Great Moments in Kitchen History

This week I was in New York on a media tour for Staples, as I am currently working with them as a spokesperson for some fun new office products and some great tried and true ones too! More about that later…

During my trip I got to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to see their new kitchen design exhibit called “Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen.” I went with my longtime friend and organizer colleague Linda Rothschild of Cross It Off Your List (serving New York, the Hamptons, and Los Angeles). It was fascinating!

Did you know there was a woman named Christine Frederick who took the famous time and motion industrial studies of Frederick Taylor and applied them to the home and the kitchen?  This woman is my new hero, and I am embarrassed I did not know about her before. She published The New Housekeeping: Efficiency Studies in Home Management in 1914 and founded and directed the Applecroft Home Experiment Station from her home in Long Island. She had a laboratory that investigated 1800 different products. I (heart) Christine Frederick.

Many fairly common kitchen gadgets were displayed in the exhibit as examples of excellent design, like the Dyson vacuum, the good old Slurpee “spoon straw,” and other standbys. I was pleasantly surprised to see that OXO Good Grips kitchen gadgets, specifically the peeler, jar opener, and paring knife, were displayed as well. I have always loved and appreciated how the OXO kitchen products feel substantial and “chunky” and full of quality and excellent design. And, I am excited because OXO has an exclusive line of office products with Staples that I get to represent! We were talking to magazine editors this week about the great 3-hole punch, staple remover, and thumbtack and paperclip dispensers they have at Staples, with that same chunky, ergonomic design that I love in their kitchen gadgets. They are excellent and I am proud to represent them.

A few other fun nuggets I learned in the exhibit:

• I also learned in the exhibit that cooking with Pyrex glass cookware became more popular back in wartime because people couldn’t spare the metal—it was needed for the war effort.
• You should see the film they showed that went through all of the steps that used to be required for a woman to simply heat up some water! There was a cleaver involved in chopping up kindling. Right there I would already be foregoing my morning cup of tea. No wood-chopping for me.
• This magazine photo shown here features a woman displaying all of her kitchen tools and gadgets and it says: "Kitchen Tools: Most Homes Have Too Many." Ha! That would be way worse today.
• There is actually a term for the phobia of the fear of cooking: “Mageirocophobia.” Who knew??

Go see this exhibit if you get the chance! And I hope you enjoy my photos, which can all be clicked for a larger view. For more old-timey kitchen thoughts, see my recent post on the terribly funny ads my sons and I found in old 30s and 40s McCall’s magazines in the library. Share your memories and thoughts in the comments!

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