Some questions about vintage stoves / cookers for our UK members

[vintagekitchen]

Thanks to youtube, I've had the fun of watching several vintage films about british kitchens and cooking, and I'm stumped when it comes to figuring out how the stoves or cookers actually worked.

The gas ones seem straightforward enough, smaller than the US standard version, but with an awesome eye level grill / broiler.

Its the electric ones that confuse me. Several of them only have 3 burners, or 2 burners, or in some cases 1 or 2 burners and a large flat burner like on a baby belling.

Why fewer burners, the gas versions I saw all have 4 like in the US. Didnt it make cooking full meals difficult?

And the large flat belling type burner, if I understand correctly, it is heated by the element for the grill / broiler? How on earth did you regulate the heat, did it work well, didn't it heat up the entire kitchen as well as not getting as hot as a regular burner?

Educate me, I want to understand, lol. The ranges look so cool compared to our monstrous big 40 inch ones of the same time period.

Here is a video with some examples of the types of stoves / cookers I am talking about. [this post was last edited: 9/5/2014-20:00]

http://https//www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=6ykKVN_eB9axyATc_YKICg&url=www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DCj-tapF1kgU&cd=19&ved=0CDMQtwIwCDgK&usg=AFQjCNFporFpgsP9IJzwYrZtCdPMCxidZA&sig2=q5ZJtQuDRJpwEfTLwy9fGA

 

[iej]

I'm not entirely sure myself, I know by the early 1960s they were fairly standard 4-ring cookers.

I'd say part of it was that electric cooking was still a bit of a 'new fangled novelty' in the UK in the 1940s/50s and WWII had just ended too so things had been quite stagnated in terms of development of consumer appliances.

Gas cooking still dominated the market at that stage and electric cooking was considered rather cumbersome and uncontrollable.

The Baby Belling wasn't ever intended to be a cooking appliance for a family. It's a sort of stop-gap measure for a small flat or a bedsit (tiny, pokey, bad-quality flat where everything's in one room).
it's basically a toaster oven with a cook top (more powerful socket outlets in the UK and Europe generally. There's no way you'd be able to power something that heavy from a US 15amp outlet).

Larger versions were most definitely available though too. See below for the Creda Super Comet

History World - Advert Museum - Creda

Britain's History in Old Photos, Vintage Adverts and more

www.historyworld.co.uk

 

[iej]

AHHH!

I've figured it out

Had a good google around they died out.

They're called a 'grill-boiler plate' basically it's a large single hot plate that you could put one or multiple pots on or use as a contact grill (at least that's what I'm taking from the instructions to use it go 'griddle scones')

http://www.historyworld.co.uk/advert.php?id=946&offset=0&sort=0&l1=Household&l2=Appliances+(large)

Quote:

"Savoury Splits

4ozs plain flour
1oz margarine
1 level teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon cream of tartar>
½ level teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
Grilled chipolata sausages
Milk to mix
Mix all the dry ingredients together then rub in the margarine. Mix to a stiff dough using the milk, then roll out on a floured table to ¼ inch thickness. Cut into fingers ½ inch wide by 3 inches long. Cook on a griddle plate or on top of the grill boiler. Dust with flour and cook the fingers on all four sides with the heat set at low. Cut halfway through along the top and insert the grilled chipolata."

http://recipespastandpresent.org.uk/belling-snacks.php

History World - Advert Museum - Belling

Britain's History in Old Photos, Vintage Adverts and more

www.historyworld.co.uk