What do today’s trendy food gadgets say about the way we cook?

My love of food gadgets started long before I showed any interest in cooking.

When I was a kid, my favorite way to spend weekend mornings was watching infomercials on TV. My favorite was the almost feature-length ad for Magic Bullet.

In it, husband and wife Mike and Mimi invite a group of fellow couples into their kitchen to show them the wonders of the blender system and its ability to make smoothies, chop salsa, and apparently reinvigorate their marriage. to introduce.

I loved commercials for everything from fancy soup ladles to the infamous slap chops. I convinced my parents to buy me her express pasta. This was just a plastic tube that could turn the spaghetti into her one very al dente blob.

Today, home cooks are enthusiastic about air fryers, Instant Pots and Vitamix blenders.

From avocado pitters to countertop composters, these devices range from techless to high-tech. It can be highly specialized in one task, or it can claim to do it all like the Thermomix or the Suvie. These tools save us time, care about sustainable and healthy eating, and promise to produce the crispiest roast chicken.

Although they look trendy now, cookware is never new. Just ask Corinne Mynatt.

Curator and writer is the author of Tools for Food, a book that chronicles the origins of 250 essential food gadgets, including peelers, baking foams, mortars and pestle.

“I wanted to research the design and cultural history of these tools around the world and turn them into beautiful books, books that didn’t exist yet,” she says.

Mynatt notes that most innovations in food tools have occurred in the last 200 years, guided by the rise of the mechanical age, expositions such as the 1852 World’s Fair in London, and a general interest in mechanized technology. said. “That’s when we started seeing things like mechanized apple peelers and cherry pitters,” he adds Mynatt.

Today’s version of the London exhibition could be TikTok. This is where users post videos about the “life-changing” food gadgets you see so often on Amazon.

A recent scroll introduced you to a battery-powered vegetable peeler and a really hilarious vibrating silicone tool with three prongs that you put in a pot and stir.

After centuries of innovation, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve reached the limits of what we can do. It’s all starting to get closer to solutionism—solving culinary problems that don’t really exist.

Aficionados of this or that gadget have equally ardent naysayers. Lara Buchar, editor of Food Network Canada, has strict rules about what goes in the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t buy a garlic press, an apple corer, an egg slicer, or whatever a good knife could do.” “As I learned more about home cooking, I realized that less is better.”

This minimalist philosophy is the same for Mynatt. But she adds that the right, often low-tech, tools can actually improve our sensory experience of food.

“I went to the grocery store recently and noticed a lot of shelled nuts. It made me realize how much we’ve lost by not cracking the shells ourselves.” A device that unlocks the rich, woody aroma of the walnut heart doesn’t seem too superfluous.

“The urge to do things better and faster isn’t all that new,” Buchar says. In fact, we’ve been content with overnight delivery and restaurant meals delivered to your doorstep with just a few taps of your smartphone.

And we want to own objects that work hard. “The gadgets that seem to have the greatest impact on our collective consciousness are those that allow us to multitask. I think it reflects,” he says Buchar.

Acceptance of certain kitchen tools is also cultural. A rice cooker is essential for Bouchard, who grew up in a Chinese household, but Mainat recalls that her family in France loves a slow cooker. In warmer climates, plugging in appliances is recommended instead of turning on hot stoves.

Additionally, certain tools make cooking more accessible to people living with disabilities and chronic pain.

Bouchard admits he bought a toast stamp to carve the Eiffel Tower into his bread, but ultimately, your gadget should reflect your approach to cooking.

“If you’re someone who makes apple pies every week, it might be worth owning an apple corer. If you’re like me and make one apple pie every year, a knife is all you need,” says Buchar.

For my mother, cooking is a lifelong chore. It’s all about making cooking as efficient and painless as possible. For me, it’s a creative exercise. You can search for gadgets and gizmos that claim to make your food taste better, or experiment with advanced techniques.

The best tools for those who enjoy cooking are those that work in conjunction with Hands-on Kitchen Time.

“While a whole chicken is air-fried and crisped, we prepare a lush green salad, mix the dressing by hand, and serve it with a slice of a lovely French baguette,” says Bouchard, noting that her culinary delights are hers. It doesn’t come from pushing the button on your trusty air fryer, “but it certainly makes the joy more accessible.”