Desert Island Kitchen Tools

In my effort to rid myself of unnecessary clutter ( a rather feeble attempt so far I do have to say) I have been getting rid of STUFF… and this includes tools and implements and handy aids from the kitchen. I am not very keen on shopping for clothes or bags or shoes, but kitchenware is a different matter! I can spend hours in a kitchen shop looking at all the wonderful things on display. I have tried to be stricter with myself and not give in to temptation and get the latest handy gadget, and in actual fact on this front I have done better… nothing new (which I have bought myself) has come into the kitchen for quite a while, but plenty has gone out.

As I was cooking something the other day I thought about  a Desert Island Kitchen Tools – along the lines of Desert Island Discs, the programme created many years ago, in 1942 actually, by Roy Plomley which is still running on the BBC.

So if I was stranded on a desert island, which eight kitchen tools would I take with me – I’m not going to include pans or pots, just tools?

1. a knife – smallish and perpetually sharp, sharp enough to cut through any food item, and handy enough to be used for different foods
2. a fork – an ordinary fork; forks have so many uses as well as eating with – picking things up, turning things over, whipping, beating, stirring and mixing things, making patterns, pulling things to piece, mashing lots more which I can’t quite call to mind just at the moment!
3. a mandolin – yes, I know I have had safety issues with mandolins in the past, but that was my fault for not using them carefully enough and not using the guard
4. a mezzalune – ok, I could use a knife to cut things up into tiny pieces, but mezalunas are so quick and easy to use
5. measuring cups and spoons – my family think I have a thing about measuring things… well, maybe I do, and if I wasn’t trying to get rid of stuff, then I would start collecting measuring spoons; there are so many different and delightful;l sets in every shape and colour you could imagine!
6. a spatula (or set of different sized spatulas) preferably with wooden handles and very flexible rubbery blades so they squidge round anything
7. a grater – OK I could use the mandolin or the mezzaluna, but since I’m allowed eight things I’ll have a grater as well
8. wooden spoon – I have a fork, but if I’m stirring something hot the handle can heat up, and stirring soup with a fork though possible isn’t very satisfactory; cake making with a fork is perfectly possible, but a wooden spoon is easier for beating, and also wooden spoons are just nice!

I’m sure as soon as I go down to the kitchen I will see something I wish I had put on my list, but these are the things which come to my mind at the moment!

In the spirit of Desert |island Discs I should choose just one of the eight… so weighing up between a knife and a fork, I think it would have to be a knife… at a push I could even stir the soup with a knife! As for cookery books (no doubt I would already be allowed a couple of classics, Eliza Acton and the Reader’s Digest Cookery Year Book) so what would I choose as extra… hmm, difficult choice, this I shall have to ponder, but I think it will probably be one of Claudia Roden’s books.