Food Preparation

Let's start by looking back at your childhood. Tell me about your memories of any utensils used in the kitchen to prepare food in your home at that time.

Well, really as a child I think the only memories I have are of the ordinary utensils such as saucepans, frying pans and the kettle. I can't remember anything else much being in use, mixing bowls of course. My mother was a good cook, so there were the various mixing bowls for the cooking process and rolling pins but none of the machines which have been about since.

Tell me a bit about the mixing bowls and the rolling pin.

Mixing bowls are back in fashion again now. Then they were the big pottery or china, not china, earthenware sort of bowls, white glazed inside and creamy colour outside, which people favour now for when they're making something very huge like a Christmas pudding; and that was the mixing bowl which was always used; and then of course there were pudding basins because there were quite a few steamed puddings, steak and kidney pudding of course was a favourite meal at that time. Those were always in white china basins, and other than pie dishes, I think pie dishes were enamel, generally white enamel with a blue line round the edge for making pies in.