Kitchen Gadgets

50s
Scoop for creating perfect melon/ice cream/mashed potato balls.
Vast heavy Kenwood mixer which takes up huge amounts of space.
Horlicks maker.
Spatula.
Icing bag. Ditto for creating decorative mashed potato effects.
Potato peeler.
Nutmeg grater.
Bread board with BREAD carved into the rim.
Enamel bread bin in which the bread goes rapidly stale and mouldy.
Heavy metal mincer you screw to the pine kitchen table.
Canteen of cutlery (wedding present).
Everything "wipe-clean".
Apron home-made from remnants.
Role model: perfect housewife.

60s
Gas-powered corkscrew.
Sink waste disposal unit.
Electric carving knife.
Vast earthenware mixing bowl suitable for a country house kitchen.
Coffee percolator.
Filter coffee maker (easy to tip over).
Cheeseboard.

Knives with a serrated bit, a cutting edge and a spike for picking up and serving chunks of cheese.

Wooden salad bowl which you're not allowed to wash, heavy iron omelette pan ditto.
Victorian style set of flour, sugar, cocoa etc tins.
Cream maker.
Egg poacher.
Pressure cooker.
Rubber pan scrapers.
Salad servers with decorated ceramic handles.
Liquidizer.
Toasted sandwich maker.

Freezer, and a freezer compartment in the fridge (food came marked with stars showing how long you could freeze it for).

Wooden steak tenderiser.
Fish knives, but designed in Sweden and made of stainless steel.
Runcible spoon with a serrated edge.
Potato masher.
Kebab skewers.
Skewers for skewering a vast joint of meat.
Lemon zester.
Gadget for piercing the top of a boiled egg.
Mandolin for slicing boiled eggs.
Striped unisex butcher apron.
Role model: perfect housewife, sophisticated lady.

70s
Wok.
Fondue set.
Enamel saucepans, coffee pots and colanders from France (classic design, if it ain’t broke...).

Tinny coffee makers you set on the gas and then turn over – again from France or Italy. (Percolators were "common", perhaps because they were American.)

Skewers for baking potatoes faster.
Orange and blue Le Creuset casseroles.
Lever corkscrews.
Thick pottery soup bowls with a handle.
Mezzaluna from Italy for chopping fresh herbs.
Large glass jars with wooden lids for displaying different types of pasta.
Wire vegetable racks (we used a set of office in and out trays).
Wooden knife block.
Chopsticks.

Marble pestle and mortar sets that we gave each other for Christmas and nobody ever used (they were for crushing your own cardamom seeds instead of buying curry powder).

Bouqet garni bags we gave each other for Christmas. Single people in particular got given these to encourage them to give dinner parties – it was the speed dating of its time.

Bunches of dried herbs and dried flowers.
Stripped pine standalone furniture.
Bamboo egg whisks from Chinatown.
A shelf of paperbacks.
Butcher apron as before, or a plastic one in the same style with a jokey message.
Role model: earth mother or academic.

80s
Pasta maker.
Catering-size toaster.
Catering knives and equipment from Jaeggi in Soho.
Fish slices and tureen spoons hanging from hooks.
Cafetière.
Set of bamboo steamers from Chinatown, never used.
Philippe Starck lemon squeezer (because everything has to be "designer").
Alessi knives (ditto).
Don’t phone for the fish knives, we don’t use them any more.
Brushed steel counter tops like a French café, everything built in.

It was about efficiently whipping up gourmet food despite working long hours and earning pots of money. All these gadgets were mainly for show, the gleaming steel being a sign of practicality, modernity and ruthlessness.

No apron – you just got soup on your dirndl skirt. Role model: banker.

90s
Pizza wheel.
Spork.
Raclette set.
What's an apron?

00s
Electric lemon squeezer.

At some point we worked out that we could keep sliced bread in the freezer compartment instead of a bread bin. Enamel bread bins turn up on Bargain Hunt.

