Cookers
How many cookers does one woman need? Perhaps if you are a professional chef, or someone who has 12 children, it might stretch to two. I now appear to have three. In my defence, I inherited one: there was a Belling two-ring electric 1940s offering that had been putting in good service here for more than half a century. I bought one by mistake on eBay – a vast, green range that has been paid for but which is still awaiting collection in Suffolk. And the one I really wanted, my ‘dream cooker’. It’s a New World Ninety, a 1960s classic that comes with the small complication of being three floors up in a flat in Edinburgh.
Until relatively recently, a cooker (or oven if you prefer), was a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Like cars, cookers used to be built to last. Now, they are built to be integrated into kitchen concepts, only to be discarded after a few years – along with their hardworking colleagues the fridge and the dishwasher – on to the ‘white goods’ scrapheap.
It is hard to recycle these unwanted lumps of redundant machinery. The Third World doesn’t have the resources to run them, their plastic moulded knobs aren’t built to last, the transfer printed numbers rub off and their dull designs mean they date quickly. In short, you can’t give them away. Unlike ‘vintage’ cookers like the one patiently waiting for me in Scotland. Sturdy and stand-alone, these blue or cream enamel gas tanks were built to feed generations, quite literally. In some cases, cookers are passed down from mother to daughter, along with recipes for fail-proof Victoria sponges and hints about the idiosyncrasies of the Regulo.
Sadly my mother died very young and I have no idea what happened to her cooker but I have never forgotten it. Also a New World classic, it came with bombproof Bakelite controls and, crucially, an eye-level grill. Oh, the joy of an eye-level grill. At what point did cooker designers decide to relegate the grill to a shelf squeezed in underneath the hob? And why haven’t they been fired?
So, yes, I have too many cookers, none of which I can currently use. But once I have managed to persuade my husband that what he really wants to do this weekend is drive to Edinburgh, haul a cooker down several flights of stairs and then drive to East Sussex, he will be awarded with the very purest of pleasures – being able to watch chunks of Cheddar cheese bubble away on top of the toast without having to perform a gymnastic manoeuvre. Surely worth a 460-mile round trip?
Next week: Fossil fans…
Until relatively recently, a cooker (or oven if you prefer), was a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Like cars, cookers used to be built to last. Now, they are built to be integrated into kitchen concepts, only to be discarded after a few years – along with their hardworking colleagues the fridge and the dishwasher – on to the ‘white goods’ scrapheap.
It is hard to recycle these unwanted lumps of redundant machinery. The Third World doesn’t have the resources to run them, their plastic moulded knobs aren’t built to last, the transfer printed numbers rub off and their dull designs mean they date quickly. In short, you can’t give them away. Unlike ‘vintage’ cookers like the one patiently waiting for me in Scotland. Sturdy and stand-alone, these blue or cream enamel gas tanks were built to feed generations, quite literally. In some cases, cookers are passed down from mother to daughter, along with recipes for fail-proof Victoria sponges and hints about the idiosyncrasies of the Regulo.
So, yes, I have too many cookers, none of which I can currently use. But once I have managed to persuade my husband that what he really wants to do this weekend is drive to Edinburgh, haul a cooker down several flights of stairs and then drive to East Sussex, he will be awarded with the very purest of pleasures – being able to watch chunks of Cheddar cheese bubble away on top of the toast without having to perform a gymnastic manoeuvre. Surely worth a 460-mile round trip?
Next week: Fossil fans…