What are these vintage kitchen(?) tools?

June 30, 2023 7:15 AM

What would this set of "Sir Jeffrey Hillpig-Smyth" tools be used for? The piece with small holes in one half seems to match a few lemon juicers out there, and the one with two brass cups could be a nutcracker, but I'm at a loss for the third. Any further information or descriptions would be appreciated!
posted by sagc to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

It looks to me like a garlic press that is missing a piece (a round metal piece that is grid-shaped or otherwise holey).
posted by rikschell at 7:22 AM on June 30, 2023

I agree that the one with the holes could plausibly be a citrus juicer.

I suspect the one with the brass cups is for forming balls of dough (or possibly ground meat, etc) into patties, and the one with the mandrel and tube similarly is for extruding dough into a pocket, probably to be filled with something else and pinched closed.

Since they're a set, it may be that they're all used for separate steps in preparing one kind of dish. Perhaps the putative patties are put in the pocket.
posted by adamrice at 7:36 AM on June 30, 2023

Garlic press is what I'm thinking of too. The disc is something you need to be able to clean very thoroughly, so being able to take it out of the actual press is pretty much essential.

It could still be in a drain somewhere in India.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:38 AM on June 30, 2023

More about Sir Jeffrey Hillpig-Smyth? Apparently he made a new walking stick design so maybe it's related? Although I have no idea how...
posted by fiercekitten at 7:41 AM on June 30, 2023

Best answer: I have a sense that "Sir Jeffrey Hillpig-Smyth" may have been a marketing hoax, kind of like "J. Peterman" and his catalog. Back in 2010, someone saw a flyer about his walking sticks at what they called "a tourist-trap gift shop" in Thailand, and a lot of the same tall tales got spun into a kids' book published in Thailand last year. So this may not be "vintage", these may be from a Thai company.

So - maybe there's a Thai food connection to these tools?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:59 AM on June 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Not sure about the scale of the object but it looks like an Olive pitter maybe?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:08 AM on June 30, 2023

Best answer: This appears to be the source (archive.org, circa 2016): https://web.archive.org/web/20160324190242/http://teaklimey.com/teak-wood-lime-squeezer.php

Note that the site also sells the Burmese Walking Stick.
posted by zamboni at 8:29 AM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: OMG, I have seen the Burmese Army Trekking Stick for sale. There was a dusty display in my hotel in Chiang Mai for years, I recognize the illustration on the pamphlet. I never saw anyone pay attention to it, it seemed to be the same number year after year but maybe they were restocked. I once checked out the price. It was a bit more than I wanted to pay for something I didn’t really have a use for but I was regretting that this past spring when I pulled a muscle in my leg.

But anyway, here’s a video of the guy who makes the walking sticks and the kitchen tools.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:32 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

The far one looks like it could be a wooden Sev Sancha Maker maybe?
posted by rongorongo at 8:35 AM on June 30, 2023

Best answer: Specifically, this is the Teak Wood Kitchen Set from teaklimey.com with the Sir JHS plaques added. This one appears to have:

• the garlic press
• the nut cracker
• the lemon squeezer

As I mentioned, the site also sold the Burmese trekking stick, complete with Sir JHS brass plaque.
posted by zamboni at 9:01 AM on June 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

Parenthetical question marks all the way down.
posted by Glomar response at 9:33 AM on June 30, 2023

My friend and I are hilariously obsessed with this wonderfully scammy story. The video is to die for. Thank you so much for posting this question and introducing me to this ridiculous fabrication.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 10:10 AM on July 1, 2023