Real Retro: The frugal virtues of never throwing stuff away (+ how to percolate coffee)

Retro is so in. The other day a Crate & Barrel catalog arrive in the mail. The stuff on the front cover and most of the furniture and tchochkies it advertised looked just like what my friends and I used to covet along about 1972. Couldn’t believe it: avocado green,  Hallowe’en orange, harvest gold, dirt brown and Marimekko are b-a-a-a-c-k! My mother used to say that if you wait long enough, sooner or later your old clothes and stuff you don’t want to throw away will come back into style. Guess she was right: not throwing stuff away turns out to be a frugal virtue.

Case in point: my favorite tea kettle gave up the ghost last week. Our fine city water finally ate through its enameled surface and it started barfing flakes of rust into the French press coffeemaker.

I loved that kettle. It was bright blue and pretty and it had a LOUD whistle that would call me back to the kitchen no matter how absorbed I was at the computer or how distracted with some hassle out in the yard. It was perfectly balanced so it was easy to pour even if it was overfilled, and its handle and the strange little whistle stayed cool even if it had been left on the stove a little overlong.

They don’t make them anymore, of course. Manufacturers know when I like things. They have a radar system that picks up my “like it” vibes, and when they find out, they instantly take the item off the market. It’s true. Magic. This one came from (where else?) Crate & Barrel, purchased back in the day when I could afford to shop there. C&B doesn’t carry anything like it today.

Target has a few that are similar, but they’re too small and the colors aren’t as pretty. So I got onto Amazon and searched for tea kettles. Same deal: this thing is no longer being made, it appears.

However, at Amazon I happened to notice that people are buying a type of heat-resistant glass tea “kettle” that works on those accursed glass-top stoves and will also function on a gas stove. Hm. Customers don’t universally hate them, but some complain that they break, because their construction is rather thin. One of them is described, in the sales pitch, as “retro” in style. By that they mean “somewhat clunky.”

“Retro”? Glass? Glass pot?

Hey! I have one of those!

Matter of fact, I have two of them.

Back in the day—OMG, so far back that dinosaurs roamed the earth—I used to make coffee in a percolator. No one in this country had ever heard of a French press. You had three choices for making decent coffee: a Chemex drip coffeemaker (what a lash-up! literally—you tied a wooden collar around it with a length of rawhide so you could pick it up without burning your hand), a plastic cone that held a drip filter you set on top of a pot, or a stove-top percolator. The ubiquitous electric percolator didn’t make coffee—it made battery acid. And the early electric drip coffeemakers made roadside restaurant “coffee”…ugh!

I would percolate coffee, on the stove. And I was very, very good at it: I could make perc’ed coffee that was every bit as delicious as French press coffee. We’ll see how in a moment. First, though, the point: to do this, I used glass percolators made by Corning. I had two of them, a small one that held about four cups and a large one that would make enough for a dinner party.

At some point along the line, my ex and I started making coffee in a drip machine. They’d improved enough to make OK coffee, and with a kid and two dogs in the house, I didn’t have time to fiddle with elaborate coffee preparations. The glass percolators went into the back of some cabinet. And strangely, when I ran off with the harmonica player I chose to take those things with me.

Well. They make fine tea kettles, absent their percolator innards. Those can simply be lifted out and left in the cabinet. Check out the little one:

Retro? That is so retro it’s the real thing. And its sides are thick, solid Corningware glass. The only way you could break it would be to stuff it with ice cubes and then stick it over a burner turned to “blow-torch.” And see that handle that looks like glass? It’s some sort of clear plastic. It stays cool even when the pot’s contents are at a full boil.

Hot dang! I’m back in style again. And it’s not costing me a penny.

😀

Here’s a warning, however: Do not use Corningware and Pyrex cookware that is of recent vintage. To be safe, the product should be at least 30 years old, or sold in Europe. The stuff made in China for the U.S., Australian, and Canadian markets is prone to exploding, because they add soda lime to the glass, which develops tiny cracks when exposed to heat. Smart, huh? If they’re not trying to kill your dog, they’re trying to kill you. 😉

* * *

So…how do you make percolator coffee that doesn’t taste like battery acid? Well, there’s a trick to it. Goes like this:

Never, ever let a stovetop percolator come to a full boil. The water does not have to boil for the percolator to perc. It only needs to come to a rather slow simmer. If you let it boil, you get battery acid. That’s why electric percolators make such horrid coffee. If you keep the heat low, you get incredible coffee.

Fill the pot with enough water to come no higher than just below the percolator basket. It should not touch the percolator basket. You can use less if you’re making less coffee, but don’t overfill.

Put about a tablespoon of ground coffee per serving in the percolator basket. If you grind your own, it shouldn’t be too fine. Note that the percolator basket’s little holes are not all that little; finely ground coffee will fall through those holes.

Place the percolator on the stove over medium to medium-high heat. And now here’s the hard part, for us moderns:

Do not leave the kitchen. This is not something you can do while frenetically multitasking. You can cook the bacon and eggs, but you can’t wander off and get distracted.

Pay attention to what’s happening on the stove. Watch and, if the pot is opaque, listen. The minute the water starts to bubble up into the percolator’s little glass top, turn the heat down. Regulate the heat so that the water continues to perc, but just perc. If it stops percing, turn the heat up a little; if it percs very fast, turn it down. You’ll get the hang of it.

This is much easier on a gas stove. If you have to use an electric stove, you may need two burners, one turned quite low and another set to medium or medium-high to bring the water just to the percing point; move the pot to the low-heat burner the minute it starts to perc.

I don’t recall how long the process took. The number that sticks in my mind is four minutes. But it probably was longer than that…eight, maybe. Test it after four minutes, and if it’s too weak, let it perc another few minutes. I don’t think it takes very long once the water starts to perc. You can tell how strong the coffee is by the color of the brew that’s bubbling into the little glass thing on the top of the percolator’s lid

* * *

LOL! The Corningware glass pot heats very fast. Because it’s glass, it doesn’t impart any metallic flavor to the water for your French press coffee. If you can find one (a couple are available on Amazon right now), this gadget will put you at the height of style (again…). Just be sure they predate 1998.