Saturday This's and That's

Yesterday my brother sent me an article about bread making, using this wonderful contraption made in the early 1900's by the company Landers, Frary & Clark. 

The idea is to just turn it up all together, let it rise - well, let's just say it's brilliant. And I'm going to keep looking for one until I find it, so if any of you flyover state readers happen to be browsing in someone's barn and come across one for a good price, grab it!! I've seen them from 20 bucks to 120. Obviously, I'd choose the former range. 

The cake maker

The bread dough bucket was so intriguing I wondered what else they had made for the convenience of home makers. A huge set of my pre-convieved and long held beliefs were in for a shaking up. The whole idea of an Industrial Age and modern conveniences has always been a bit of an anethama to me, though I know I've benefitted hugely from both. Trying to stay on the simple side of living also leaves me knowing I can be as hypocritical as the next person in wanting things a bit easier at times. 

One of a number of butter churns L,F & C made

Though keeping basic as a watchword does influence me, I know if I'd been introduced to the products of Landers, Frary & Clark at the time of their inventing, I'd have wanted all of them. After all, they are simply tools, practical tools, which makes them perfect in my mind. Gadgets that work and don't fall apart? I'm a sucker for them.

Coffee bean grinder

Electric toaster

Great for cutting butter or lard into flour, or chopping herbs, or....

This one is strange and I'm not sure the description is correct but  supposedly this is a raisin seeder, or peeler. 

Of course, the story of the company is pretty typical for America. A good start, some smart business people, some smarter, craftier business people, with the result being going over their heads and going down. It took over a hundred years to do it but greed finally did its corrupting work and now what lives on are a few remnants of a time when America made incredibly clever things for very practical reasons. 

Scale

Flatware

They were so diversified - it's really pretty incredible what they made over the years. Of course, part of that was buying other companies making very wanted items, like the coffee percolator. They made them in a wide variety of sizes and if you are of a certain age, you probably had one.

This is, obviously, a late model but a very familiar one

Scales, thermoses, cutlery, waffle irons. I'd have done an infomercial for them. I have done, too bad they are out of business.

Of all the adverts for them, the one below is my favorite. You can easily find this tool today at yard sales or you can buy it brand new (but old is better). Of course, you can buy something that runs on electricity that will do the job faster. Until, if you are on the grid, the power goes out.

The following item is probably the most interesting, to me at least. It is a meat press. According to its description on eBay (where the bidding is up to 70.00 on this item) -

This is a Cast Iron Columbia Meat Juice Press made by Landers, Frary & Clark

Referenced in an 1887 medical book, this kitchen tool was made to press the juice from a 2oz piece of meat. It was considered that the liquid obtained contained all the nutrients of the meat without the indigestible components. The juice was thought to be more nutritious than ordinary soup or the commonly used, "beef tea."

If you ever had Bovril, you know that it is all sorts of good.

What does all of this have to do with Culebra? It is about a way of life that in some places is disappearing a little bit more slowly than others, in the Western world at any rate. It seems that once the more simple ways start to be eroded by 'new' and 'better' and 'improved' it is a fast dash to find out that all promised is rarely all given, but like trying to tell a hormone driven teenager that life is not a sprint to get there, wherever there is, most likely it is breath wasted. A few of the younger ones have learned the old ways and are carrying on with them while incorporating the new; they are the ones to keep Culebra on course and hopefully they will. Just remember what your food chopper can chop.

An early morning view

There were going to be more that's, but I think this is enough for now.

Have a substantial Saturday. Do something solidly.