Pigs in blankets

[Nanohedron]

Yes a grill is ... ideally charcoal heat or a live gas flame.

When I grill it has to be charcoal every time. It's less convenient than gas, but nothing beats charcoal for flavor.

A hot plate is an electric appliance you plug in and use to cook in your seedy efficiency apartment or room in a no-tell motel

That is indeed the classic, sad image.

[Nanohedron]

I don't have a broiler feature in my current oven, either, but usually I've had one..

I've never heard of an oven without the broiler. I guess it is something I'll need to check the specs on if I buy a new stove. Everybody's trying to shave off features.

Well, FWIW, my stove is an old, creaky, small, and evidently cut-rate one, and judging by appearances I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 25 - 30 years old, and maybe even more. And it's still cranking along very well. Normally I would expect a broiler to be a standard feature in any oven, so given its age, I was dumbfounded to see that this one had none. Any Yank would be tempted to accuse the landlord of parsimony.

I seldom have used a broiler, but when I want one, I really want one.

It's so true. Once you've discovered the considerable merits of a broiler, even if you don't use it much, it becomes an essential that is notable for its absence. It's a bit irritating not to have one; if my oven had a broiler I definitely would put it to a fair amount of use.

[busterbill]

Well, FWIW, my stove is an old, weedy, small, and evidently cut-rate one, and judging by appearances I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 25 - 30 years old. And it's still cranking along very well. Normally I would expect a broiler to be a standard feature in any oven, so I can tell you that given its age, I was dumbfounded to see that this one had none. Any Yank would be tempted to accuse the landlord more of parsimony than thrift.

Unfortunately for you, if your stove is in the 25-30 year old range it just might last forever. About 15 years ago, give or take, "high tech" electronics and computerized gizmos designed on the cutting edge have taken 2 of my stoves down. Two of my oven's computerized touch screen thermostat controls died and were deemed too expensive to fix. While one burner on the 3rd range just refused to turn off. It was one of those safety featured, push in then turn electronic ignition knobs.

I am very handy with most things, but couldn't get the darn thing to shut down with anything I tried. I put a large pot of water on the stove to keep from burning my house down while going at it with various tools. I eventually gave up and called the fire department since I felt less than confident moving the hot stove out from the wall to turn off the gas on my own. They also attempted to turn it off with their toolbox of tricks to no success.

Again, the repair estimate was close to the price of a new stove. So I guess the current life expectancy of a stove is 5 years.

My latest trick when purchasing an appliance it to ask a repair person at a busy repair service, "What's the brand name you service the least?" Which here in the past two years led me to LG. Fingers crossed

[Nanohedron]

Unfortunately for you, if your stove is in the 25-30 year old range it just might last forever.

I expect as much. I figure it'll be replaced when the oven door falls off, and that doesn't appear to be on the horizon, either.

About 15 years ago, give or take, "high tech" electronics and computerized gizmos designed on the cutting edge have taken 2 of my stoves down. Two of my oven's computerized touch screen thermostat controls died and were deemed too expensive to fix. While one burner on the 3rd range just refused to turn off. It was one of those safety featured, push in then turn electronic ignition knobs.

And that's why, even with my kvetching, I'm fine with what I've got. I'm no Luddite, but I can't see how computerizing a stove is an improvement; it's just a stove, fercryinoutloud, not a bloody spaceship. Trading simple knobs for an obscure learning curve and fragility is not the way forward.

So I guess the current life expectancy of a stove is 5 years.

Which only reinforces my argument against over-engineering these things. People call planned obsolescence "just business", but I believe unnaturally forcing the market is a bad road in the bigger economic picture; it clearly holds customer loyalty and confidence to be of little value, which is short-sighted; and it only contributes to waste, which is irresponsible.

My latest trick when purchasing an appliance it to ask a repair person at a busy repair service, "What's the brand name you service the least?" Which here in the past two years led me to LG. Fingers crossed

That's a good tactic. I agree that LG tends to be a good, reliable brand; on recommendation I too got myself a couple of LG appliances, and so far they've been holding up quite well.

