Welcome to How To Cook That, I'm Ann Reardon and this is Dave Reardon. And this is an episode
of clever or never Antique Gadget Edition. Wow cool! So this crazy-looking gadget, contraption,
I bought in an auction and it was completely rusted, so I used electrolysis to get rid of
all of the rust and then I used a polishing tool to get rid of the last bits and polish it up,
then put oil on it and baked it in the oven to get this nice coating and to stop it
from going rusty again. Now there's still a bit of a problem with it it's really really
loose so at some points it's not connecting with the gear anymore but I couldn't fix that,
I tried. Well you did a great job it was a mess when you got it and it is quite it looks
like it was new right now. Well I don't know if it'll function like it is. If it was 100 years
ago it looks like it was new. Yes you wouldn't find this in the shops nowadays because you get
your fingers caught in there and all of those sort of things but it's pretty impressive looking like
this is the blade I sharpened the blade as well cuz the blade was rusted. So you're supposed to
put an apple there and then it goes around peels your apple then the blade automatically goes back
and then this bit is going to push the apple off yep ready for the next apple. I like it.
Should we test if it works? Yeah absolutely. That should be nice and tight. Give it a go,
apple on. I will be fascinated and I am this is excellent. But see my my gears disconnecting
is an issue definitely I need a um some sort of special tool I think. Time machine? Wow I'm amazed
considering how old this thing is the question is will it push the apple off? Is it going to kick
it out of home? And here we go ... wow it did. That was cool. Wow so you don't have to put your
hand on the apple pull it off it is there I mean it's not perfect we've got a few little bits but
that's pretty good. Yeah. I'm giving it a clever. Absolutely clever. Gadget number 2 was invented
because of a problem of whipping egg whites. If you go back to the older cookbooks like the one I
have here for lemon cake it says: take the whites of 10 eggs put put to them three spoonfuls of rose
or orange flower water and beat them an hour with a whisk. Wow! An hour with a whisk. Like nowadays
you just turn on your electric mixer and you're done so I thought we'd see how it was just with
the whisk I've only got five egg whites not 10 I was been kind to us. Originally they started
with a birch whisk. They did not. They did it was just birch branches and they stripped off
the back tied them in a bundle and that's what they used to whisk and then somewhere along the
line someone invented the metal whisk they're not actually sure exactly when this came in but
historians think it was some time before 1841. Certainly I've got a book from 1865 that talks
about you could either use this or the birch whisk and they thought the birch whisk was better. So
I thought we'd time how long it will take us to whisk these to soft peaks and which one's
better. Well I'm going to go the sticks because uh if I fail with the sticks no one will blame
me. Okay fair enough. Season of the sticks. Let's go. Let's set a timer on your marks, get set, go!
That arm's tired!
I'm out of energy. Oh I'm not ooh catching up.
It's getting there still not quite stiff peaks.
All right I think that's pretty good. Mine's not! I'm so tired though that a lot of effort.
You're a lot faster than me. I just feel like I'm ... maybe it's the sticks.
Maybe it's the sticks. Probably the sticks.
Because look how many wires I have compared to how many sticks you have.
Do you want to swap? No cos then you'll prove
that it wasn't the sticks. But I do want to know if the
sticks work. Alright you go. Because maybe this is why it took an hour. Do you want me to do
this one? That didn't take me an hour. This one is not there yet, so let's give it a whisk and see.
Got it all down me not good! Your turn. You might have wrecked
This is whisky business. It's actually getting there I mean look at that it's at the soft peak
stage it's definitely a lot slower than this one was but I am wondering if I had more sticks would
that have made it quicker I'm not actually sure but either way they use a lot of arm strength
and tire your arm out cuz it's very repetitive so I can understand why they tried to come up
with solutions for this problem. Before we look at that though I wonder if you know that Dave doesn't
usually just taste bad food and whisk egg whites. I reckon they know. Dave is actually an author he
wrote the book The Deep Enders which recently won an award. Yeah did which is pretty cool. I uh I
got to go over to the US to go to a conference tone conference with a couple of thousand young
book enthusiasts, even met all these young people who have got dog-eared copies of my book and were
big fans of it. So that was really cool. And some exciting news to announce to you all. Yes today
we can announce that after a long time the sequel to The Deep Enders is done. It's ready to go it's
with our publisher in America right now they're just tweaking and doing the cover and all that
sort of thing uh but it's coming out. So can we pre-order now? Yeah you can pre-order now
we'll put a link below and you can jump on all the websites and Amazon and all those places where you
pre-order and then soon as it comes out you'll get your copy. Awesome and if you haven't read
the first one yet make sure you get that so you can read it first before you get the next one cuz
it's in a series. Good fun. All goes together. All right I'm excited well done thanks you've
done an amazing job Dave used to be a journalist so he's a very good writer. Now egg white problem.
