My parents had the mid-70s equivalent of this:
I never imagined it would be so necessary to peel and core bushel after bushel of apples that ownership of such a device would be warranted, but there we were, jamming endless apples onto the spikes.
My parents’ last refrigerator (long, long after I was out of the house) had in-door water and ice. They loved it. I used it when visiting, but never really liked it, and we don’t have it in our almost-new refrigerator. It’s a lot easier, I think, to get ice by opening the bottom-drawer freezer and scooping it up out of the bin; and water came out very slowly, if I want filtered water we have a Brita on the counter.
My mother wanted a dishwasher when I was a kid, and as soon as we could afford it, there it was (maybe around 1960? We were early adopters). Now, we actually do have one, a small drawer model, but my husband refuses to use it. Instead it is used as storage for pots and pans. I think we only put it in for the sake of any future re-sale, which was dumb, we’ve had it for 11 years now and gotten absolutely nothing out of it. We don’t have a lot of dishes for the two of us, and we get along fine without it. The only advantage would be that it saves water.
Oh, one that I really crave but have never had: chest freezers! My parents actually have four of them, About half a cow and a decent percent of a pig and several chickens in one, lots of ice cream and homemade frozen desserts, shelled pecans, and spare ice in massive quantities in the next, vats of cooking lard and Crisco and 5 lb bags of flour and corn meal, packages of fresh vegetables from the garden, leftovers from days, weeks, or months ago marked and dated…
I want chest freezers.
One thing I forgot: an electrical shaver. My dad has always been a dry shave kind of guy, but I’ve shaved with blades since I had a beard.
My dad always drove with a radar detector. I don’t have one.
They still make those, or at least they did about a decade ago. We’ve got one in fact.
I think the reason for electric can openers being less common is more of a general move away from canned food, and toward fresh and frozen food. Combine that with a lot of prepared canned food like soup going toward pop-top style cans, and you have a lot less demand for can-openers.
One thing my parents had was a stereo system. Not a big console system, but a component system. Receiver, big-ass speakers, tape player, turntable. Heck, I used to have one about 20 years ago. I can’t think of anyone I know who has something like that anymore. Everyone seems to listen to music on earbuds/headphones, or via a little Bluetooth speaker. TVs either have built in sound, or people use some kind of dedicated TV sound bar setup.
I’ve got a lot of the other things listed… electric knives are REALLY useful if you’re doing a lot of carving.
They still make them. Look at Home Depot’s website.
I’m well aware. We don’t have room for them. They’re on the “dream house” criteria list.
An antenna on the roof of the house and an electric motor that adjusted it.
Plug in pans like an electric skillet and a country kettle.
My dad had a timing light in his garage of mystery. I wouldn’t even know how to use one.
I’d forgotten all about my mom’s meat grinder, but it made a big impression on me when I was a young kid. It clamped onto the counter and she used it to make sausage.
And my parents had a good ice cream maker, that used ice and salt, like this one, which is basically an electric version of the old-fashioned hand crank machines. Nostalgia 4-Quart Electric Ice Cream Maker: Old-Fashioned Fun (thespruceeats.com)
I’ve tried the more modern type but haven’t found one that works as well as my parents’ machine.
They’re obsolete. You could use them to set the idle on a car with a distributor, but every car I’ve had for the last 30 years has had fuel injection and electronic control.
Trash compactor. Worthless and a waste of space.
The electric can opener my mom used is out in my shop. I use it to sharpen knives and stuff.
Whole-house Intercom.
But, even then, they never used it.
oh yeah, my parents had one of those. They used it at least. (my job was to empty it and fight to get the new bag properly installed)
I remember these. Now, we have Alexa devices in several rooms of our three-story house, and it turns out an intercom function is a lot easier to use, and likelier to be used, if one doesn’t have to walk over to a physical wall switch to activate it.
Thanks, everyone. I would never have guessed how many modern devices we’ve mostly abandoned from the past.
Not so much abandoned, but supplanted. I was going to mention the whole-house intercom but beowulff beat me to it. That was also generally a whole-house radio as well. Sounds quite futuristic but it wasn’t really upgradeable and audio quality was lousy. We didn’t have one (house was too old) but we did have an under-mount kitchen radio, so it didn’t take up any counter space, same for the under-mount can opener.
Typewriters, sewing machines, VCRs, slide and movie projectors, tape decks, record players, and fax machines all have newer and (usually) better counterparts. I don’t think anyone’s lamenting the lack of buggy whips, coal shovels, hourglasses, quill pens, sundials, and iceboxes in the modern home for the same reason. The can opener is an interesting one because while it still has a legitimate function, it’s so much less used now that it doesn’t require a separate dedicated powered appliance, especially one that’s pretty ugly.
An engine block heater for the car. The car got plugged in at night to keep the oil liquid and the coolant warm, and it made for easier starting in the morning. I’ve never had one on a car of my own, or at least never had the need for one that came with it.
What do they do about power outages? Do they have a generator? For me, having that much value tied up in frozen things is risky.
How long are your power outages? Chest freezers can stay cold for a reasonably long time… many hours, without any problems. Remember, everything in them is frozen solid. If you lose power for three or four days, the food will spoil in your fridge too. Around here, some people have generators, and I used to have one at my old house, but frankly, I never really needed it in 10 years living there, and I had two chest freezers. Just don’t open them.
I had one in the '80s/'90s, then decided a manual one was all I needed… until SWMBO moved in and insisted on an electric can opener. The manual one was too hard for her to use.
I have one. It belonged to my dad, and I use it at least once a year.
Dad had one. I bought one at a yard sale for $5, and it’s just the thing for shepherd’s pie or SPAM® salad sandwiches.
Not whole-house, but dad had a wired Realistic (from Radio Shack) one from his bedroom to the front door.