Take a look at the one I linked from The Pyramid Collection in post 18, I think they ship outside the U.S. Here is another, that also has a corkscrew. Here’s one from a site called chef’s resource as well. Will any of those do?
One of these things? You’re right-- there is a specific term for it, but it escapes me. I remember reading a novel in which one of these doohickeys was used as a murder weapon . . . if I could think of the book, I’d be able to look up what the author called it.
Really? :dubious:
That’s news to the cans of condensed and evaporated milk in my pantry at home.
Here you can get them in any supermarket.
I haven’t used the pointy end of a church key in… I don’t know how long. I only ever use sweetened condensed milk when I’m making Vietnamese coffee (ca phe sua da), and I just use a can opener to remove the whole top so that I can spoon the milk out.
When I was a kid we called them ‘can openers’; but we knew the difference between it and a can opener that cuts off the top, by the context. I don’t remember when I first heard them called church keys, but it was early on.
I have a vague memory of using church keys to open cans, but I don’t remember what was in the cans. I do remember piercing the opposite side with a small whole for a vent. When I was growing up we didn’t have to use a church key to open soft drinks; they had pop tops. I liked the ones with notches on the ring because I could take the tab off, put it in the notch, and then fling the ring with it.
I use one 4 or 5 times a week. My boyfriend uses Carnation canned milk in his coffee and he drinks a lot of coffee. We go through 4-7 cans of the milk per week. Losing a churchkey in my house is a cause for panic.
Oh, and I always knew it was called a churchkey.
Those are all bottle openers; I’m looking for the device linked in post #14 - the Walden handy key. It’s the pointy bit that opens cans I need.
Ahhh, I see! I thought you only wanted the bottle opener. Well, the U.S. Amazon.com has one, (Though I don’t find any at the Amazon.co.uk site…) so does Acme International, as well as topfoodservice.com and Kitchenhills. I don’t know if they’d ship to you though. 
Maybe you could arrange for an American Doper to purchase one and ship it to you?
ETA: I can see how they got the nickname “churchkey” too. Some designs look like an old fashioned cumbersome key.
I’m sure I saw a tub of them in a pound shop recently. Have a look in your local crappy kitchen goods store.
Mmm, Watney’s.
Before I clicked on your link I was pretty sure what I’d see, and I was right. This spoutlike thing is indeed a way to open a can of motor oil, and probably the most widely used since the spout frees up the hand while the oil pours into the engine. I should have been more specific in my question you tried to answer, because in the older days, before the spout hickey came along, they just used church keys, with maybe a little bigger punching tab, for that purpose.
So, thus far in this thread we have several types of devices identified, some of which are bottle cap lifters, some which open cans by making a triangular hole, some which peel the lids off sardine cans, some which open oil cans and allow a spout for pouring the oil, and the actual key to open a church door.
That’s a fair amount of confusion, I’d say, especially for those folks who didn’t/don’t have a special name for any of those items.
You learn something every day. Praise be to Straight Dope.
The only Church Key story I have is when I was staying out at my cousin’s house on an Army base. My aunt and uncle cleaned the church and sent us over with the Church Keys to lock up. As we were leaving the place at ten at night, some over-zealous MPs, saw us come out and, thinking we were up to no good, did the whole spot light in our face, get your hands up, routine. Seeing something metal in my right hand the kid almost panicked. “Drop that!” “Drop that!” “Drop that!”
So, following orders, I dropped the Church Key onto the ground, so avoid getting shot.
This was just labelled “Can Tapper” when I was a lad, I remember them well enough though I wasn’t of beer-drinking age by the time they became obsolete.
If you were to stretch this story out to maybe 10 minutes worth, adding some more characters and action, with several sidetracks of additional subplots that never get resolved, you’d have the makings of a true Shaggy Dog Story. Excellent beginning, though. Nice work.
How about a slasher movie along the lines of “The Alabama Church Key Massacre”?
