Kitchen Memories from the 1960’s

My son recently purchased a house owned by a lovely couple who decided that it was time to go into a nursing home together. Their family helped sort through their belongings and left a couple of things in the kitchen which brought back a flood of kitchen memories for me. These element covers reminded me of my mother’s pride in her element covers for her new stove back in the 1960's.

Our old fuel stove was decommissioned in our kitchen in the 1960's when my mother decided that it was too messy, too slow, and too hot in the summer. Due to it's size and the location in the chimney alcove, Mum found another spot in our big kitchen to have an electric stove installed. It was the show piece of the neighbourhood and the first electric stove down our road. Mum's chest always pumped up with pride when one of the local ladies came over to inspect it and discuss how it cooked compared with the old fuel stove.

Personally, I loved the fuel stove. There was always something cooking in a pot on it which made the kitchen smell divine. The wood added a subtle smokey flavour to everything. Kitchen memories of the drying rack above the kitchen table, which was always draped with bunches of herbs and things to dry. There was nothing better than to warm up beside it on a cold day. But Mum insisted that this was progress, and it would be much quicker for her to cook dinner when she came home from work each night.

Mum was right - it did make a difference to her life but Nana and I insisted on the fuel stove being used in the colder months as a heater in our massive kitchen. What was funny was the debate over which element covers to buy to decorate the top of the new stove. There were apple ones, grape ones, pear ones, plum ones, and daisy ones. Nana was insistent that it had to be a fruit that we grew and sold in our commercial orchard. After all, if our customers came into the kitchen for a cuppa, what would they think if daisies presented themselves? Mum thought the daisies were the best and yellow daisies in the 1960's were very in vogue. Women’s Weekly Magazine had them advertised, so they had to be the best. As it happened Nana won the argument when Mum was only able to purchase apple ones at the store after a long wait to get them in. They looked amazing to all the local ladies and turned the stove into the show piece that it really was. In the months that followed, they became more the talking point at morning tea than the stove itself.