It’s a terrible thing, blowtorch envy. This week, on BBC2’s Masterchef: The Professionals, the Michelin-starred Anton Piotrowski used a miniature flamethrower to blacken half a dozen scallops and some blameless cos lettuce leaves. Not the whole leaves (that would be ridiculous) – just the tougher rib, down the middle.
It was both annoying – stupid faddy chefs with their stupid faddy paraphernalia – and seductive.
“I’d love one of those,” I thought, before remembering that I already owned a blowtorch and had used it just once in eight years. The second time I reached for it, wiping off the cobwebs and dead flies, I discovered that all the fuel had evaporated. By the time I found the refill, the urge for creme brulee was long gone.
This may not be something you want to hear if you still have Christmas presents to buy, but most kitchen gadgets are a waste of money. I once treated myself to a pasta maker, imagining happy evenings turning out lasagne and fettuccine so fine you could read a cookbook through them. I clamped the machine to the table top, oiled the rollers, cranked out a few sheets before deciding life was too short to disassemble everything, wash and dry the components, then apply a thin layer of protective grease, as the manual recommended. Within months it was a mass of rust and mould.
It wasn’t much of a loss: you can make pasta perfectly well with a rolling pin. If you want it in strips, use a knife. (That’s a real knife, by the way, not the electric version my parents owned. That didn’t cut any better than a manual one, and left you with two blades to clean, rather than one.)
Among much other junk, my kitchen drawers now contain a burger press, a ravioli stamp and a gnocchi roller. They’re all more trouble than they’re worth, especially given how cramped most homes are. You can shape burgers with your hands, form gnocchi with a fork, cut ravioli with a knife or pastry cutter – all of which are widely available and far simpler to clean. The burger press, for example, breaks down into four pieces of plastic and a metal spring. All must be thoroughly washed – raw meat! – and by hand, since the dishwasher leaves the cavities full of food scraps and dirty water.
Forget the bleeding-edge gizmos that Rhik Samadder tests elsewhere on this site; even the humblest gadget has the ability to complicate your life. Take the garlic press. In theory this is a great invention, instantly mincing the pungent cloves without leaving you with stinking hands. In practice these initial gains are immediately clawed back as you struggle to remove compacted pulp from the little metal grille. The only way to clean my Ikea Koncis is to stick your mouth against the grille so you end up with garlicky lips, blow fiercely, then poke at the holes with a toothpick, before finally scrubbing angrily with the washing-up brush. No dishwasher in the land can shift this muck.
The thing is, everyone knows the correct way to prepare garlic: you chop or slice it. As Goodfellas showed, a razor blade is the only substitute for a knife. But such is the lure of the purpose-built gadget that time and again we give technology the benefit of the doubt. Just when you think you are out, it pulls you back in. Have I mentioned the salad spinner that leaves the lettuce wetter than when it went in?
It’s early, but I’ve made my first new year’s resolution: from now on I will not buy a single gadget if I can achieve the same results with what I already own and/or some elbow grease. I may even get rid of my pizza cutter (I’ve got knives, haven’t I?) and lemon squeezer (and hands).
Who knows? If I chuck out enough I might have room for another Masterchef regular: the sous-vide kit, which that lets you poach strawberries without turning them into flabby grey mush. I’d use that all the time. That really could be a game changer.
