There is a particular sound that belongs entirely to the past. It is the sound of a percolator working itself up to a boil on a Saturday morning — that slow, uneven gurgle, followed by the smell reaching the back bedroom before anyone had said a word to anyone else.

Kitchens have gotten quieter since then. Quieter, cleaner, and considerably less orange. Here are eleven things that lived in almost every American kitchen fifty years ago and have almost entirely disappeared.

1. The stovetop percolator. Before drip machines and pods, coffee was made by boiling water up a metal stem and back down through the grounds, over and over, until it was strong enough to stand a spoon in. You judged it by the sound and the color in the little glass knob on the lid.

2. Avocado green and harvest gold appliances. For roughly a decade, these two colors — along with a burnt orange that has no modern equivalent — were the default. A white refrigerator looked like something from a hospital.

3. The wall-mounted phone with the twenty-foot cord. It hung by the doorway, and the cord stretched just far enough to reach around the corner for a private conversation, which was the entire point.

4. Tupperware in a full rainbow. Not bought in a store. Bought at a party, in a neighbor’s living room, from a woman who kept the catalog in her purse.

5. The recipe box. Index cards, some typed, most handwritten, several in the handwriting of someone no longer living. Splattered, warped, irreplaceable.

6. The metal ice cube tray with the lever. You pulled the handle and the whole tray cracked at once, with a sound like a small argument.

7. Melamine dinnerware. Nearly unbreakable, faintly plastic to the touch, in patterns of daisies or wheat. It survived everything except the dishwasher.

8. The bread box. A dedicated piece of furniture for one food item, sitting on the counter, usually with a sliding wooden lid.

9. The hand-crank egg beater. Two whisks, one gear, and a wrist that got tired halfway through the meringue.

10. S&H Green Stamps and the licking book. You got them at the grocery store, pasted them into books at the kitchen table, and traded full books for a toaster or a lamp. Children were often assigned the licking.

11. The wall calendar from the local business. Free from the insurance office, the funeral home, or the feed store. It hung on a nail by the phone and held the entire family schedule in pencil.