Italian pizzelle iron (1930s).
Gift of Dorothy Marcucci.
(15" x 6-1/2" x 1-3/4"). IT.86.57.
This iron, made in West Newton, Pennsylvania, by C. Palmer Mfg., was used for making pizzelle, an Italian wafer. It is one of the oldest types of pizzelle irons used in the United States.
"KUECHENWUNDER" German cooker and "KUECHENWUNDER" cookbook (1926).
Gift of Leonore J. Meyer. (4-1/2" x 13-1/4") G.87.105.1-5; and (7-1/8" x 4-3/4") G.87.104.
This cooker is made to be used on top of the stove. The cookbook includes recipes for main dishes from wiener braten to Irish stew. Other recipes are for macaroni and cheese, puddings to be served at afternoon tea, and desserts such as cakes, tortes, and apple strudel. The donor's mother, Johanna Meyer, bought the cooker in Berlin and brought it with her when she came to settle in Chicago in 1938.
Croatian tablecloth.
Gift of Daisy Kolmar. (40-1/2" square). CR.83.52.
This cloth was made for the Kolmar family by their Croatian servant in the 1930s before the family emigrated to the United States from Yugoslavia in 1940. It was used for outdoor meals.
Matzo cover (1911).
Gift of Dorothy Tobman. (18" x 15-1/2"). JE.87.237.
Made in Russia in 1911, this velvet matzo cover was given to the donor's husband, John Tobman, who immigrated from the Russian village of Radyslyna to the United States. Matzo is unleavened bread used during the Passover holiday to remind Jews of the food their ancestors took with them during their flight from Egypt.
Tablecloth (detail) (1886).
Gift of Frieda Siegel Gundersheimer. (103" x 67"). JE.89.291.1.
The donor's paternal grandmother, Johanna Siegel, embroidered this cloth and twelve matching napkins for her trousseau in Landau, Pfalz (Palatinate) Germany. The initials "D J S" represent David and Johanna Siegel. When sisters Frieda and Charlotta Siegel and their brother William came to America as Jewish refugees after their parents died in Nazi Germany, Charlotta brought the tablecloth set with her. After Charlotta's death in 1951 her husband gave the set to his wife's sister.
The poem translates:
"That marriage is quite soundly based
Where each part reigns in their domain:
The wife reigns over heart and pot
The husband over mind and cup."
Ladle (c. 1915).
Gift of Mary Tranosky McCann. (16" x 3-3/4"). S.88.230.
This ladle was hand carved by the donor's father. Her parents were married in Slovakia; her father Michael Tranosky emigrated in 1903, his wife Julia in 1905.
Cookie molds and pastry tube.
Gift of Helen Vasilevsky French.
(Each approximately 1" x 2" x 2"). S.91.26.a-k.
These belonged to the donor's mother, Elizabeth Brazdil, who brought them with her when the family immigrated from Bratislava, Czecho-Slovakia, in 1947. She had used them for many years, and her daughter remembers eating the various cookies on Catholic holidays throughout the year. After the family arrived in the United States, they felt that it would be bad luck in their new life to unpack the boxes they had brought with them from their homeland. So the cookie molds and other possessions from their former home remained packed away until after the donor's parents had died.
Italian chitarra (c . 1900).
Gift of Alfred and Robert Acquarole
(4-3/4" x 19-1/2" x 9-1/4"). IT.87.232.
The donor's mother and grandmother, Adeline Dolores Polandri, of Gulnova, Italy, used this well-worn chitarra to make pasta. Most immigrant families had a pasta maker, in which rolled and flattened sheets of dough are pressed by hand through steel strings into strips of spaghetti, linguini or other shapes.
Japanese katsuo fugi (c. 1925).
Gift of Sumiko Kobayashi.
(3-7/8" x 9-1/4"). J.90.156.a-c.
The donor's mother, an immigrant from Japan then living in Indiana, ordered this dried fish shaver by mail from Furuya, a Japanese food and household goods store in Seattle. Before refrigeration was common, bonito (a tuna-like fish) was dried rock-hard for preservation. It then was purchased in chunks and shaved into paper-thin strips at home for use as a garnish and soup stock base. Today shaved bonito is sold in packages.
Chinese teapot.
Gift of the Hong Fook Company. (7-1/2" x 5"). C.91.222.
The Hong Fook Company is a Chinese import company owned and operated by Chinese Americans in Philadelphia's Chinatown.
Wine Press (early 1900s).
Gift of Alfred & Robert Acquarole.
(19-1/2" x 17-1/2" x 11"). IT.87.231.
The donors' father and grandfather, Pasquale Aquarole, used this press to make wine each year. A carpenter before coming to the United States from Pascara, Italy, he made the wooden parts of the press himself. (The funnel-shaped piece fit on top of the barrel.) At age 21 he returned to Italy to marry and in 1900 brought his eighteen-year-old wife, Adeline Delores Polandri, from Gulnova to live in America.
Poppy seed grinder (c. 1900).
Gift of the Reverend Francis Lendacky.
(8" x 6" x 5"). S.83.70.
Poppy seeds, in both whole and ground form, are an important ingredient in traditional Slovak cooking and baking. This grinder was used at the turn of the century by the donor's grandmother.
Indonesian herb and coconut grinders.
Gift of Fred Boogard.
(3-3/4" x 6-7/8") IN.84.70; and (3/8" x 14-3/8" x 3/4") IN.84.71.
These tools were used to grind herbs and coconut, both essential ingredients in Indonesian cuisine. The donor probably acquired them while traveling in Indonesia.
[Ethnic Cuisine: Introductory Essay]
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© 1996 The Balch Institute For Ethnic Studies
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