Treasure your can opener - its future is in doubt

THE humble can opener is in danger of disappearing forever.

Finding a can opener can be difficult. Picture: Cathy Adams

SOME months ago I wrote of the imminent demise of Stickman, that little figure that illustrates the many dangers that threaten our wellbeing on a daily basis.

I'd like to now draw your attention to another endangered species. The humble can opener is in danger of disappearing forever.

I don't use much canned food - tuna and peeled tomatoes are the only tins I am never without.

But even they mostly come in a can with a poptop - the norm these days.

When I recently had to use an opener for coconut milk I couldn't actually find the little sucker in the drawer.

I am a person who largely relies on the visual. I'm a graphic designer by trade, and therefore colour and form are things that stick in my mind (or perhaps I became a graphic designer because of that - chicken, egg).

Therefore, I wasted close to 10 minutes trying to locate the aforementioned device, accompanied by the odd curse word.

I realised when I finally located it that I had been looking for an orange can opener, whereas the model I currently own is white. I haven't owned an orange one for 15 years. I left it with my son in Sydney when I had a tree-change, and I replaced it with a white version. However, I use it so rarely that I had forgotten what colour it was.

I remember when my parents bought their first rotary can opener, way back in the 1960s. Prior to that they owned a nasty little pointy thing that had a corkscrew incorporated into the handle.

That particular model was all that was available then, and the corkscrew was notorious for unwinding itself when one attempted to open the Porphery Pearl. The end result was a straightened piece of wire, an unopened bottle, and even more curse words (not from me then, I was just a kid).

The pointy bit of the can opener was stabbed into the lid of the can, and a levering action was used to cut through the steel. It produced a nasty jagged edge that was capable of severing arteries if your attention wandered for a split second.

One of the few grocery items that had a built-in opener back then was tinned meat, such as the Bronte lambs' tongue lid. It had a little key to unravel a narrow strip from the wall of the can.

My father was the only one entrusted to use this tricky device. It was common for the whole thing to slip and snap, leaving the can forever sealed - just like the wine. My mother would hover anxiously, sucking in her breath and whispering "careful, Dan" if it looked like it was going pear shaped.

Treasure your can opener - use it or lose it.