Dumb Consumer Item of the Month - Kitchen Gadgets

How many kitchen gadgets does one home need? Apparently a lot. A whole lot. It’s a gadget-o-rama out there. 

It’s endless, really, this obsession with creating kitchen gadgets that promise to make cooking easier, but only end up cluttering countertops for a while before being put in the cupboard, or worse, out at the curb, in disappointment and frustration.

For example, if you can boil water with an animal skin and hot rocks from the fire, what do you need a high-tech immersion heater for?

Immersion circulators—also known as sous vide machines—used to be reserved for professional chefs in fancy kitchens. But what was once only for fine dining is now commonplace in home kitchens.

I don’t know how commonplace this gadget is - I had never seen one before until a reader brought these to my attention. 

Why? Because she had just found one and liberated it from the trash. A new one is worth $260.00 Canadian dollars, or €160 Euros. Our trash liberator friend sold it for €50 Euros, so a good day of collecting, and the purchaser got a bargain, too, if they actually use the thing.

Sous vide is an unusual process that begins with vacuum sealing food in a plastic bag, so you would also need a vacuum sealer. Oh boy, another gadget! 

The plastic-sealed food is then long cooked in a hot water bath heated by the immersion unit. Cooks say this method retains juices, tastes, and aromas that otherwise would be lost using other methods.

Cooking food in plastic does not sound that great, although the process can also be done using a glass jar.

How many cooks do this often enough to want to own a high tech immersion cooker? Not many, I would imagine. 

 

The only kitchen gadget most people need is a Mombot Kitchen Cooker that does everything except cut your food into bite sized pieces, and wipe your mouth with a napkin after you are done.

I think Elon Musk is working on one. They would sell like hotcakes, and be able to make and serve them, too.

Some kitchen gadgets can be game changers, and I would put a food processor in that category. Others seem entirely superfluous, but each to their own.

Where do you stand on kitchen gadgets? What are you favourites, and which would you never own? 

You aren’t going to find a high tech immersion heater for sous vide cooking in my kitchen drawer. 

Or in my trash.

Thank you to Le-Chat for the idea for today’s post.