Two Vintage Kitchen Gadgets Revisited: A Cast Iron Apple Peeler and the Classy Cutter

Introduction

Vintage kitchen gadgets have a way of telling you exactly what cooks used to struggle with. This time around, two contrasting pieces of kitchen history landed on the test bench: a cast iron apple peeler patented in 1898 and a plastic garnish cutter from the mid-1980s. One is a masterclass in mechanical engineering. The other is pure dinner-party theatre.

Both were put through real use rather than admired from behind glass, and the results turned out to be far from equal.

Goodall Turntable 98: A 125-Year-Old Apple Peeler That Still Works

The Goodall Turntable 98 was patented in 1898 by the Goodall Co. of Antrim, New Hampshire, USA, a company already making blades, knives and cutting devices. It is a cast iron, desk-clamped peeler with a hand-driven gear that rotates two spur gears to turn the fork while the blade runs and rotates around the entire skin of the apple. The genius detail is the curved blade, which peels right from the base to the tip of the apple in one continuous ribbon, and the peeler head turns as it travels rather than simply sliding along.

In a timed race against a modern speed peeler, the Turntable 98 peeled an apple in an astonishing 2.27 seconds. It is genuinely fast, genuinely solid, and the engineering still impresses more than a century later.

So should you buy one? Context matters. This is a volume machine. It makes sense for cider making, orchard-scale apple work, or anyone producing tarte tatins and apple pies in serious quantities. In a small home kitchen, the main drawback is the space it takes up. For most cooks it is better appreciated as a collector’s piece than a daily driver, and finding one usually means hunting the second-hand market rather than buying new.

Classy Cuisine Classy Cutter: 1980s Garnish Theatre

From one torture-device lookalike to another. The Classy Cuisine Classy Cutter dates from the mid-1980s and features five different blades arranged in a star formation, designed to cut decorative serrated patterns into fruit and vegetables. The original advertising copy is a treat in itself: “serrate a strawberry, ornament an egg, trim a tomato, crown a kiwi, refine a radish.”

In use, it genuinely works. A tomato comes out with clean zig-zag edges, the classic five-cut pattern is easy to produce, and a ten-cut double twist is possible too. It also includes a Rotocut attachment, essentially a spiralizer before the spiralizer, which turns hard-centred fruit and vegetables into concertina-style garnishes with no instructions needed.

The catch is the build quality. The body feels flimsy and entirely plastic, which undercuts the “classy” promise. If anything deserved to be made from brass or copper, it is this. Still, in a blind test against hand-cutting the same pattern with a paring knife, this thing wins on speed and consistency, cutting each piece in seconds.

Who Is the Classy Cutter Actually For?

This is a niche tool with one clear home: anyone who needs decorative garnishes regularly. Buffet presentations, dressed salmon platters, star-shaped lemon slices for fish dishes, or a decorated boiled egg floating in a bowl of ramen. A bistro cook who once spent roughly 30 seconds hand-cutting each decorative lemon for fish and chips found the Cutter genuinely impressive by comparison.

For everyday home cooking, it is hard to justify the drawer space. But for a household that entertains, or anyone chasing a touch of retro elegance on the plate, it delivers exactly what the box promises: decorative dishes in only minutes.

The Verdict: Built to Last or Best Left in the Past?

The answers split cleanly. The Goodall Turntable 98 is unambiguously built to last. After 125 years it still peels apples beautifully, and it belongs as much in a museum as in a working kitchen. The Classy Cutter is a more complicated case: the gadget itself works, and the decorative food trend it served has stood the test of time, but the plastic build means it is best treated as a fun curiosity rather than a permanent kitchen resident.

The practical takeaway: if you peel apples in bulk or love beautifully engineered mechanical tools, the Turntable 98 is a genuinely worthwhile find. If your goal is impressive-looking garnishes with minimal effort, the Classy Cutter does the job, just do not expect it to feel premium in the hand.

Conclusion

Two gadgets, two very different legacies. The Goodall Turntable 98 earns its place as an engineering marvel that still performs, best suited to volume apple work and collectors alike. The Classy Cuisine Classy Cutter is a fun, functional novelty that excels at dinner-party decoration while leaving plenty to be desired in the build department. Match the tool to the task, and both still have something to offer.