Teens
Plastic tomatoes and onions for saving half apples, onions etc. Also come in “banana”.
Apple slicer.
Slow cooker.
Spiralizer.
Breadmaker.
Air fryer.
George Forman grill.

What’s a corkscrew? And how am I going to attach the mincer to the island?

We'll Eat Again: the 80s

1980: M&S starts selling packaged sandwiches, and everybody follows.

Boeuf en croute (Beef Wellington), salmon en croute

Belgian creperies were everywhere. (The crepes were wholewheat, and stuffed with stuff. They were small, thin, limp, tepid and not much use if you were actually hungry.)

Vegetarians ate “something something bake”. Layered aubergine, tomato and mozarella. Or stir-fried veg with satay sauce.

fried potato skins with dips

raspberry vinegar

raspberry coulis (very thin, non-fattening sauce)

garlic cheesecake

steak sandwiches washed down with Rolling Rock, Sol and Peroni

rocket

sun-dried tomatoes (as a dish on their own in too much olive oil)

pesto

French onion soup

beetroot shavings

American burgers and burger sauces

blueberry muffins (fairy cakes)

blueberry cheesecake

kiwi fruit

nouvelle cuisine (Tiny portions on a black octagonal plate. Again, no use if you're hungry.)

raw baby spinach salad

herby sausages with far too much sage

sushi

balsamic vinegar

shiitake mushrooms (You were supposed to grow your own on a log.)

pears in chocolate sauce

tomato tart

fried black pudding with potato/swede mash (Black Lightning)

Banoffee pie

baby vegetables

mange-tout peas

wild rice, red rice from the Camargue

black Puy lentils

steamed vegetables (Meant you had to buy a steamer - it was a decade of kitchen equipment.)

brandysnap baskets

mustard dressing with whole dark mustard seeds

crudités

mozarella in carozza

deep-fried breaded Camembert

sorrel soup

But the bread in sandwiches was always stale, unless you went to a café where they made a bespoke sandwich before your very eyes, taking the sliced bread out of the plastic. Thank heavens for Pret!



More food here.

Fashion Crimes of the 20th Century

20s, 30s
Little girls’ skirts became very short – miniskirt length. In summer, they wore matching bloomers underneath (same material as the dress.) In winter, they wore bloomers and leggings – buttoned gaiters reaching from ankle to hip. These disappeared in the 40s, but the bloomers survived into the 50s. The very short skirts slipped down the class system until little girls begin wearing - gasp! - trousers in about 1965.

From the 30s to the 60s, women’s shoes had thin soles and were freezing in winter. They were designed for people who took taxis everywhere. You could wear galoshes over them, but there were no practical boots until the mid-60s. Older people were rather shocked by them, and thought the boots “kinky”.

50s
I remember one contemporary who always put on hat and gloves to go to the Bodleian (Oxford University’s library); however, we free spirits thought that a touch formal. But I had been plagued by gloves, as an adolescent. They had to be worn or carried on all but the most informal outings; without them, it seemed, my station in life would not be apparent. Puzzled but biddable, I spent several years losing slimy nylon objects until eventually liberated by student life and common sense. (Penelope Lively, A House Unlocked)

Middle-aged women had a “best” outfit for the opera, a charity ball or the Palace: an evening dress with a long, full skirt, a draped or pleated bodice, and shoulder straps. They were frumpy, and weren’t kind to most 50-year-olds. The ladies still wore diamonds from the 19th century: rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, sometimes even a tiara.

By the 60s, all change – arms and shoulders were covered, and older ladies wore tailored evening dresses (short or long). There was nowhere to put the diamonds (which now didn’t look right), so bodices were covered in rhinestones, sequins or paillettes. The same kind of dress (sometimes sleeveless) was worn as concert gear by singers, well into the 70s. I remember waiting impatiently for them to catch up. Now women singers and musicians are chosen for their looks and wear barely-there dresses. I’m not sure this is an improvement.

