1960s English Electric Rapide Cooker

[Colourstar]

Originally Posted by sexton_mallard

My parents had a Belling Classic double eighty with a fluorescent tube light and the controls up high as in your example. It was more late 60s early 70s in styling. Here it is pictured in the early 80s at home. It was new in 1975.

That looks wonderfully stylish! I use my fluorescent light quite often, just because I can. They seemed to be all the rage, then rapidly fell out of favour.

Originally Posted by regentone001

the cooker we had in the maisonette was a brand new Creda Carefree, Looked great, 4 rings on the hob, low level grill inner glass oven door and a drawer at the bottom with a heating element to warm the plates. The only problem was that we kept finding loose screws around it. My mother eventually said that the only Carefree thing about it was the way it was put together

Ha! Made me chuckle. I like that. I admire your mum's wonderfully dry wit!

Steve

[Welsh Anorak]

I have to ask what the anti-boiling over feature is. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember my parents' Haute Cuisine (those French again!) cooker having such a feature which was a sort of clicky thing in the centre of the ring.
Would have taken far more than that feature to stop my Mum burning things though....

[bionicmerlin]

My boss used to tell me that thing in the Centre of the ring was called a Pan A Stat . Andy

[Refugee]

I can remember one called a pan guard on the cooker we had in the 1960s thru to the 1980s.
It never lasted long before it stopped working.
The ring used to be used as a parking space for the very fatty chip pan with a well matured carbon bottom.

[usradcoll1]

Originally Posted by Refugee

I can remember one called a pan guard on the cooker we had in the 1960s thru to the 1980s.
It never lasted long before it stopped working.
The ring used to be used as a parking space for the very fatty chip pan with a well matured carbon bottom.

In the US, it was referred to as "Burner With a Brain". The repair people called it "Brainless Burner". It not reliable and was discontinued soon after.
Dave, USradcoll1

[duncanlowe]

When I was very young, we had a Moffat cooker. One of the rings (gas) had a simmerstat. The issue was that after conversion to natural gas the whole stove became a bit of a liability with the pilot lights often going out as I remember (I was 5 or 6 at the time). When we moved to a new house when I was 7 going on 8, we had a Creda Cavalier. Modern styling for the day but a very basic cooker, so I doubt any survive today. I do remember my Dad playing with the adjustments on the power controls to improve the low temperature regulation, but it did result in the rings being active sometimes even when switched off.

I also remember from the eighties at a friends Mum and Dads house, they had a gas hob with a simmerstat. There was a party there and I could smell the gas from the hob. I mentioned this, and my friend's older brother said 'oh yes it does that', and mucked about with the controls a bit. I assume it got fixed as the house never blew up, and my friend and his brother are still alive and well.

[kirstyd]

my mums Parkinson Cowan gas cooker has some sort of simmer stat fitted to one of the burners if i remember rightly it was called a Magitroll

[julie_m]

I guess cooking didn't really change all that much since the advent of metal pots that could be heated directly, whether by means of a chemical reaction or electrical resistance. And while we're used to safety warnings on appliances today, the first electric space heaters, as replacements for wood or oil-fired stoves, were often designed to permit some sort of cooking. Only in the last century did it become possible to couple electromagnetic waves at high frequency into either the food or the container where they were converted to heat right where it was needed, and not heat the whole kitchen. (At least, if you discount infra-red radiation from smouldering charcoal .....)

I've seen evidence of truly ancient microwave ovens, as used by the catering industry long before they became common in the home. Did anyone ever make something like what would nowadays be called an induction hob using huge transmitter valves or similar?

[Colourstar]

Here are a couple of pictures of the ring in question- at the centre is a 'button', spring loaded to maintain contact with the base of the pan. My guess is that it's some sort of thermostat that cuts the power when the pan reaches a set temperature below boiling point and cuts back in when the temperature drops again. Having never tested it's abilities I'll give it a go later.

Steve

[Refugee]

That thermostat button looks a bit better made than the one I remember from past times.
I am pretty sure it is a fluid filled tube with a bellows switch on the control.
The button used to get full of grease and stick.