During the 50s, my Mom cooked on a wood/coal fired stove so no broiler. But, during the 60s, she broiled just about everything that didn't run away! Chicken, steaks, chops, burgers, fish...

I'd LOVE a vintage stove. Actually, what I want is an AGA.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: AGA

Back in the 50's mom wasn't big on frying. She baked and broiled a lot. Her stove also had a separate burner in a hole that housed it's own steamer pot! Mid-century stoves were very cool; of course we didn't think they were anything special at the time.

My mother did....and my father grilled....he piled up some bricks and put a grate on them and built a fire and cookeds teqaks, chicken hot dogs and hamburgers.
My mother never cooked lamb chops nor chicken ( unless it was roasted) any other way....fish got broiled.
In 1945 my mother bought a Chambers stove with a deepw ell cooker and as tove top broiler that raised with a crank....there was a griddle on top of the broiler burner for pancakes.
Remember, back them we didn't have propane grills.
Linda C

Everything, everyone else said !!!!!
My MIL Had a Griswald Skillet for cooking T Bone Steaks.

It was not used for anything else. She would get it Sizziling Hot and throw the Steak in along with chopped Garlic.

Talk about getting to know what GOOD is !!!

I don't remember Broiling too often. There wasn't too much meat around. ( Rationing )
Everyone had a Victory Garden. We would bring salt and sneek a Plum tomatoe. UMMMMuuhh !!!

Sunday was Macaroni Day. Monday was Soup Day . Then whatever. Pasta 3 times a week.
Friday was Fish Day.

I had a lot of Irish friends. They always wanted to come to our house on Sunday.
For Pasta and meatballs.

My Grandmother used the Double oven because she baked a lot

They're the ovens you had to light with a Match and if you delayed there was a BOOM !!!

They weren't very energy efficient as they are now but
the kitchen heated nice.

In Jersey on my Grandfathers Farm, They had a Wood Cook Stove ( not like the Itailan Joke )

It burned Wood.
There was a lever you turned, to route the heat around the Oven, for Baking.

And a Tank attached for heating Water.

I have a lot of good memories of the Old Days.
But we were satisfied with very little then.
Enjoyed Family get togethers.

LOU

Back in the 50Âs my mom had one of those big white stoves that had 2 ovens. The big oven was gas and the smaller was electric. It had a removable griddle between the 4 top burners that you could take out and put what looked like a built in faberware rotisserie with racks on the side. She did steaks in that as well as using the rotisserie for chickens. She loved that stove but left it with the house when they moved here at the lake. She did get a restaurant stove with a big griddle plus a cook top with all extras in her new kitchen but she always said it was not as good as her old stove. Dad still uses the restaurant stove more than he uses the cook top but then he likes everything fried. LOL I looked at vintage stoves when we remodeled but couldnÂt justify the cost. Like someone said on the kitchen forum if it cost that much it better come with four wheels and keys.

Claudia

The vintage stoves where I am are really inexpensive (SF Bay area). Of course, those are in "original condition". I did a lot of Craigslist shopping for a 1950s stove while planning my kitchen remodel but chickened out.

my mom broiled lots of food too. Chops, chicken, steaks, lamb......

Me? I'm scared to death to broil food. It always catches on fire and fire makes me nervous.

Coconut: OMG, I've completely forgotten about the cinnamon toast; and you absolutely must toast one side then broil the other with the butter, cinnamon and sugar.
Shaun: My modern double oven broilers scare me, too. I set off fire alarms, and the neighbors are calling to tell us the front door is open and are we all right! Yes, just broiling fish! Mom's old stove had no ventilating system and, of course, there were no smoke alarms.

My mom had a G.E. Hotpoint electric stove almost like this one, except that the big oven was higher and underneath was a smaller, narrow warming oven.
But it had the well with the deep removable soup pot as in this illustration from the web.

What a great idea to have the soup pot recessed down in the stove. I guess people made their own soup much more often then as there were few available in tins.

I don't remember her broiling much but she did make a lot of roasts in the oven.

of the stove we had when I was small.
I recognize even the latch on the oven door and the unusual temperature setting mechanism on the side wall of the oven.

SharonCb

When I mentioned Rationing , that was in the mid 40's.
Sharon:
They still had the same Ranges in the early 50's.
Then everything started Booming .

My father had one like in your Link in our place in NJ.
Lou

Wow, I would like that soup pot thingy today!

/t

My Mom broiled steaks in the winter, my Dad cooked them on the grill in summer. That's the only thing I remember using the broiler for unless melting cheese counts. She either made roasts in the oven or on top fried chicken and pork chops.