60s
Despite mod and miniskirts, most middle-aged women didn’t even buy new clothes, and still wore thick wool coats and ageing hats. But some went misguidedly overboard for the “dolly bird” style, with minidresses and white knee socks.

The top of the minidress was modest and puritanical with a high neck, long sleeves and a white collar and cuffs. The skirt showed your pants when you were standing up. The following year girls wore the dresses as shirts over trousers.

In the late 60s some adults suddenly decided to “move with the times”, grow sideboards and their hair long, and wear white turtleneck shirts with a dinner jacket (if men). Women adopted the fortune teller look. It wasn’t an era for dignity or tailoring. Some unfortunately stuck like that.

Little old ladies in Peckham wore a uniform: turquoise waisted knee-length raincoat from M&S, American tan tights, shoes. In winter, their legs were cold as they didn’t wear trousers, or boots. And their skirts were too short.

70s
An outfit I wore briefly: afro hair; big russet cardigan in tweed effect yarn, with a belt; crimplene A line midi skirt diagonally striped in navy and white. We’ll pass over the home-made calico smock and blue snakeskin clogs...

Teachers wore a pudding basin haircut, and a corduroy dress with wide short sleeves, a big collar, and a yoke across the bust. They wore the dress over a shirt.

Conservative people took up hippy fashions and tamed them: psychedelic robes became lurid maxi dresses.

It was quite a milestone when people of our generation started wearing suits – it seemed like selling out to The Man.

80s
Professional women wore suits with short-sleeved jackets (especially in yellow or lilac – they hung on too long among MPs).

Stylish hats were plonked onto long hair – hats need an updo.

An outfit I wore briefly in the 80s: I took a YHA sheet sleeping bag, cut off the top and bottom, cut some “armholes” and sewed up the “shoulders”. I then dyed it French navy. I wore it over a gathered broderie Anglaise petticoat (also home-made) with a belt. A Bananarama felt hat went with it.

More extreme fashions.

Eighties Buildings

Chancery Lane

INSPIRATIONS: Toytown. Egyptian revival (again). Art Deco. Palisades. Coronets (cylinder with spikes round the top). Totem poles. Let’s shove together the Platonic solids and make them huge. Give it that “assembled from a kit” look. Let’s copy those Victorian warehouses we’ve been renovating. And put a Greek temple on the top. Combine the following:

angular greenhouse on the top of a building

lunettes (and anything lunette-shaped)
giant fanlights
triple giant fanlights like a child’s drawing of a cloud
shallow curves
giant silver tubes

stripes, stripes, stripes

neon

bay windows
dark-blue mirror tinted windows, copper tinted windows
square windows divided into squares
windows with shallow curved tops
round porthole windows
wraparound windows
square windows with rounded corners
diamond windows (square windows tilted 45 degrees)
oriel windows

outsize, misused classical motifs
giant pediments
pyramids
balls
round towers

catslide roofs
Swiss chalet roofs in case it snows
Italian villa overhanging roofs
barrel vaults, barrel roofs
sharply peaked roofs

grids
treillage (garden trellis-work)
lattice, red lattice, red window frames
as above, in Kelly green

ribs, slats, struts, Meccano
steel and glass porticos
metal clapboarding
corrugated metal

ziggurats
ziggurat-inspired stepped patterns
upside-down ziggurat patterns
upside-down ziggurat windows with square panes

pillars, big fat squat pillars, fluted pillars
arches and pillars that support nothing

pastel pink and green
terracotta, brown, pink, yellow ochre
pink marble

silver and glass
tinted glass
rusticated bottom storey, all-over rustication

buildings that look like spaceships
panopticons
metal balconies

rows of square or circular motifs along a “pediment”, or circle in square motifs

atria with splashing fountains, waterfalls and trees (nice)

formal gardens with lattices, struts, slats, pergolas, gazebos, oriental plants, fountains

Put them all together and you've got Postmodernism.

More eighties style here.

