Now we're just some gadgets that you used to know

Be it a spit wheel, a pudding prick or a tongue press, many kitchen utensils once considered essential have long been consigned to obscurity, laments Neil Buttery

- Neil Buttery

DO you have drawers, cupboards or garages full of redundant kitchen gadgets? The likely answer is 'yes'. According to research by Tap Warehouse in 2022, the average UK household is cluttered with $822 of neglected culinary kits, the most unused being the cafetière: one in four owners have never taken theirs out of its box.

The word gadget usually applies to a tool designed for a specific purpose. We couldn't imagine kitchen life without some of them, yet digital scales, can openers and timers were all new once and seen as fangled or fashionable.

Most gadgets, however helpful, have a lifespan -fondue sets, yoghurt makers, electric meat carvers as fashion and technology move on.

Sometimes, several stages of development exist together. Take the whisk. Almost everyone has at least one, but it had to be conceived and there had to be a reason for it to exist: that it was bloody hard work whisking eggs and sugar for an hour or more for a meringue or cake with a bunch of birch twigs. The balloon whisk-only invented in the 19th century— made meringues more luscious in a fraction of the time, which informed the hand-cranked whisk, the stand mixer, then the electric hand whisk. Which stages of its evolution do you own?

Similarly, there are dead ends: a time when meat lockers and ice houses were obsolete was once inconceivable. The best example is the clockwork spit jack, for roasting meat by the fire. Roast meat used to be enjoyed only by the wealthy: it required a great deal of fuel and a dog or a servant to turn the spit, who, thus engaged, was unable to do anything else. Waterwheel-powered and steam-powered jacks helped, but things completely changed with the 1740s invention of the clockwork jack, which was weighted and wound like a grandfather clock.