I love those old stoves. I had one in the the old house we rented here in CA 32 years ago. When we did the kitchen remodel 2.5 years ago, I wish I would have got one instead of the Wolf I bought.
Clare

One interesting thing is that many older British stoves have a separate broiler mounted up and over the burners.
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When I stayed the first time with friends in England I was amazed to see this strange looking stove. I'd never heard of this addition to a kitchen stove, but they used it all the time for cooking bacon and making toast. And one of my British friends here in Tenerife has one in her kitchen. I imagine she must have had it shipped down here because they don't sell them here. They call it a grill, rather than a broiler but the flame is on top and one just slides a pan into the grill to cook or toast.

SharonCb

My mom always used the broiler and so do I. I thought everyone did until the subject came up among freinds. I found out I'm the only one who uses it.

I have an O'Keefe and Merrit 6 burner, double over, double broiler. I love it. I bought it from an estate sale, had it re-chromed, and my husband, the chef, thinks it's the best home stove we've ever had. (We had a Viking for a while.)

An AGA is always on, which in Southern California is ridiculous.

My mother was scared of gas, so we had electric stoves, but since she served TV dinners for nearly every occasion (including Thanksgiving) it didn't really matter. My mother has many talents, but her tastebuds are in her feet.

My mother never broiled anything in the 50s that I can remember. She liked to make pot roasts that she would cook in a slow oven. I think she thought broiling would heat the kitchen too much. I did very much appreciate the 1950s stoves when I was a child, and I loved going appliance shopping and looking at all the color options. I remember one stove that had dials that would light up in different colors, depending on the setting. They would have a circle of glowing color when turned on, and I absolutely loved those as a child.

When I lived in Houston, we bought a 1949 stove for $10. Vintage appliances were extremely cheap in Houston (most people there liked everything new), and my eccentric neighbors lived in an old University of St. Thomas dormitory that was huge, and they collected old stoves and cats. They had indoor cats and outdoor cats, and the indoor cats never went outside, and the outside cats never went inside. When the building was condemned and they had to move out, they were still moving old stoves out while the demolition of the building had already begun.

Vintage stoves are especially expensive here in Los Angeles.

Lars

We had a 'rotissimat' - a stand-alone tabletop oven, about the size of our current microwave ovens. It had 3 tray positions, but the only one my mother ever used was the closest one to the top mounted burners. We had shoe-leather minute steak, shoe-leather London broil, shoe-leather burgers, shoe-leather chicken (sensing a theme here?) and shoe-leather beef liver. Yes, she broiled her way through the '50s!

Helene

I started my married life in 1953 and I had a new range. I don't remember the brand name, but it had a deep well. I never broiled with it only the cinnamon toast and I still don't broil today. I do remember the cinnamon toast recipe. My recipe you mixed the sugar, cinnamon and butter together and put it under the broiler on the bread after toasting the other side. It was very good. Our victory gardens were just the same old gardens our family always had anyway, nothing different. I still have a pretty large garden even today. 30 x 100 ft. Nice memories.

Sue

During the Fifties, steak was the quintessential American food. Thanks to increasing prosperity and major improvements in transportation and refrigeration, it was affordable, fast to cook, and considered healthy.

Oh yes, they are magical!! They let you use top heat instead of just all-around convection heat. They allow you to control the doneness of the outside of the food separately from the doneness of the inside. That means that you can slow cook your potroast to tender falling-apart perfection low and slow, then pop in under the broiler and give it lovely color. You can toast massive quantities of bread at the same time; you can reheat deep fried food to almost crunchy (and you can reheat faster than in an oven on the regular setting); if your pizza crust is overdone but your cheese isn't quite melted, you can rectify the situation; you can turn out oven-baked meat and fish that isn't pale and sickly looking. If your muffins are cooked through but not quite golden enough on the top, you can fix that! I hear you can even put a sugar crust on creme brulee!! Broilers are wonderful!!

Grandma had what I believe to be a 1945 O'Keefe & Merrit that I just revamped (not calling it restored, not sure I deserve that) but it does not have the grillevator, it has a long door on the left for storage only, an oven and a broiler, four burners and a griddle in the middle. Since it was missing the clock I bought a 50's on Craigslist ($75) and screwed in the clock. All of the knobs were better on the newer one so I'm having the old ones painted red as well as the old crumb trays painted red since the 50's are chrome, the red will be my xmas look! so I guess I'm ending up with a mishmash but it still reminds me of my great grandmother making goodies for us back in the 50's. I wish my mom had grilled some of the fish we ate everyday since our relatives were fishermen and we could not afford red meat or chicken, she vegetables and made it like a stew since it made it go farther, she served it with beans and rice since we live in Mexico and its what we ate back then. Anybody ever heard of abalone chorizo?, yep, we ate that too and lobster burritos, what I would have given for a juicy steak!

All in all I love the look of my redone kitchen and all it took was some elbow grease and about $100.00 so far!