat into those tiny casings. Basically, it looked like a medieval plumbing tool. It was definitely not for the squeamish, but hey, it made grilling season a lot more epic.
11. Butter Churn
Geertivp on Wikimedia Commons
Before butter came neatly wrapped in gold foil, someone had to shake it into existence. These churns could be big and clunky or small and personal. It took forever, but somehow made butter taste like magic. Plus, it doubled as an upper body workout.
12. Jelly Strainer Stand
Jen8000 on Wikimedia Commons
Making jelly was no joke. This stand held a cloth bag full of fruit pulp so the juice could drip out perfectly. No squashing allowed—just patience, gravity, and some serious willpower not to eat the jelly halfway through. Homemade jams owed their smoothness to this unsung hero.
13. Spice Ball
VSchagow on Wikimedia Commons
Want to flavor a soup without leaving random bits floating around? Toss your spices into this little metal ball and let it simmer. It’s like a tea infuser, but for soups that don’t want to explain themselves. Bonus points for making broth smell like heaven.
14. Lemon Reamer
Poupou l’quourouce on Wikimedia Commons
No fancy presses here—just a hand-held, pointy tool to jab and twist into lemons. It was messy, splattery, and 100% satisfying. It made you feel like you were battling the lemon into submission. Victory was a perfectly tart lemonade.
15. Apple Peeler-Corer-Slicer
Peter Halasz on Wikimedia Commons
This contraption looked like a medieval torture rack, but it made quick work of apples. With one crank, it peeled, cored, and sliced—magic! It was a must-have for serious pie makers. Plus, it was weirdly hypnotic to watch.
16. Vintage Potato Ricer
Leslie Seaton on Wikimedia Commons
Mashed potatoes weren’t always made with electric beaters. People used this hand-squeezed gadget to press potatoes through tiny holes, making them fluffy like clouds. No lumps allowed under this dictatorship. It made every dinner table feel a little more special.
17. Coffee Grinder
Benjamin Hell on Wikimedia Commons
Before Keurigs and Starbucks loyalty points, coffee started with elbow grease. Manual grinders turned beans into grounds with pure muscle power. The smell? Out of this world. It almost made the arm workout worth it.