I like gadgets as much as the next person, but I can honestly say that I don’t own a single one of the objects pictured below. Can you guess what each of these historic utensils was used for? (I am aware that a dog is not actually a utensil, but give yourself a bonus point if you can guess that one.)

The answers…

1. This ale muller was used to heat up wine or ale with spices over the fire.
2. This Irish apple corer was used for…ummm, coring apples. Even though they weren’t sure why it was the case, people from the medieval age on surmised the bacteria-resistant properties of silver, which is one of the reasons it became popular for kitchen utensils.
3. This rasp was used to turn stale bread into bread crumbs. Frugality demanded that every scrap be used.
4. Butter was packed into this mold and popped out with the plunger. After all, who wants ugly, unshaped butter?
5. Cherry pitters like this one were very popular, though the original caption to this photo doubted how much work they actually saved.
6. Milk pans were used to separate the milk from the cream in cooler months.
7. This Pennsylvania Dutch salt box was designed to hang on the wall. People kept their salt near the fire so it stayed dry.
8. This sugar nipper helped to break up the hard, cone-shaped loaves of sugar that once were sold. Smaller, hand-held models broke the pieces up into smaller, usable lumps.
9. This iron turned out edible wafers with the United States seal on it. What better way of showing your patriotism during the war of 1812 than with a delectable waffle-type treat?
10. This is Whiskey, the turnspit dog! Small dogs once were used to turn wheels attached to the oven spits in large kitchens. They were kept in pairs because the work was so difficult and hot. (No word on what happened to Whiskey’s partner.) Luckily for the dogs, the practice fell out of use when kitchens became mechanized in the mid-1800s.

Many thanks to the website www.OldAndUnusual.com for its links to these and innumerable other oddities.