You are making mashed potatoes for dinner. You have to cook them in a pan, then drain them, pull out the mixer, attach the beaters, plug the mixer in and proceed to mash them. Thats a lot of action you have to make to simply put mashed potatoes on the dinner table. I prefer the way my grandma did it. She would boil the potatoes in a pan. Once done she would use a lid to help drain the water off then grab her trusty hand masher to mash her potatoes, add the butter, salt, pepper and cream, mix a little more and she had a bowl of fluffy creamy mashed potatoes to put on her dinner table. Oh sure there were a few more lumps in her potatoes but you knew her potatoes were fresh and not those over processed instant potatoes with no lumps. Plus Grandma got the added benefit of the arm exercise from mashing the potatoes by hand.
One other thing about Grandma's hand masher was that it was a time saver when clean up time came. It was one simple item to wash whereas with a mixer you have to wash two beaters plus clean off any splatter that might be on the mixer itself.
All those modern inventions that are suppose to make cooking meals easier for us, are they really doing their job? When you stop and think about how much more water they use to clean and how many more parts there are to clean they really are not saving us any more time.
On top of that, they require a lot more storage area then the little hand tools Grandma had to use. One more benefit of Grandma's kitchen tools was they worked no matter if the power was on or not. Grandma could use them by the light of electric lights, oil lamps or candles. She did not have to depend on electricity to put a nice big family meal on the table. Every tool she needed to help her make any delicous meal she wanted to make was in her trusty little crock sitting on the counter by her stove. She had her whisk, her egg beaters, her mixing spoons, her spatulas and so on. They all fit nicely in her one little crock and were not strung all over the counter tops of her kitchen all the time nor did she need a special place to store them all leaving her less room to store food. She could clean her kitchen top to bottom once a week in mere mintues compared to todays standard clean time because she didn't have to waste time wiping down all those fancy gadgets that are supposed to make our lives easier.
I have learned to envy her way of life and am learning to live the way she did. Sure I have a lot of the fancy supposedly time saving gadgets but I did not buy them. They have all been gifts that were given to me by people who think they will make my life easier but they don't. I have two George Forman grills and do you know where they are? They are in my storage area, sitting on a shelf unused! When I want to grill a steak or pork chop I simply reach for my cast iron grill pan. Same goes with my big pancake griddle. The electric one sits in the storage area. I always turn to my trusty cast iron griddle when I want to make pancakes or garlic toast.
Now I am not saying that all the new kitchen gadgets are not worthy of a spot in your kitchen because I do have some that I feel are either a real time saver or an energy use saver. Like my toaster, my toaster oven and my microwave. They don't really save me much time but they do save me money on using the gas stove. It does not make sense to me to turn on the gas stove to make 4 pieces of toast for breakfast or to heat up a plate of leftovers. So for some things I do like to turn to the new gadgets. And because of having a bad shoulder, I do use my Kitchen Aid mixer for making bread or whipping cream. And I have my Black & Decker jar opener to help me open jars because of the same arm. Other then those I keep it simple in my kitchen like Grandma did.
I have my trusty can opener, my bottle opener, my egg beaters, my whisks, my masher, my cast iron and stainless steel cookware. I can cook what ever I want when ever I want with or without power. I am keeping it simple like my Grandma and learning as I go along that in a lot of ways her way of life was easier because she had a lot less to clean up at meal times. Is it really any wonder how she was able to get more done in one day then most of us can in this day and age?
One last thought on Grandma's way of life. Because she kept it simple she was always prepared to cook a meal, do the laundry and clean the house because she did not have to depend on electric power. The only power she needed came from her own body. You might want to do what I have been doing and watch for old kitchen items that do not require electric power at yard sales, thrift stores and estate sales to add to your preps so that you to can be ready to go on with your chores when SHTF and the power is down for an extended period.
Prepping Granny