Atomic Kitchen: Gadgets and Inventions for Yesterday's Cook [Paperback]

Brian Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004

Conscious cooks in the 1950s equipped their drawers and cupboards with the latest and greatest specialty doohickies, thingamajigs, and must-have products. From the Saucy Stovetop Butter Melter to the Chop-o-Matic, if there was a vegetable to chop or meat to be carved, there was a device to make it better and easier! ATOMIC KITCHEN presents a gallery of gadgets, features, and cooking devices that appeared—and in some cases, disappeared—during the creative cooking 1950s. Accompanied by illustrations of vibrant, original packaging and vintage advertisements, you’ll marvel at the ingenuity of the minds that brought you the Weenie Wheel, Bean-X Bean Slicer, Cookie Gun, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

* A showcase of classic kitchen gadgets and their uses.
* Includes 350 vintage illustrations displaying gadgets in their glory days.

About the Author

BRIAN ALEXANDER experienced the 1950s firsthand as a small boy. He has been an avid collector of 1950s memorabilia since he set out to decorate his home during the 1990s in the style of the 1950s. He has a master’s degree in architecture and is the author of Spiffy Kitchen Collectibles. Brian grew up in Michigan City, Indiana, and currently lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Collectors Press (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888054980
• ISBN-13: 978-1888054989
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 8.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nuclear ladies delight, November 12, 2005

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Atomic Kitchen: Gadgets and Inventions for Yesterday's Cook (Paperback)

The housewife in the atomic days of the Fifties was the ideal person for manufactures to sell their products to and what better place than her kitchen, didn't every home need new appliances, furniture, color schemes, lighting and especially gadgets to make everything so effortless, well, that was the promise. The two hundred plus colorful pictures in this book provide a backward (though essentially superficial) glance at what was on offer.

Unfortunately this book is a sequel to the publisher's previous title 'Atomic Home' (ISBN 1888054891) and like that book it has the same faults, short blocks of copy that don't relate to the photos on the same page, none of the images are dated (would it really take too much effort to say that the painting on page thirteen is a Saturday Evening Post cover for September twelve, 1959?) pictures overlap each other, colored backgrounds and shapes (with a different color on each spread, too) frequently get as much space as the illustrative material.

Of the three chapters the one devoted to Gadgets and Accessories is the most intriguing, thousands of small companies across the Nation must have churned out handy gadgets and rather uniquely they all seemed to be sold in dreadfully designed packaging. Just how often would the spaghetti fork (page 154) with a small handle at one end to rotate the tines, be used, most likely never? How about an automatic butter curler...no home should be without one! There are lots of ads showing these dubious products and some incredibly flat still-life photos as well.

Atomic Kitchen is a colorful look back to that suburban palace but for a more organised view check out 'Inspiring 1950s Interiors' (ISBN 0764304585) admittedly its excellent colored photos cover the whole house but there are fifty-two kitchen sets to be seen. Gadgets get a good showing in Michael Goldberg's 'Groovy Kitchen Designs for Collectors' (ISBN 0764300105) with three hundred photos of appliances and gadgets and some actually look like they could be useful.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE SPACE AGE KITCHEN OF YESTERYEAR!, July 25, 2005

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Atomic Kitchen: Gadgets and Inventions for Yesterday's Cook (Paperback)

Odd the way style is...the once considered tacky and gaudy kitchen designs of the 1950's are now hot among collectors and homeowners today as everyone is going retro. Walk into a Target store and see how they've adopted to the look of the 1950's with their brightly colored new appliances and gadgets. I guess after years of having everything being so uniform and style not mattering, people are again looking to spice up their homes with color. "Atomic Kitchen" is a great source of reference for people looking to capture that retro look, or just take a glimpse back in time some 50's years ago to see what homemakers of the time had available to them.

The book begins with an introduction to...the kitchen and points out how the kitchen came to replace the family hearth as the central gathering place for friends and family. As new, smaller homes were built in the 1950s, the dining room was often replaced with a larger kitchen in order to serve both functions of preparing food and eating it. Thus it became important for homemakers to be able to express their style but also have great functionality as well. For the first time, appliances not only had to work good, but they had to look good as well. Color was the order of the day. Not only with small appliances but large appliances as well. Consumers had an entire rainbow of colors to choose from, from bright reds and yellows to soft blues and pinks, and everything could be color coordinated.

Atomic Kitchen provides hundreds of vintage advertising that display the latest and greatest in new items for the home...all designed to be better and make your life easier. The 50's saw an explosion in new gadgets for the home. You had to have a handy new gadget to do everything from opening cans and jars to crushing ice, to making waffles. If there was a task that needed to be done, some manufacturer was going to come up with a new, electric way of getting it done automatically. Rival had an entire line of such items like the Juice-o-mat, Slice-o-mat, grind-o-mat, ice-o-mat, and who knows how many more. One could buy knife sharpeners, potato chip makers, sandwich toasters, ravioli makers...no mundane task was ignored it seems. But even with all these new appliances, they were still heavy-duty, often made of stainless steel and built to last years...unlike the almost disposable appliances we have to contend with today.

It's such a treat just to browse through this book and see the many wonderful items, many long-forgotten, that were in use fifty years ago. These ads give us a glimpse into an era when these new appliances must have been looked at as life-savers for people's kitchens. Just a fantastic book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't miss this one!, December 15, 2004

By 

Elizabeth (Basking Ridge, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Atomic Kitchen: Gadgets and Inventions for Yesterday's Cook (Paperback)

Wow! What a fun and interesting book. It brought back many delightful memories as I was a young girl in the 1950s with a Mother that absolutely loved to cook. I was especially tickled to see the "sandwich toaster". Mother used to make all types of delicious sandwiches using that gadget! If you enjoy collectibles, you won't want to miss this book.