Remember the movie Gung Ho? Maybe something like that one in a Church Key factory where that’s all they make and they have heavy competition from an outfit that makes sardine cans, and the economy of the entire region hinges on the success and failure of these two companies.
Or maybe one of those Great Escape war movies where the guys get up to the last few inches of tunnel and the shovel breaks and one of the guys whips out a church key and they get the hole dug, Then as they come out of the tunnel they all get shot.
i don’t use one often anymore, but as a kid I remember using them to open the cans of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Also the big cans of juice.
My Mom called it a church key, she said it was slang because the last place you should be openning bottles of beer was at church
I just finished the latest book by William Boyd, part of which is set in early '40s America, and in it a character opens a can of beer using one (though Mr Boyd calls it a can opener, but it’s clear from the description it is one of these “church keys”). Bizarre to think that the kind of cans that pork-n-beans comes in used to hold beer and soda too.
Is it not the case that you have canned beverages these days?
Are they cans or tins?
When was it that tin cans gave way to aluminum and sheet metal? What other metals are used for cans?
Why does “can” have so many meanings? Can you think of a really bizarre use of the word?
I’ve got a collection of about 25 church keys (by which I mean the tool with one pointy end and one blunt end), mounted on a barnwood frame in our bar downstairs. They all have different brewery names on them – some of the breweries are still around, and some aren’t. I found some of them in antique stores and others on eBay.
I use them all the time, even on twist-off beer bottle caps, and think about all the bottles of beer that they may have opened before they opened the one that I’m about to enjoy.
We’ve also got one in our kitchen, a Coors one that was left in the house when we bought it, and I use the pointy end of that one to open cans of chicken broth when I’m making green chile.
Yeah, you can get large cans of fruit juice/nectar and various vegetable juices including V8 still. (And it often ends up being cheaper to buy the cans than the plastic bottles, here at least.) They don’t come in single serve sizes anymore though. I also believe that almost no tin is used for food storage anymore. “Tin” is rather like the term “ice box” now. I’m not sure what kind of metal they use these days instead.
I think I saw beverage cans being opened that way as a very young child, but I remember very clearly the pull tabs on soda, and being afraid to swallow the tab so always putting the tab on my finger or in my pocket. Mind you, canned Shasta or Orange Crush was a rare treat when I was a kid. We got 7Up a little more often, and sometimes we’d get a glass bottle of soda from our dad if we were out running errands with him. I also remember opening cans of Hershey’s syrup for ice cream or chocolate milk with a church key. Mmmmmm!
Hmm, I was attempting to Americanize my nomenclature, based on stuff like Popeye, where his spinach came in a “can”, but I may have got it wrong.
Over here - soft drinks and beer come in a can.
Beans, tomatoes, spam, Popeye’s spinach etc. come in a tin.
What I was attempting to say was that back in the day, beer etc. came in a tin, of the same construction as beans come in nowadays.
As for a bizarre use of the word, how about:
There once was a canner so canny,
He remarked with a smile to his granny:
“A canner can can
Anything that he can,
But a canner can’t can a can, can he?”
Excellent limerick. Yours?
There’s also:
Can – what you put film in after it’s been approved for showing as in, “It’s in the can.”
Can – a place to release bodily waste
Can – the portion of the human body from which waste is released
Can – the female human breast
Can – a place to eat, perhaps shortened from canteen or cantina
Can – a container for food and drink and motor oil
Can – short for cannon
Can – opposite of can’t
others?
To me a “church key” is not one of those standard metal strips with the (easy-to-use) triangular puncturing tools + lip on one end (and optional bottle-cap popper on the other), but instead one of these far-more-difficult to use devices. Had a hard time finding a picture of one on Google. Anyway, you had to stab it in; it was dual-purpose, you could rock it back & forth and rotate around a can and thereby take the entire lid off of a can with the same blade. But not pleasant to use, not at all.