[Brus]

I always understood pigs-in-blankets to be sausages wrapped in pancakes ...

[benhall.1]

I always understood pigs-in-blankets to be sausages wrapped in pancakes ...

Wha???

[david_h]

Are they all stoves over there? I think I would use 'gas stove' but 'electric cooker', though I hadn't thought about it before.

[benhall.1]

I have a wood-burning stove, and a cooker, which is an Aga.

[benhall.1]

I have a wood-burning stove, and a cooker, which is an Aga.

[david_h]

If it was an unqualified 'stove' I would go by context but default to the thing you warm the house with - though we have cooked on our wood burner. Aga seem to use both 'cooker' and 'range' for their cookers.

[Nanohedron]

I always understood pigs-in-blankets to be sausages wrapped in pancakes ...

Yep, that's another one.

Wha???

Sure. Now, I'm accustomed to always seeing my pancakes and sausages in time-honored side-by-side fashion, so it never occurred to me why anyone would go to the trouble to wrap one inside the other. I think it's more for the kids. But I've never had one myself; in fact, I've never had any of the sausage versions whether in dough or bacon, only the cabbage roll version. Which, by the way, I highly recommend.

I'm reminded of how Mom used to wrap bacon (streaky to you Right Ponders) around water chestnuts, skewer them with a toothpick, and broil them. I seem to recall there was a wee dab of mustard worked in there, too. They were very good, and they were a go-to part of her arsenal of party noshes. I don't recall any clever name for them, though.

[Nanohedron]

If it was an unqualified 'stove' I would go by context but default to the thing you warm the house with - though we have cooked on our wood burner. Aga seem to use both 'cooker' and 'range' for their cookers.

"Stove" in the US almost universally means what "cooker" does in the UK, however it heats. We also use "range", but that tends to be more industry vernacular, I think. We do have other applications for the word "stove", but they're context-specific (like a wood stove for heating, sure, but there are wood-fired ranges still in use, too, and we'll call those stoves without a thought; sometimes you have to be clear), so non-cooker meanings are not to the fore in general use; say "stove" to your average Yank, and the first thing they'll think of is that thing in the kitchen with an oven and a rangetop (and maybe a broiler ). We don't normally use the word "cooker"; consequently, it sounds sort of odd. But "cooker" might be used as shorthand for a slow cooker (crock pot).

Americans in Japan are often taken aback at first when they encounter the Japanese word for an electric or kerosene heater: sutōbu, which is as close as their native sound system can get with "stove", here an inheritance from - you guessed it - British English. "Stove? Why stove?? You can't cook on it," we protest.

You just get used to it.

[busterbill]

Are they all stoves over there? I think I would use 'gas stove' but 'electric cooker', though I hadn't thought about it before.

A stove by any other name would smell as...


No, no, wrong quote. In the US, at least where I come from, a kitchen stove is called a stove if it is fueled by gas, electric or wood.

And a wood stove would still be called a stove even if it was in another room as a heater.


And yes, a breakfast sausage wrapped in a pancake has been called a pig in a blanket, as well as everything else mentioned in all the posts.

The only one I've never had offered to me was the one wrapped in cabbage.

Now I'm off to eat one of the salami wrapped mozzarella sticks Whole Foods substituted in my quarantine grocery delivery order. They are doing their best, but have been out of various things. For the most part I just say yes when they substitute, so I'm expanding my habitual diet.

[DrPhill]

It sounds to me as if what the left-ponders call a grill, I call a griddle........

[fatmac]

Yeah, griddle or hotplate.
Heating from above is a grill.
Pork sausage wrapped in bacon is a pig in blanket; they seem to mainly be talking about hotdogs.


Edit: ....& come to think about it, isn't an old chicken a broiler when you use it to make chicken soup(?).
A stove is a fire/heater with a flue; you cook on a cooker, & you bake in an oven.