Besides pots and pans there are many cooking utensils which may now be reckoned among the domestic curios. There are, of course, ewers and basins, water-carrying and retaining vessels, and colanders of brass and earthenware, strainers and graters which have been used from time to time in the kitchen. Sometimes the metal worker appears to have gone out of the way to produce curious forms not always the most convenient for the purposes for which they were made—such, for instance, as the aquamaniles, several of which may be seen in the British Museum (see Fig. [26]).
FIG. 50.—WOODEN COFFEE CRUSHERS AND PESTLES AND MORTAR.
FIG. 51.—APPLE SCOOPS OF BONE.
Some of the minor kitchen utensils include flesh hooks and forks and carving knives. There are spoons of every kind made in all metals, some of the earlier examples being of brass and latten. In this connection also may be mentioned ladles, fish slicers, and scoops. There are also many curious little pastrycooks' knives, and knives used for cutting vegetables and preparing a repast in olden time, many of them quite decorative, even the common pastry-wheel frequently being carved. It was at one time customary to expend much skill in decorating apple scoops, those shown in Fig. [51] being very choice specimens in the National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff. The one on the left hand of the picture is made of bone, and is inlaid with a small brass name-plate; that on the right-hand side is of ivory delicately turned, the scoop being exceedingly thin; and those in the centre are all home-made out of the metacarpal bones of the sheep, being slightly ornamented with cut X-shaped lines and hatchings. In the same museum there are some remarkably interesting coffee crushers and mortars and pestles, several of these being illustrated in Fig. [50]. In Fig. [53] we show a representative selection reminiscent of the days when wooden spoons and wooden platters were in common use. The trencher takes its name from tranche, the old name of the platter which replaced the piece of bread on which it was formerly customary to serve up meat; like the bread, it was at first square. The minor kitchen accessories formerly in constant use included many objects of wood, such as the charming little nutmeg mills of turned rosewood, some of which are to be seen in the British Museum. There are also antique pasteboards and rolling-pins for rolling shortbread, pot stirrers of wood, and other utensils such as sand glasses.
In Figs. [47] and [48] we illustrate two wooden food boxes, such as were formerly used to carry food to men working in the field. They are now deposited with other curios in the Cardiff Museum, where also may be seen some little wooden piggins, and bowls used for porridge; the piggin was an ancient vessel often mentioned in mediæval days (see Fig. [52]).