The kitchen gadgets you don't know you need

Many a times we can't actually figure out what to do with all our new toys

I don’t think of myself as having Luddite tendencies, but I confess that when I see refrigerators with screens set into their doors, my first thought is: “Why?”

No, don’t tell me that you can stream music or look inside the refrigerator. I already have technology for that — respectively, my Amazon Echo and this app called “opening the door”. Neither costs the thousands of extra dollars I would have to pay to get my hands on a Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator. And if my music streamer breaks, I can replace it without calling an appliance repair company and spending a fortune on parts.

I have similar sensations about many of the technologies on offer in today’s appliances. Every major appliance manufacturer seems to be looking for a way to stick Wi-Fi into their products, for example. And I confess, I have occasionally fantasised about starting a pie cooking in my oven, sauntering to the other side of my 5,400-square-foot home for a dip in the pool, and being able to use my phone to turn down the heat on the pie after 10 minutes. Alas, in the trim 1,700-square-foot rowhouse I actually live in, I am never far enough from my kitchen to actually justify resorting to my smartphone rather than my feet.

We are at a curious moment in cooking technology. The last decade or so has probably introduced more technology potential into the kitchen than any previous decade except the 1930s. Sous vide, electric pressure cookers, fuzzy logic rice machines, induction cooktops, food processors that also cook, Wi-Fi controls, web connections… these things are now common enough for ordinary cooking enthusiasts to have at least heard of them, if not tried them. It is an era of enormous potential. And yet, that potential is frequently not realised, because we can’t actually figure out what to do with all our new toys.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that all of this new technology is useless. Far from it! I am an enthusiast for many of them. And yet, almost all these whiz-bang technologies fall prey, to some extent, to one of two problems. Either they are not actually very useful, or they are so spectacularly revolutionary that the average home cook can’t figure out what to do with them.

As an example of the first, we return to the problem of Wi-Fi. It’s not just ovens and refrigerators that are getting Wi-Fi, often bundled with cameras that let you see your food. It’s also coffee makers, digital thermometers, crock pots and virtually any other small appliance you can imagine. I’ve tried a number of them, and came up against the same problem elaborated above: Most of us don’t get far enough from our kitchens during the cooking process to make Wi-Fi more convenient than just walking over to open the oven. And appliances that are designed to cook while we’re away — notably the crock pot — tend to be optimised for cooking without interference; I don’t have any crock-pot recipes that ask me to adjust the temperature halfway through.

Bloomberg