Rack'n'Roll

Lynda Hallinan recycles old rolling pins to hang her reusable shopping bags in vintage style.

- Lynda Hallinan

What do egg coddlers, pot trivets, bread bins, butter conditioners, and so-called “single-use” plastic shopping bags have in common? They’ve all but disappeared from most Kiwi kitchens, rendered obsolete by modern lifestyles, convenience, our evolving cuisine and global concern for the environment.

Cast your eye across the kitchenware section in any second-hand store and it soon becomes clear that so many of the labor-saving gizmos and gadgets our grandmothers used – from ginger beer bottlers to pot strainers, potato chippers, and toast racks – have long since fallen out of favor.

The explosive ginger beer of my childhood has been usurped by more fashionable fermentations, such as kombucha and water kefir; no one has time to let their toast cool before the daily commute; and who needs a meat grinder when you can buy pure-bred ground Angus at most supermarkets, not to mention frozen shoestring and crinkle cut French fries.

As for rolling pins? The fact that you can pick them up at op shops for a few dollars each suggests that frozen pastry sheets have almost rendered them redundant too.

In my tiny farmhouse kitchen, the rolling pin hogs half our utensils drawer, yet it’s called into such infrequent service – to roll out home-made pizza dough, flatten the occasional schnitzel or pummel a packet of Gingernuts for a cheesecake base – that I often wonder if it’s actually worthy of that space.