Polly’s Shopping Column in the Pittsburgh Post Dispatch on Nov. 18, 1931, enthusiastically endorsed a new kitchen implement this way: “AND NOW, ladies and gentlemen, to carol of the ‘Nifty Sifter’ – the greatest invention since the fork!”
The column item continued: “For here is a little hand-sized object to park in your flour barrel or bin, said object lifting into its maw just about four tablespoons of flour and releasing this flour gently and sprinkledly at whatever spot you carve. Thus one can flour boards or chops or cutlets or gravies (the perfect way to thicken) … at will, all neatly and evenly and easily without ever flouring the hands or spilling half the stuff on the kitchen floor.”
Bron N. Carlson of Rockford, Illinois, was the inventor behind the “Nifty Sifter,” Patent No. 1,748,830, awarded February 15, 1930 (see The Eggbeater Chronicles Page 266.)
In his patent application, Carlson gave this technical description of his device, “a receptacle, constructed from spring wire in the double helical formation gradually reduced in diameter toward each end of the receptacle, said convolutions normally contacting and forming a closed chamber, and means connected with opposite ends of the receptacle to expand convolutions thereof to permit escape of the material from the receptacle.”
To put it perspective and simplify things, he also said his device was “an improved cooking utensil adapted for use in sifting small amounts of flour and other ingredients gradually so as to prevent lumping.”
Advertised extensively in grocery store ads in newspapers in the early 1930s, the price ranged from 10 cents (on sale) to 35 cents. “An interesting sort of a doo-dad that opens out and gathers up the flour and then closes up to sprinkle it out sparingly….35c” said a 1932 ad.
Polly’s Shopping Column put it this way: “It works so simply it’s actually hard to describe.” And descriptions can be deceiving — it is often mistaken for an eggbeater or whisk, but it is not a beater, despite ads to the contrary on internet auctions.
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(c) 2020, Donald Thornton. All rights reserved.