Sore arms, people everywhere trying to whip egg whites so then lots of people started making and
patenting inventions to try and solve this problem and the first ones were things like this which
were a container and then inside the container is a whisk that spins around which while that's good
it's then hard to to get the egg whites out of the container so that was sort of the first level of
inventions. And then Monroe invented this which attached to the side of your bench and then you
turned a handle and it spun the whisk for you in the bowl. Then on this one they've attached it to
the side of the bench but it's coming up and over instead of off the edge and then this one looks
very similar but it's got a handle on the side and then you wind here but it doesn't have the whisks
it's got this little, paddles, which I don't think would whisk egg whites very well. A lot of people
put a lot of effort into solving this issue well it's a big issue! Then T. Earl he was really into
egg things and I can tell you why because he has so many patented egg beaters. This one has the
handle on the side the thing going around and more of a whisk at the bottom and I like the little
pretty hearts that are in the wheel but I think that one's pretty amazing. So this was 1866 and
then T.Earl again, Egg Man, he moved the handle to the top and then you wind which that looks pretty
similar to the rotary beaters you have now. But he filed this patent in January of 1870 and then if
we move on to May of 1870 this guy Williams who's credited with inventing the man controversial!
He patented this one which I think is fascinating that these are only a few months apart they both
lived in Rhode Island I'd love to know if they knew each other. Wow this is like sleuthing you
know 1870 culinary crimes! Did he copy of this one we'll never know so anyway that was the one
that then the Dover Stamp Company that was a manufacturing company bought this patent
and they also bought the one that attached to the bench and then they started manufacturing them and
that's they're the ones that took off. Some of you may have had one like this or similar to this the
original 1870 ones are quite expensive now they sold very cheaply back in the day and everybody
had one. I'm going to get you to test how long egg whites take to beat using a rotary beater
and while you do I'm going to read to you from an old book from 1886. "4 years ago without prevision
that one of the blessings of my life was coming upon me I paid a visit to my house furnisher he
had a new egg beater for sale. Vanitus vanitatum I said waving it from me but it comes well
recommended he remarked quietly but as you say so many of these things are humbugs will you oblige
me by accepting this gift and giving it a fair trial and letting me know just what it is? I'll
send it up with the rest of your articles. For 3 weeks I blush to write the Dover hung untouched in
my kitchen closet. At Last I took down my gift. Dover egg beater patented 1870 is stamped upon
the circumference of the Iron Wheel. Egg whipping ceased to be a bug bear for me that day of which I
speak light portable rapid easy and comparatively noiseless my pet implement works like a benevolent
brownie. If I could not get another I would not sell mine for $50 nor 100. Stiff peaks. So it's
clever yeah definitely very clever. Now only 15 years after that invention the first electric
mixer was made cuz electricity came on the scene and then a little while after that then Hobart
which is the KitchenAid company made the first industrial mixer that went into restaurants
and cafes in America. And then in 1919 Kitchen id made the first home mixer for people just at home
but it 65 pounds. Okay that's heavy and it cost $189 which is equivalent of $3,000 today which
they're still expensive today but they're not that expensive. So it was only very wealthy households
that could afford one and then in the 1930s Sunbeam made the Sunbeam Mix Master which was
a lot smaller and it was an electric mixer that went into a lot of thousands and then somewhere
along the line an Australian invention came out called the Kan Wonder mixer. Come on here go
Aussie! This does not have electricity connected it is hand cranked stand mixer. Give it a go we
are an Innovative Nation. Now what date do you think this is from given 1920s was the KitchenAid
ones and then 1930s the Sunbeam Mix Masters. Given it's a home device maybe 1920s mid 1920s. I could
not find hardly any information about this and it took me a long time to track down the
patent for it and I was really surprised when I discovered the patent is from 1953. Okay so we're
not that Innovative then. So I thought why would we have this when electric mixers already existed.
Because power is expensive. That's exactly right apparently the uptake of electrical appliances
was really, really slow because power was so expensive and so the only things that really
had good coverage were toasters and kettles and that was it. This advert in a newspaper from 1956
has here the Sunbeam Mix Master so we had those if you look down the bottom not only does it have the
mix master it has the Kan Wonder Mixer for sale so they're selling both of these one 7 pounds and
one is 28 pounds which what's 7 pounds in today's dollars? 7 pounds in today's dollars is $142. So
still quite pricey but then by comparison the Mix Master would be... Well, four times so 568. Wow so
it's a lot more expensive to get the electric one plus you've got to then pay for the electricity
which was very expensive and on top of that the cities of Australia had power but the rural
areas didn't all have reliable power until about 1960, so there was still a market for something
like this. Come on I'm back to being Innovative. Well done! I think it's cute. yeah I like it and
it's super smooth it's actually like it's I'd use it now. I even found a picture of one of these a
very similar model that instead of having the hand cranked handle it had this weird attachment where
you attached a a tap hose and it water-powered it. Oh I thought how clever is that? So that's
very cool and I really like it it's very cute and it has a little juicer attachment here so that you
can juice stuff straight into the bowl it also had apparently a little egg separator that went there
as well but it didn't come with that the model that I got and this is not the original bowl
either. So it's pretty cool I like it yeah I think it's fantastic so should we test it out and see if
it actually works let's give it a crack! Go, fast as you can. It almost needs a handle out here.
It's a lot faster the guy who invented it his name was Sydney Duncan Mouncey if you
are related to the people who made this hit us up in the comments I'd love to know more
about it and the full story of it. Well done we're giving this a clever. Very clever. With
thanks so much to all my patrons for your support that allows us to make videos like
this and buy crazy antique gadgets to review if you'd like more videos like this make sure you
give a like a comment share and watch more videos. Yes. Make it a great week by being
kind to others and I'll see you on Friday and pre-order Dave's book. Oh yes very good bye!