More 80s Style

LIGHTING
optical fibre lamps
globe lamps
lamps with a globe in two hands
All these were sold by shops that also sold indoor water features and reproduction phrenological heads.

tulip wall lights
lamps in the shape of old movie cameras or spot lights
quarter-circle wall uplighters
uplighters of all kinds
replica 30s bankers’ desk lights
No cylindrical lampshades were seen during the 80s. They were a throwback to the 50s, 60s and 70s (shudder). Lampshades were all conical, coolie-hat shape, often pleated.

THINGS
Kilims (woven oriental carpets) were very in, and were quickly turned into fabric design and plastic tablecloths. These lived on in cafés for far too long, in shades of navy, ochre, burgundy and forest green. And you had the fun of saying “kileem” when anyone rhymed them with “gym” or called them “keelims”. "Kilim" was the 80s’ "quinoa". The kilims (and cushions made of old ones) faded, rotted and were thrown out.

square mirrors with a row of smaller squares round the edge
mirrors with art nouveau lilies
mirrors with Op Art (Albers)

Mockintash mugs with roses (still around the 90s and you couldn’t NOT like them, same with the Clarice Cliff knockoffs)

Lazy Susans (revolving wooden tray for your pepper and salt grinders) Part of a genre of shiny, lacquered wooden kitchenware (salt and pepper grinders, salad bowls and servers, pestles and mortars) that arrived in the 70s. You could even get a chequerboard wood pestle and mortar.

glass heads, glass blocks

marble – and an Ancient Roman bling look in general
marble platonic solids (white, black, peach)
chequerboard marble ashtray
obelisks, sometimes marble, small ones to store your rings
fake marble tiles with fake marble tile dadoes

ornate “antique” bird cages (Corsican ironwork?), minus the birds
"hippo birdie two ewes" cards

FURNITURE
dark brown cupboards with fake leaded glass, or early 1800s Chinese-style lattice-work
black ash furniture
plaid sofas and chairs
cylindrical steel planters
modular seating
built-in bench seating round the walls
venetian blinds

More here, and links to the rest.

80s Colours and Patterns

It wasn't just neon. Some colour combinations just scream "80s!", especially pink and jade diagonal flashes. Stripes, stripes, stripes were everywhere, and "black plus a colour".


COLOURS
pseudo kilim patterns on plastic tablecloths in shades of navy, jade, burgundy and ochre – these took a long, long, long time to go away.
red, grey and white on curtains etc.
pink and grey, especially in pseudo Japanese flowers on coffee cups
pseudo marble tiles in grey, apricot, and/or navy
all woodwork stained dark browny-red inside and out
terra cotta especially with French blue
yellow, pink, stone
pink, jade
pink, grey
grey, black and red
apricot, French blue, the two combined, the two combined with lemon
ombré effects on pseudo silk-painted pseudo Japanese flowers (pink, grey, jade and apricot on black)

DIAGONALS
tongue and groove on ceilings
stripes on carpet
wall and floor tiles set diagonally
stripes on crockery
white slashes painted on in pairs to look like reflections on a shiny surface
wood cladding
blocks of green, pink and purple on anoraks for fell-walking
fences
fabric

SURFACES
rag rolling and sponging
“artisanal” beige tiles
wallpaper with white trellis arches and pink flowers
mosaic tiles (in bathrooms, but also on tables, trays, placemats and coasters)
dupion taffeta (especially plaid)
fabric printed with strawberries or slices of cake
basket-work wallpaper in black and gold like the seat of a cane-bottomed chair
fake leaded windows
splatter paint, speckled finishes that came in a can
trellis-effect tiles

SHAPES
isosceles triangles
half circles
octagons
the Crafts Council gold swirl

More here, and links to the rest.

