Automatic Coffee Maker

 

Ah, that first cup of the morning!

My earliest kitchen related memory is learning how to make coffee. I must have been around 9 or 10 years old. A life long early riser, I was always the first one up in the morning, especially on the weekends. I viewed my siblings as lazy slobs, rarely emerging from sleep before noon on a Saturday.

Note to my siblings

Little Patty, however, would wake up early, usually before 6 am. Padding down the dark stairway, creeping across the dining room and snuggling myself into the built in kitchen breakfast nook, I would patiently wait for someone to wake up.

That's me holding the teddy bear on my 10th birthday, February 8th 1964. The dark haired girl on the left is my friend, Linda, my younger sister, Mary, with the glasses and my older sister, Wendi. This was the only picture I could find of our breakfast nook, my favorite hang out.

 It was always my mother. Early one Saturday morning my mother said to me “If you are going to be the first one up, you are going to learn how to make coffee.” Great! I get to do something none of the other kids know how to do.

I finally broke down and bought one for $4.00 at a thrift store!

My mother brought out the Corning ware ceramic percolator. Every time I see one of these with its blue cornflower emblem in a yard sale or an antique shop it brings back this warm and fuzzy memory.

Totally complete and in pristine condition

She removed the metal basket and stem and showed me the fill line on the inside of the pot. She guided me over to the sink where we put the pot under the tap and filled it to the 9 cup line. Tap water was actually drinkable back in the 60’s.

The fill lines

Next step was to put in the metal basket. Now I can’t really recall if there was a paper round filter that went in the bottom or not, but I believe there was. The filters were kept in the pantry along with the can of coffee, so that’s where we headed next. I loved the pantry. It was full of mystery ingredients, like deviled ham that I don’t ever recall anyone actually eating. I loved the little dancing red devil on that can.

This stuff was a total mystery to me

 My mother always tried to hide the rare box of See’s candy that would find its way, via a gift, into our house in that pantry. I ate more of that candy than anyone. It pays to hang out in the kitchen.

My sugar addiction started early in life. I totally ate most of any See's candy that made it into our pantry!

But, I digress. The reason we were in the pantry was for the big red can of Folgers or Hills Brothers.

I think my mother had a thing for coffee in red cans

or maybe it was whatever was on sale that week!

I loved opening the coffee can. Back in those days coffee cans came with a cool little key. Resembling a skate key, it was attached to the bottom of the can. You would snap off the key, locate the little metal tab on the top of the can, pull it away from the can a bit with a butter knife (if you were a mother with a manicure) or your fingernail if you just didn’t care and start to wind the key. The can would start to slowly rotate and make a puffff sound, as the vacuum seal was broken. And the heavenly aroma of Mrs. Olsen’s drug of choice would fill the kitchen. It would be a good 10 years before I ever actually enjoyed drinking the stuff, but I always loved that aroma!

Yeah, that's Mrs. Olsen, the caffeine pushing TV commercial woman of my youth

 

Once the can was opened, I got to dig for the buried treasure that was the coffee measuring scoop. It was usually on the top of the ground beans, but sometimes you had to dig a bit. My mother told me to measure 3 level scoops, pouring each into the little metal basket. It wasn’t until years later that I realized my mother’s coffee was really weak. It’s funny to think back to the early 1970’s, my friends and I considered ourselves coffee snobs and wouldn’t be caught dead with Folger’s or Hills Brothers in our kitchens.

I still can't believe we thought this was gourmet coffee!

No, we thought Yuban was the “it” coffee of the time. Yikes! If I was making that pot today I would be using 5 heaping scoops of freshly ground beans that were roasted locally.

The final step was to put the lid on and place the percolator on the electric burner of our stove. I pushed the button marked “high” and then sat and watched. I waited and waited. Then I waited some more. The white appliance with the blue cornflower started to make some noise. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. I could see the water starting to pop up in the glass knob. Weakly colored at first but then it began to darken. At this point my mother tells me to push the “simmer” button. “ It’s very important that you put it on simmer at this point” she tells me “because it will boil over and then you will have a hot mess to clean up.” Not to mention that I will ruin the coffee and have to start all over.

I made coffee for my parents for years. I think my mom was the only woman on our street to have the first automatic coffee maker, years before they were ever invented. And I am so grateful that I did not grow up and marry one of these guys!