Modern Anachronisms: The Churchkey
Dean
I'd be willing to bet that most people under 30 barely know what item depicted on the right is for. Especially the sharp pointy end. It's known as a churchkey.
Why do I mention it? Well for one thing, I've recently been drinking a lot of tomato juice. When I was growing up, almost all juice--orange juice, tomato juice, grape juice, grapefruit juice--was in cans that required an opener like this. Even beer and soda pop used to commonly come that way.
But now for some reason only tomato juice and a few other things come in such cans. At least, in my part of the country. They still sell good old-fashioned V8 juice that way, for example, and it's cheaper in that primitive can than in an easy-opening plastic bottle.
I noticed what an anachronism this is recently when I decided, "Hey, I drink a lot of tomato juice, and it's way cheaper in those old-fashioned cans." (Which, by the way, it is; almost a dollar a can difference.) So I bought some tomato juice in cheap cans, then realized that I did not currently own a churchkey. Worse, I had to go to five different stores before I could even find one. A frickin' churchkey!
My local convenience store didn't have one. The little grocery mart down the street didn't. The local hardware store on my way home from work didn't have one. Other stores didn't have one. When I finally located one at the supermarket, it cost only a dollar. But even when I found one there, I had to hunt. There were literally dozens of specialized utensils, including wine corkers and lemon juicers and garlic presses and apple corers. Indeed, there were at least a half-dozen different egg slicers (egg slicers?? who the hell needs an egg slicer?!?) and only two churchkeys on the whole wall.
If you're young and still not sure what this thing is for, here's an explanation: the sharp pointy end is used to punch a triangular hole in a can so you can pour the liquid out. If you know what you're doing, you punch two holes: one large to pour the liquid out of, and a smaller one on the other side to equalize the pressure so it pours evenly.
You actually have to explain that to kids these days. 30 or 40 years ago, most convenience beverages came that way. Including most beer and canned soda pop, as it happens. Now they're practically exotic.
Almost like... shoelaces. (Mwahahahaha!)
Also, while it's more expensive, I recommend you try Vedge. I like it a lot better. In fact, I picked some up last night while stocking up for the storm, and it sounds like breakfast to me!
As for churchkeys: I was probably in college before I heard the term. I don't think it's used much in Michigan. We just call them can openers.
It's plotting it's return to power.
I know it.
:)
Once in college a professor asked if anyone could remember their very first calculator. We were talking technological anachronisms. He was thinking Texas Instruments or something. I said I could show them mine and brought my Slide Rule the next day. The professor didn't know what it was when he saw it. I laughed at him.
He'd never been to the moon I guess.
Same thing around here, but my great grandpappy, who served in the Big One, would call em that every now and then. I think he picked that up in Europe.
Maybe not a regional thing but a a demographic thing?
We always called the thing Dean has pictured a church key. The sharp end was used to cut a hole in the top of a can, while the opposite end was for removing those pressed-on metal bottle caps.
A "can opener" was a distinctly different device. The can openers of that day were one-piece mechanical things that had a short curved blade and either a hook, or a slot that you wedged under the lip of the can. Using a walking-cutting motion it was used to remove the entire top of the can as opposed to just punching a hole. (Do Swiss Army and Boy Scout knives still come with can-opener blades?)
What folks call these things might be one of those regional things like "pop" "soda" or "coke".
I think it is a regionalism also.
It's called a 'can opener' or 'bottle opener' in my part of New England. 'Church key' is certainly understood and sometimes used, but it's not (or at least wasn't) usually called that.
I can find them at my grocery store (along with other kitchen gadgets), and absolutely at a liquor store. (Funny how that one works!)
We didn't have the issue Roy discusses. Context provided enough info to distinguish which kind of can opener was at required. 'Church keys', though, could be used to roughly open the other kinds of cans and often did so on camping trips when the larger one was left behind.
I have always been fond of those tiny little can openers provided to open C-Rations. Nifty little buggers. I've lost all of mine now, through the many moves I've made, but I used to always keep one in the car and another in my fishing kit.
This is a church key
Wikipedia is wrong.
Just kidding. I am always right.
Here in this part of the country people still call bottle openers church keys as well though.
Yup, Michael D, you're correct. I always thought a "churchkey" was the open-looped opener.
We have all 4 utensils: about 3 can/bottle openers, 1 churchkey, 1 manual "crank" can opener and 1 electric can opener (not to mention a couple of corkscrews).
We're prepared!
My wife and I buy Point Special blue lable bottles by the case of 24. We surely don't need the pointed end of the churchkey to open these, but the caps are on too tight for either of us to pop them with our thumbs alone.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Man, I haven't seen one a them things in a long time.
Thanks for the memories Mike.
I kept looking. We've used the same candy supplier since we opened our store in 1971, so I called Mr. Higgins of Donohue and Higgins to ask if he sold bottle openers under his "sundries" line. He said yes, and what I really wanted was a "church key" opener. I said okay, send me a dozen, and pictured the paint can opener type, with a loop at one end and a lever tip at the other end. What I got are what Dean calls the church key, and what I knew as the bottle opener or can opener (the OTHER can opener is exactly correct). Mr. Higgins is 70-ish, so maybe it's not so much geographical as it is age-related. Now when I order them each summer, I always ask for church keys. They retail for 99 cents each, and I sell dozens each summer.
My son collects unusual or vintage bottle and can openers. He has several of the church keys, most with beer advertising engraved on them, such as Rheingold, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Utica Club, Genesee. He also has one made by Chesterfield cigarettes - must have been some kind of carton gift or a promotional gift. Cigarette companies used to give lots of things away back then. I remember my mother getting a necklace once. At christmas, they had cartons made out of decorated tins, with matching coffee table lighters as gifts. Long time ago.
Linda
In any case, I recently had to buy one at an antique store. I honestly don't understand why they're so hard to find. I may be the exception here, but I use them quite frequently, to open cans of broth, evaporated milk, tomato juice, and such. It's astonishing how hard they are to find, given the ubiquity of egg slicers, as you say.
I never did understand that etymology of the term "churchkey," though, and I was unsure how widespread it was outside of the south where I grew up.
"Churchkey" would have been a violation of the seperation of church and vegetable juice.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.