Have you browsed antique stores to find many of them filled with all sorts of contraptions once found in kitchens across the country? If you have, it will come as no surprise that there are not only areas of Museums displaying kitchen gadgets from the past but you might not realize that there are actually entire museums dedicated to old stuff found and used in kitchens.

Southwest Missouri has recently opened one such museum called Larrison’s World’s Largest Small Appliance Museum. This new attraction of items from generations long ago has an amazing 3,500 kitchen gadgets. It’s drawing collectors from states in the surrounding areas.

With that many gadgets on display you have to figure there are few that no one even remembers today; along with the expected items like toasters and waffle irons.

According to the museum owner, Richard Larrison, he has a gadget once promoted by Oscar Mayer. It was a hot dog ‘electrocuter’ and Oscar Mayers claimed “Electrocuted hot dogs are delicious.” Ya think cooking with electricity was kind of a new thing then?!?

If you find yourself in or around Diamond, Missouri you might want to check it out… bet it will make you appreciate todays modern gadgets even more!

There’s a very cool site on the web from the Michigan State University Museum that shows you images from their collection of kitchenware and cooking gadgets. What’s really great is that it’s all alphabetized and linked so if you’re searching for a particular item you can easily take a peek. Of course that doesn’t help identify those ‘mystery gadgets’ presently un-named with functions unknown.

But if you’re looking for historical objects along with an explanation, be it an old copper kettle, a not-so-common-today beetle, or your classic butter churn, this would be a great spot to start your search!

For those of you in Colorado, you might want to drop by the Lucretia Vaile Museum, sponsored by the Palmer Lake Historical Society where you can take a look at, as they describe it -