[[File:Kitchen utensils-01.jpg|thumb|250px|Various kitchen utensils on a kitchen hook strip. From left:
– Pastry blender and potato masher
– Spatula and (hidden) serving fork
– Skimmer and chef's knife (small cleaver)
– Whisk and slotted spoon
– Spaghetti ladle
– Sieve and measuring spoon set
– brush and (spoon)
]]
A kitchen utensil is a small hand-held tool used for food preparation. Common kitchen tasks include cutting food items to size, heating food on an open fire or on a stove, baking, grinding, mixing, blending, and measuring; different utensils are made for each task. A general purpose utensil such as a chef's knife may be used for a variety of foods; other kitchen utensils are highly specialized and may be used only in connection with preparation of a particular type of food, such as an Separating eggs or an apple corer. Some specialized utensils are used when an operation is to be repeated many times, or when the cook has limited dexterity or mobility. The number of utensils in a household kitchen varies with time and the style of cooking.
A cooking utensil is a utensil for cooking. Utensils may be categorized by use with terms derived from the word "": kitchenware, wares for the kitchen; ovenware and bakeware, kitchen utensils that are for use inside ovens and for baking; cookware, merchandise used for cooking; and so forth.
A partially overlapping category of tools is that of , which are tools used for eating (cf. the more general category of tableware). Some utensils are both kitchen utensils and eating utensils. Cutlery (i.e. knives and other cutting implements) can be used for both food preparation in a kitchen and as eating utensils when dining. Other cutlery such as forks and spoons are both kitchen and eating utensils.
Other names used for various types of kitchen utensils, although not strictly denoting a utensil that is specific to the kitchen, are according to the materials they are made of, again using the "" suffix, rather than their functions: earthenware, utensils made of clay; silverware, utensils (both kitchen and dining) made of silver; glassware, utensils (both kitchen and dining) made of glass; and so forth. These latter categorizations include utensils—made of glass, silver, clay, and so forth—that are not necessarily kitchen utensils.
Iron utensils have little problem with high cooking temperatures, are simple to clean as they become smooth with long use, are durable and comparatively strong (i.e. not as prone to breaking as, say, earthenware), and hold heat well. However, as noted, they rust comparatively easily.
In addition to their problems with thermal shock, enamelware utensils require careful handling, as careful as for glassware, because they are prone to chipping. But enamel utensils are not affected by acidic foods, are durable, and are easily cleaned. However, they cannot be used with strong alkalis.
Earthenware, porcelain, and pottery utensils can be used for both cooking and serving food, and so thereby save on washing-up of two separate sets of utensils. They are durable, and (van Rensselaer notes) "excellent for slow, even cooking in even heat, such as slow baking". However, they are comparatively unsuitable for cooking using a direct heat, such as a cooking over a flame.
Aluminium's advantages over other materials for kitchen utensils is its good thermal conductivity (which is approximately an order of magnitude greater than that of steel), the fact that it is largely non-reactive with foodstuffs at low and high temperatures, its low toxicity, and the fact that its corrosion products are white and so (unlike the dark corrosion products of, say, iron) do not discolour food that they happen to be mixed into during cooking. However, its disadvantages are that it is easily discoloured, can be dissolved by acidic foods (to a comparatively small extent), and reacts to alkaline soaps if they are used for cleaning a utensil.
In the European Union, the construction of kitchen utensils made of aluminium is determined by two European standards: EN 601 ( Aluminium and aluminium alloys — Castings — Chemical composition of castings for use in contact with foodstuffs) and EN 602 ( Aluminium and aluminium alloys — Wrought products — Chemical composition of semi-finished products used for the fabrication of articles for use in contact with foodstuffs).
Archaeologists and historians have studied the kitchen utensils used in centuries past. For example: In the Middle Eastern villages and towns of the middle first millennium Anno Domini, historical and archaeological sources record that Jewish households generally had stone measuring cups, a meyḥam (a wide-necked vessel for heating water), a kederah (an unlidded pot-bellied cooking pot), a ilpas (a lidded stewpot/casserole pot type of vessel used for stewing and steaming), yorah and kumkum (pots for heating water), two types of teganon (frying pan) for deep and shallow frying, an iskutla (a glass serving platter), a tamḥui (ceramic serving bowl), a keara (a bowl for bread), a kiton (a canteen of cold water used to dilute wine), and a lagin (a wine decanter).
