7 Things You’d Find in Every Wisconsin Grandma’s Kitchen

If there’s an Osterizer blender in your grandma’s kitchen, its story starts in Racine.

A lot of what’s in those drawers and cupboards came from hometown makers.

Here’s what you’ll find in many old-fashioned grandma’s kitchens in Wisconsin.

1. Community Cookbook

Milwaukee’s Settlement Cook Book grew out of cooking classes at the Settlement, an organization that German-Jewish community members founded in Milwaukee.

Its first edition came out on April 1, 1901, in a printing of 1,000 copies.

The first edition sold for 50 cents at Milwaukee’s Boston Store and sold out within the first year.

Lizzie Black Kander edited each later edition until her death in 1940.

Kander said in a 1933 radio interview that the book is primarily a home cookbook, with recipes tested in a home kitchen.

Your family’s cookbook shelf may hold a church edition too, like the one below.

2. Pressure Cooker

Presto pressure cookers came out of Eau Claire, where the National Pressure Cooker Company introduced a saucepan-style model under the Presto name in 1939.

The company was later renamed National Presto Industries.

Presto’s history page says the company was founded in 1905 and introduced that cooker at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

If your family’s pressure cooker says Presto on it, the name traces back to Eau Claire.

3. Coffee Percolator

West Bend Aluminum Company sold an automatic coffee percolator called the Party Perk, which was popular after World War II.

The company’s plant sat on the east bank of the Milwaukee River in West Bend, Wisconsin.

Its Waterless Cooker, a small appliance for cooking a whole meal, was one of its best sellers.

The Henry Ford’s collection includes a percolator from about 1959 distributed by West Bend Company of West Bend, Wisconsin.

If a percolator in your family’s kitchen says West Bend on it, the company behind it was based in that town.

4. Blender

If an Osterizer blender sits in your family’s kitchen, its story starts with a Racine inventor.

The Wisconsin Historical Society describes Stephen Poplawski as an inventor of the electric blender.

Arnold Electric Co. hired him in 1919 to develop an automatic malted milk mixer for restaurants.

In 1933 he began working on a blender for home rather than commercial use.

He patented a household mixer for family kitchens in 1940.

On January 28, 1946, the machine was named the Osterizer when Poplawski sold his business to the John Oster Manufacturing Co.

The base of a 1971 to 1972 Oster blender in The Henry Ford’s collection is inscribed with John Oster Mfg. Co. and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

5. Mirro Cookware

Mirro aluminum cookware came from Manitowoc, where the company was once the world's largest maker of aluminum cooking utensils.

The Aluminum Goods Manufacturing Company, known locally as "The Goods," launched the Mirro brand in 1917.

If a Mirro pot sits in your cupboard, the brand name on it dates to 1917.

Newell Companies bought Mirro in 1983 and later moved its manufacturing overseas.

6. Colby Cheese

Colby cheese was developed in the Clark County town of Colby in 1885, at a factory Ambrose Steinwand Sr. had built.

His son Joseph started experimenting with the process after a cheesemaking course in Madison.

The result was a cheese milder and moister than cheddar.

Joseph named it for Colby township, where his father had built a cheese factory in 1882.

Any block of Colby in your refrigerator is named for that township.

That factory was a small wood building that produced 125 pounds of cheese a day.

7. Kringle

Kringle was on sale at Racine bakeries as early as 1922.

Wisconsin made it the official state pastry in 2013.

Racine had a significant Danish population arriving from Europe as early as the 1840s.

Kringle was first made in a pretzel shape.

Bakers later switched to an oval to make room for more filling.

Cut into a kringle, and you may find fruit, nuts, cream cheese or chocolate in the center.

Cheese Before Colby

Wisconsin cheesemaking is older than the Colby in your refrigerator, since Charles Rockwell began making cheese at Koshkonong, near Fort Atkinson, in 1837.

In the 1860s, chinch bugs began devouring Wisconsin's wheat crops, and dairying grew as an alternative.

By 1899, more than 90 percent of Wisconsin farms raised dairy cows.

Supper Club Relish Trays

Relish trays at Wisconsin supper clubs, as Milwaukee Magazine described them in 2018, range from small plates of raw vegetables to bigger spreads.