80s Art

In the 80s, you hung prints showing:

blue skies, clouds and checkerboard floors

sunlit terraces without people but with highball glasses with straws, deckchairs or directors’ chairs, white cane furniture, ombré shadows, umbrellas furled and unfurled. Throw in a straw hat with a ribbon, a pavilion and a swimming pool

French windows opening onto terraces with white furniture and a cocktail glass with an umbrella, and a distant prospect of apricot and grey ombré mist (John Sovjani).

poolside scenes, beach umbrellas and empty deck chairs, turquoise sea, ultramarine sky, the edge of a pool, part of a deck chair, part of a garden chair with diagonal stripes

conservatory interior with palms and white ironwork

poppies and wheat, irises and lilies, daffodils, bird of paradise flowers

Venetian blinds and their shadows

neon slogans, especially in pink

cocktails splashing as a cherry is dropped in, with detailed reflections on the drops, splashes etc (All done by hand.)

Victorian greenhouses, ombré sunsets, unicorns, airbrushing, reflections, humorous sheep, Raybans, rainbows

woman with saucer hat tilted over eyes, lipstick mouth, black gloves, lots of diagonal crayon strokes (Ferraro)

pastel gardens with white lattice arches for roses, lattices for creepers, white trellis, and pergolas with lots of mauve flowers: wistaria, lilacs and lupins. Especially lilacs.

MORE WALL ART
Western-style Japanese paintings of misty trees (someone called them “watery Zen landscapes”)

large framed sepia photographs of country scenes or small girls in white pinafores

pierrot masks, Escher and Arcimboldo prints

copper fish moulds in your kitchen for making mousses and terrines

Cafés had a lot of b/w photos of 40s film stars in narrow frames, and reproductions of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

20s Vogue and Harper’s covers

Art by: Paul Iribe, Patrick Nagel, John Kiraly, Georgia O’Keeffe, B.B. La Femme, Scott Nellis, Razzia, Walt Curlee, David Allgood (daffodils), Antonio Lopez, Manuel Nunez, Gordon Beningfield

COLLECTIBLES
Cream art deco teapots in the shape of racing cars, 18th century architectural plans, old advertising, Clarice Cliff, Goss china, china animals and cottages, amusing teapots in the shape of an Aga with a teapot on it, Lilliput Lane miniature cottages and buildings, pottery hedgehogs. “Collectable” china thimbles and commemorative plates advertised on the back pages of colour supplements. Huge baroque carved-wood barometers and wall clocks.

80s decor

Eighties Décor

What makes you think that, Mrs Fletcher?

Was 80s design all Memphis and Sotsass – bizarre shapes, graffiti scrawls and primary colours? 80s design was many things. Kate of the wonderful mirror80.com blog sums up:

Rattan flourishes, especially on furniture
A tropical palette, reflected in soft-toned floral fabric and teal cushions
Lush vegetation motifs, from house and patio plants to fabrics and wall decor
Ceramic vases in signature ’80s colors
Asian touches, such as porcelain vases and wall art
(Mirror80.com on Golden Girls style)

Brass accents, tessellated stone that covers each piece in seamlessly applied squares, and Deco-style geometric shapes. (mirror80.com)

Anything with a grid on it. (mirror80.com)

Stair-step and diamond motifs. Teal, mauve, peach, purple and turquoise. (mirror80.com)

Rattan furniture, tropical vegetation and animal motifs were distinct trends of the time. Even the prominent clouds peeking in from the window [white painted, lattice French doors half open] … were a signature ’80s theme, often showcased in surreal artwork of the era. [French doors have white venetian blinds, there’s a rattan circular glass-topped table and a screen painted with a palm tree and lianas.] (mirror80.com)

Perhaps she’ll do Murder She Wrote now – Jessica is always staying in a hotel room with pastel flowery paper, pale Chinese vases and fabulous wall art. And the villains’ offices are full of potted palms.

There were many themes to choose from:

ORIENTAL
Black lacquer bedroom suites vaguely copied 30s and Japanese style. You sat at the dressing table in front of the pink shell-shaped mirror wearing an acetate kimono or Chinese style viscose dress with a large lily motif. Tables were low, black and Chinese style with curved legs. Art and square lanterns had Chinese characters allegedly for Life, Health and Happiness.