Ownership and types of kitchen utensils varied from household to household. Records survive of inventories of kitchen utensils from London in the 14th century, in particular the records of possessions given in the coroner's rolls. Very few such people owned any kitchen utensils at all. In fact only seven convicted felons are recorded as having any. One such, a murderer from 1339, is recorded as possessing only the one kitchen utensil: a brass pot (one of the commonest such kitchen utensils listed in the records) valued at three shillings. Similarly, in Minnesota in the second half of the 19th century, John North is recorded as having himself made "a real nice rolling pin, and a pudding stick" for his wife; one soldier is recorded as having a Civil War bayonet refashioned, by a blacksmith, into a bread knife; whereas an immigrant Swedish family is recorded as having brought with them "solid silver knives, forks, and spoons [...] Quantities of copper and brass utensils burnished until they were like mirrors hung in rows".
A growth in the range of kitchen utensils available can be traced through the growth in the range of utensils recommended to the aspiring householder in cookbooks as the century progressed. Earlier in the century, in 1828, Frances Byerley Parkes had recommended a smaller array of utensils. By 1858, Elizabeth H. Putnam, in Mrs Putnam's Receipt Book and Young Housekeeper's Assistant, wrote with the assumption that her readers would have the "usual quantity of utensils", to which she added a list of necessary items:
Copper saucepans, well lined, with covers, from three to six different sizes; a flat-bottomed soup-pot; an upright gridiron; sheet-iron breadpans instead of tin; a griddle; a tin kitchen; Hector's double boiler; a tin coffee-pot for boiling coffee, or a filter — either being equally good; a tin canister to keep roasted and ground coffee in; a canister for tea; a covered tin box for bread; one likewise for cake, or a drawer in your store-closet, lined with zinc or tin; a bread knife; a board to cut bread upon; a covered jar for pieces of bread, and one for fine crumbs; a knife-tray; a Spoon tray; — the yellow ware is much the stringest, or tin pans of different sizes are economical; — a stout tin pan for mixing bread; a large earthen bowl for beating cake; a stone jug for yeast; a stone jar for soup stock; a meat-saw; a cleaver; iron and wooden spoons; a wire sieve for sifting flour and meal; a small hair sieve; a bread board; a meat-board; a lignum vitae mortar, and rolling pin, &c.—
Mrs Beeton, in her Book of Household Management, wrote:
The following list, supplied by Messrs Richard & John Slack, 336, Strand, will show the articles required for the kitchen of a family in the middle class of life, although it does not contain all the things that may be deemed necessary for some families, and may contain more than are required for others. As Messrs Slack themselves, however, publish a useful illustrated catalogue, which may be had at their establishment gratis, and which it will be found advantageous to consult by those about to furnish, it supersedes the necessity of our enlarging that which we give:
1s. 0d. 3s. 6d. 4s. 0d. 2s. 0d. 1s. 0d. 8d. 6d. 2s. 0d. 8s. 0d. 5s. 6d. 1s. 10d. 2s. 6d. 30s. 0d. £8 11s. 1d. — Isabella Mary Beeton, The Book of Household Management
Parloa, in her 1880 cookbook, took two pages to list all of the essential kitchen utensils for a well-furnished kitchen, a list running to 93 distinct sorts of item. The 1882 edition ran to 20 pages illustrating and describing the various utensils for a well-furnished kitchen. Sarah Tyson Rorer's 1886 Philadelphia Cook Book listed more than 200 kitchen utensils that a well-furnished kitchen should have.
The "labour-saving" devices did not necessarily save labour, either. While the advent of mass-produced standardized measuring instruments permitted even householders with little to no cooking skills to follow recipes and end up with the desired result and the advent of many utensils enabled "modern" cooking, on a stove or range rather than at floor level with a hearth, they also operated to raise expectations of what families would eat. So while food was easier to prepare and to cook, ordinary householders at the same time were expected to prepare and to cook more complex and harder-to-prepare meals on a regular basis. The labour-saving effect of the tools was cancelled out by the increased labour required for what came to be expected as the culinary norm in the average household.
|
|