9 Rare Retro Kitchen Tools That Might Be Hiding In Your Attic

In days gone by, when cooking was more hard labor than hobby, sometimes every facet of it must have felt like a grind. Making bread was a challenge — and still can be, as anyone who has ever forgotten to score their sourdough knows — while using old-school pantry staples to keep our pots and pans clean was a workout. No wonder then, that home cooks eagerly leapt on successive waves of kitchen tools which, for their time, were technical advancements, even if they only fractionally reduced the burden. Every little bit helps, as they say.

Today, much of the hard work is done before our food even reaches our kitchens. Supermarkets and grocery stores sell everything in convenient packages, while ready meals can be whipped up in moments. Our 21st century homes are stuffed to the gills with electrically-powered, labor-saving devices, ensuring minimal effort on our part and relegating the culinary tools our grandparents relied on to the attic, thrift store, or trash. But these retro tools don't need to be totally forgotten. If you're not already a collector, maybe you even have one or two of these beauties lurking in a cupboard somewhere.

Today we're bombarded with advertising, but it was hardly different a few generations ago. If you had visited any farmer's market to buy butter, much of it would have been stamped on the top. Those impressions were made by butter molds, wooden or sometimes glass blocks that shaped freshly churned butter, while the carved designs told customers who had made it. Sure, modern paper butter wrappers may be reusable, but they're not nearly as pretty.

Long before the electric hand mixer was a twinkle in an inventive French company's eye, American Willis Johnson came to every home baker's rescue in 1884 with his mechanical egg beater. Untold numbers of cooks around the world (my own mom included) whipped up eggs, soups, and anything else they wanted with this hand-cranked tool. Sadly, in many kitchens, it was quickly tossed in favor of electric versions after the 1920s, but with more people eagerly seeking retro finds in thrift stores like old-school pie keepers, the hand-crank whisk may make a decorative comeback.

Regarded by many as the holy grail of rare, retro kitchen tools, this waffle iron from the Griswold Manufacturing Company is a genuine gem. It's even listed in the collection of the National Museum of American History! The Griswold American No. 8 waffle iron's unique selling point was the genius ball and socket hinge that allowed it to be flipped by lifting and turning the pan. No mess, no burns, just delicious waffles.

We know the difference between sunny side up and over-easy eggs, but how many of you have enjoyed a coddled one? People in 19th-century Europe went crazy for them, and so the market for egg coddlers was born. A fresh egg would be cracked into one of these small, sometimes decorated, lidded cups, which were placed in a pan of hot water. This step cooked — or coddled — each egg to perfect softness.

As proof that not every gadget gracing our kitchens had to be centuries old, here comes a 1970s invention: the Hot Dogger. In theory, it sounds great: skewer your dogs onto the machine's metal prongs, cover with the lid, and cook. Or, as one Redditor put it: "it electrocutes the poor little guys!" Unsurprisingly, it was swiftly overtaken by more efficient ways to cook hot dogs.

People also used these rather lovely little gadgets for grinding spices, so sometimes they go by that name, but nuts were perhaps a more common ingredient poured into the gadget's glass bottle. The mid-20th-century chopper worked when it was tipped upside down. When the key at the side of the lid was turned, a sprinkling of nuts (or spice) would be deposited on any given dish.

This gadget sounds like something we would use to smash up all our cake-baking mistakes, but its real purpose couldn't be further from such a dire situation. Debuting in the 1930s, the cake breaker — also known as an angel food cutter — was a series of thin prongs attached to a handle. It was designed to cut perfect slices of feather-light dessert like angel food cake, but will do the same to any delicate sponge you need to divide.

There is a lot to bear in mind when prepping your fridge for a power outage, but if more people had butter bells, at least they probably wouldn't have to worry about this type of dairy spoiling. This 19th-century French invention is experiencing a bit of a resurgence. The concept uses science to keep butter fresh, creating a seal between the product (which was pushed into the lid) and a tiny bit of clean water in the jar bottom. Put the two together and voila: soft and creamy buttah for the whole day.

The cast iron skillet has been a kitchen staple for generations. Look after it, and you can use it to quickly upgrade your boxed cornbread or cook a deep dish pizza. However, in the 1970s, some families invested in an electric version and found it was just as sturdy. One Facebook user even remembered theirs living to cook another day after it fell out on the freeway, while others in the thread recalled their electric skillet producing plenty of good food. Sadly, many models were reportedly nightmares to clean and couldn't compete with the next great kitchen innovation: microwaves.