One hundred years of one house in Chorlton …. part 121 ....... at the cutting edge of kitchen appliances

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since. *

Now I can be fairly confident that the Scott’s had one of these in their kitchen.

Long before the Kenwood mixer, the electric blender, and several other modern kitchen tools, the humble mincer took pride of place.

This one belongs to my friend Christianna Franck, who sent over the picture, adding “Look what I picked up for a fiver in a charity shop”.

Ours which did the business in both the house in Peckham and later Well Hall in Eltham, was lost a long time ago, although dad was till using it to make his forced meat balls every Christmas well into the 1990s.

I had thought production of this simple tool had ceased decades ago.  But not so, because they are a neat way to mince food.  The device is study, washes easily, and just clamps to the side of a table.  

Of course, this will present a problem in many kitchens whose work surfaces do not admit to having a device clamped on to them.

But when I was growing up the kitchen table was the work surface, which was perfect to attach the mincer.

And in a time of “waste not”, the mincer could process the remains of the Sunday joint offering up heaps of meals based on the humble minced meat.

Which was always preferable to the shop bought variety which cost 2/6d for a pound of raw meat.

All of which leaves me to include a recipe from The Ministry of Food from 1946, which I guess would have been about the time Mary Ann used her mincer.  

The same leaflet also offered Hamburgers, Hamburgers in Brown Sauce and Savoury Meat Pudding, .... so more than a few meals to enliven that post war period when rationing and shortages were part of everyday life.

Picture, the mincer, 2021, from the collection of Christianna Franck, and Mince in the Hole, 1946.**

*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**Mince in the Hole, from Making the most of Meat, Ministry of Food Cookery Leaflet, Number 16, October 1946, from the collection of Mrs. Piggott