Translucent walls with a grid pattern recalled Japanese paper room dividers. The room was lit with square pleated paper lampshades. On the walls hung hexagonal Feng Shui mirrors and outsized red paper fans. Fan patterns were common, especially on the back of your pale pink kimono, combined with Japanese mon designs of cranes, wheat, bamboo, geometric symbols. Bamboo was big, bamboo chairs were black, and you ate off black hexagonal plates.

TWEE
There was a hedgehog+brambles+conkers aesthetic. Probably with berries. And autumn leaves and blackberries – Brambly Hedge. Corn dollies, straw hats with straw flowers, and miniature versions of the same, went with this look. The Flower Fairies were fashionable – were the books reprinted? I’m seeing apple blossom. There were endless Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady products, and Country Living magazines.

PASTEL
Apricot, chalky blue, primrose yellow. You could do a whole room in pastels with diagonal slashes, tulips, coolie-hat lampshades, Chinese vases, ikat fabrics.

HIGH TECH
Graphic designers in red-framed uber-spectacles worked at home and decorated their entire home in graph paper: mugs, fablon, curtains, probably coasters and cushions. Green on white or red on white. Room dividers and wall units were made of bolted-together scaffolding with chickenwire panels, or sheets of aluminium with holes like offcuts from some industrial process. Or was the inspiration punched paper tape from old computers? The inmates slept on futons and threw rubbish into wire bins. They used offcuts of hardboard with holes in to hang things off (with coloured pegs and wire hooks). Their children slept in wooden bunk beds with built-in desks, and their wives hung their kitchen equipment from butcher’s hooks.

ART DECO
The look revolved around huge fake Art Deco glass scent bottles (perhaps the real thing were for bath salts, not scent), “keystone” mirrors, round mirrors, apricot and mint colour schemes, curved vases, Hollywood beds on platforms. Pictures showed women with marcel waves getting into vintage taxis, or a single cocktail glass.

NOSTALGIA
Heavily influenced by the Victorians, this look combined flowery wallpaper, a flowery dado strip, a stripy dado, round tables with a long tablecloth, cushions, crocheted curtains, chintz, stencils, pastel pleated coolie-hat lampshades, crocheted lampshades (both terrible dust traps), roses, frills, pink, lace, stripes, pelmets, collectables, German rustic wooden kitchens, dried flowers, dressers stacked with flowery china, pine, pine, pine… with apricot. And then IKEA told us to "chuck out the chintz" and "don't let that doily spoil everything".

AWFUL
Very posh interiors had yellow walls and an antique globe. Sloane Rangers tried to recreate a stately home in a small flat in Fulham with a lot of forest green and burgundy, chintz and elaborate pelmets. Their china was dark green with a gold rim, or white with fluting. They liked original Victorian dark marble fire surrounds and prints of prisons by Piranesi. Their Redouté rose prints are now all faded and found at boot sales.

The middle classes went for chrome yellow, green and tomato, on twee fabric printed with all-over giraffes, stars or bears. Red and green tulip prints on chrome yellow. Rainbows in children’s bedrooms. French navy/old rose/jade/gold tiles in the kitchen. They painted floorboards white and scattered handwoven rugs that wrinkled, gathered dust and tripped you up. They filled low shelves with nicknacks from their holidays in Nicaragua and Nepal, sent each other greetings cards with sentimental cartoons, and read their children right-on fairy stories (“And so she left the prince in his palace and walked off alone into the sunset dressed in a brown paper bag”).

Essex Man loved square mirrors set diamond-wise, mirrors printed with pubiana or palm trees, amusing teapots, lamps with a globe in two hands, miniature or life-size film spotlights, glass-topped tables, lots of chrome and brass. And a jukebox.

Yes, I know I’ve skipped the 70s.