This one has been awhile in coming. From what I understand, this is an item that's been passed down in my mom's family for awhile, as well.
If I remember what my mom said when I was taking the pictures for this, she said it might have been something her parents picked up when she and her siblings were kids. It certainly looks like it might be from the 1950s:
The contents are considerably more recent, which is a good thing, for the most part:
I'd taken some of the stuff out before I thought to take a picture of it when it was fully packed, as the cups on the left indicate. I'm not sure if it shows in the picture, but I think the inside was painted white at some point. If I'd thought of it at the time, I would have taken a picture of the other side of the vent there, because the paint kind of came through there.
It wasn't exactly easy to decide what the next image should be, so I went with the stuff that was on top in that last picture:
The paper plates and towels came in handy several times over the years. There were quite a lot of camping meals and other adventures we'd had where they were good to have. A lot of what we had for food on those trips tended to need to be kept cool or cold somehow, but there were a few shelf-stable items in the picnic basket as well. The most interesting, at least for me, was this pancake mix my dad packed in 2012 and never got around to using.
The jar itself is kind of cool, too. It's from what I'm assuming is a local brand of jelly. It originally had wild chokecherry jam in it. I can't remember if I ever got to try it because this was an old jar when it got reused a dozen years ago. Here's a closeup on the label.
I'm not sure if it's because it's a local or smaller brand or if it's just that old, but there's no barcode on the jar, which I think is interesting. There's one other item like that, but I'll get to that later.
As I think I say in this video, the pancake mix is one of a few things I'll likely be dumb enough to try using. The piece of freezer tape on top says something about there being a half cup of something involved. I'm inclined to think that's the contents of the jar, and that I need to add maybe a quarter cup or a third cup of water to actually make it usable. I have not yet done so as of writing this, but I may at some point.
The other big shelf-stable food item in this thing was this bag of loose popcorn kernels:
I'll probably give those a shot at some point, too, but I'm probably going to get an air popper before I do that. The last few times I tried doing popcorn on a stovetop didn't end especially well. They certainly didn't go as badly as they could have, but I still learned my lesson eventually, and I'd like to think it's stayed learned.
The food items that might be a little more dicey are the packets of powdered non-dairy creamer featured here alongside a packet of Sweet'n'Low and a deck of playing cards.
It might not be a terribly good idea to use the creamer, especially, but if you follow me in the right places, you probably know that it wouldn't be the first unwise decision I've ever made on that front.
As far as cleaning one's hands after some of these meals goes, well, we were a KFC family for quite a while, and there were quite a few trips that involved getting chicken on the way to wherever, or while we were there, so there were always plenty of these fun things:
We were always prepared with various and sundry utensils to both prep and eat with, aside from just the measuring cup with the pancake mix:
The good news is that a good many of the places we stayed in later years came supplied with most of that stuff, since that potholder probably wasn't quite up to its intended purpose any longer. We also had some dish soap along, for just in case.
Another just-in-case item was this bag with an extension cord and a few other items:
I'm not sure how much use any of that got, but it was nice to have along anyway.
From here, I'm going to wrap up with some of the more retro items in the basket. First up is this pack of food storage bags that's been around for long enough that there's no barcode on the main bag:
It's like the jar from before in that I'm not sure if it's just that old or if it was more a local brand or what. There's also this loose Brillo pad from I'm not sure when:
I'm more sure of when these drinking cups may have been made, because it says on the bottom:
I've been calling them melmac, but I'm really not sure what kind of 1950s era synthetic they might be. At least I know they're from the 1950s because the bottom says 1952 specifically. The other text there says “Plastic tableware Type II drinking cup” for sure, and I think it says 10 oz, but I'm less sure of that.
In spite of how it looks, I'm pretty sure this camp toaster is considerably more recent, from the 1980s or early 90s:
I remember using it on a white-gas fueled camp stove a few times when I was a kid. I'm sure there were a few singed fingers along the way because I don't think we had tongs along to turn the toast when it was done on the first side.
As for the stove itself, I'm pretty sure my mom still has it around, and if I'd thought about it when I was taking these other pictures, I might have done that, too. I didn't, though, and that may have been for the best, because I remember it being a bit of a hassle to set up.
Actually using the thing nowadays would probably fall into the category of inadvisable science, because I think my grandparents on my dad's side may have got the thing before I was born, so it's a little sketchy on that front. Plus, I'm not entirely sure there's any gas left for it or where to get any if there's not.
If there's interest, I might do a seperate post about trying to set the thing up, for display and demo purposes, even if I don't actually light the thing. But that's for another time, because I need to get this done with and back to other projects.
Until next time.
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