Photos by Barry Wallace
The current artifacts display at the King Museum, in Kinghorn, has brought back several excellent pieces from mid-to-late settler times. There are still people in King Township who will remember pieces that they or relatives or neighbours donated to the museum many years ago. One piece that caught my eye was the fine-looking chamber pot with silencer (pictured below). What is a silencer? I believe it is a crocheted circular cover for muffling the sound of the pot lid as it rattled on and off the chamber pot, in the middle of the night. 65 years ago, I'm sure I heard my maternal grandfather use the term thunder-mug or thunder-box for his under-the-bed lavatory. I believe this particular collection of furniture and other household items is on display until the middle of the month.
Please comment if you wish.
Barry Wallace
Ahhh a silencer. That is interesting. I had no idea such a thing existed. Makes sense. For Persian rice cooking we do something very similar (use a thick cloth folded several times and sewn in a round shape). We place that under the lid (like above) and the purpose is to catch the steam, so the evaporated water does not fall back into the pot. We do this when we are steaming our rice on low heat. The result is that the rice becomes very fluffy which is highly appreciated in the Persian cuisine.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting ZZ.
ReplyDeleteRegards, Barry