What is it?
This dual cherry pitter, advertised as “The Family Cherry Stoner,” is just one of many simple mechanical devices designed in the late 1800s by the New Hampshire–based Goodell Company, a pioneer in the development of labor-saving devices for the kitchen (think peach parers, potato parers, and one “lightning apple parer”). To use this cast-iron and wood tool, I attached it to the side of my countertop and then loaded eight cherries into the hopper. I slid them two at a time into the recessed dimples near the handle and then lifted the handle, which caused two curved pitting arms to press down through the fruit and push the pits into a waiting bowl. When I retracted the handle, the pitted cherries dropped on an angled wooden slide to roll into a separate bowl. While I wished the slide had been pitched a bit steeper—the cherries needed some coaxing to roll
