Household utensils: examples, purpose. household items

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Housekeeping is an integral part of the life of any person. Not a single inhabitant of our planet is able to exist without a reliable roof over his head, food and clothing. In order to provide oneself with everything necessary and make life more comfortable, and daily work easier to perform, a person surrounds himself with a wide variety of useful household items. Household utensils are the lion's share of all movable property of each of us, although different people may include different things in the list of this very utensil. What is it in general and what specifically fits the definition of household items?

Familiar incomprehensible word

"Utensils" is a word that is not distinguished by melodiousness or sounding pleasant to the ear, but, despite its "unpresentable", it is used to define almost every thing in our homes. In popular explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, the authors (S. I. Ozhegov, V. I. Dal) interpret the phrase “household utensils” ashousehold items in the house, housing, thanks to which a person stores food supplies, cooks food and organizes his life (personal hygiene, cleaning, washing, etc.).

This group of human property includes dishes for any purpose, various containers, knickknacks, although they most often carry only a decorative function, but which can bring certain benefits or benefits (for example, an old samovar, reverently passed down from generation generation as the rarest heirloom).

It becomes clear that with all those things that fit the definition of "household items", we have to deal with several times a day, though often we mean by them everything that is concentrated strictly in the kitchen or canteen, although this is somewhat of a misconception.

Home or kitchen

Of course, most of all gadgets and devices, as well as items useful in everyday life, are collected in the kitchen. Due to the fact that humanity is simply unable to function normally without food, the cult of food in modern civilization has been elevated to the rank of the highest pleasures. Moreover, this situation is true not only in recent decades. People have long realized that it is more convenient to eat from a plate with a spoon, and not with hands from a burdock leaf, and it is more expedient to store crops and supplies in barrels, tubs and chests.

Before humanity had to go through a milestone called"industrialization", which brought to each of us an almost unlimited and affordable range of goods for various purposes, household utensils were much more respected. Even the simplest dishes, which were used daily in everyday life, were taken care of very carefully. The parents of the girls stocked up on containers, pots, plates and various “stove” devices (poker, stag, scoops and soot whisks) when their daughters were still very young in order to marry their beauties not empty-handed, but with a good dowry.

Expensive items, not an ordinary ceramic pot or wicker basket, but metal, silverware, glass, porcelain, were especially valuable. For most, making them on their own was impossible, buying them was an unaffordable luxury.

Anything that is used for personal hygiene, storing clothes and other property is also considered household utensils. Chest of drawers, wardrobe, bed, bedding, bath accessories were actually inherited. To receive solid furniture from a distant relative was a solid acquisition, such things were sold in case of hopelessness and extreme need.

Kitchen masters of the present

Civilization over the past two centuries has changed the way of life of a person so dramatically that now few people know for what purpose a yoke or tub was present in the houses, why it was impossible to imagine housing without a huge, half a house stove. Many household attributes have now sunk into oblivion and are unconditionally forgotten,but a person from the past would not have found use for even half of what is in the ordinary kitchen of a modern city apartment.

The current utensils are designed to greatly facilitate the already simple process of cooking. We do not have to get a ceramic pot out of the bins to cook crumbly porridge, for this purpose we use a thick-walled stainless steel pan or a slow cooker. We do not need a wooden bowl to pour rich cabbage soup from a cast-iron, we have a metal or plastic ladle and a good set of utensils for cooking. We do not know what a whetstone is, because modern miracle knives do not need editing for many months.

And in the drawer of your kitchen cabinet, there was probably a good corkscrew, a vegetable peeler, a pizza and cheese knife, a can key and several options for cutlery of different sizes and purposes (forks, spoons and knives for dessert, soup, garnish, fish or birds). An assortment of whisks, spatulas and knives for carving anything and anyone, these are the household utensils of the most ordinary modern housewife, which would have made the personal chef living in the kitchen of a mediocre nobleman several centuries ago howl with envy.

Everything new is well forgotten old

But, of course, no one will argue that reinventing the wheel is a thankless and unwise thing. It is unlikely that humanity will return to stove heating and cooking on an open fire, but still there are those household items that our grandmothers used, followed by their mothers, and, undoubtedly, wewe will tell our children about them ourselves.

Household utensils - dishes and containers that we need in everyday life will always dominate the kitchen, without it it is impossible to cook the simplest scrambled eggs or make preparations for the winter. Even such archaic household items as clay pots or a ceramic brazier, a cast-iron frying pan and a grandmother's goose coop will not be hidden in a dark and dusty closet. After all, the taste of dishes prepared according to old recipes is not forgotten, and the observance and support of traditions is what makes a person who he is - an intelligent being.

Greetings from the past

However, if the list of utensils and kitchen helpers has not undergone significant changes for many centuries in a row, then other household utensils have already largely changed their appearance.

There are household items that are simply impossible to meet in modern life, only exhibits in museums or literary sayings of the authors of historical and artistic opuses of past years remind of them. Many of us will never guess why there was a chamber pot under the bed in every bedroom, why people used a tub and a tub for washing, and drank water from a field worker, carried it from a well in wooden buckets using a yoke, and milk was stored in a jug, where it was poured immediately after the hostess milked the cow in the pail.

Also in modern society it is not customary to store grain or flour in huge tubs and barrels, but heavy chests withbarn locks, in which clothes were folded and transported in case of travel, were replaced by light suitcases on wheels.

Invaluable we alth

Antiquities, in the list of which household utensils take pride of place along with ancient family jewelry, have not only historical and educational value. Antique dealers, collectors, lovers of things from the past are enthusiastically looking for everything that was used by people many centuries ago. Especially high value are those household items that have retained their original appearance and have come down to our times in an unchanged and perfect condition. Such things are sold both at completely legal auctions and sales, and on the black, illegal market, which proves their need and relevance even after centuries.