Unsung icons: Kitchen gadgets The trends that need a re-look
COMEDIAN DAVID SMIEDT TAKES AN IRREVERENT, BUT APPRECIATIVE, LOOK AT THE CLASSIC THINGS THAT DEFINE YOU-BEAUT AUSSIE LIFE
IT’S! AMAZING! HOW! Shouting! Can! Capture! Your!
Attention! This was the entire rationale behind late-night TV merchandising. It was literally the price we paid for free-to-air entertainment before the life-changing advent of subscription services. For the generation that is more ‘Netflix and chill’ than ‘George Foreman grill’, these products broke down into two main categories – food prep and exercise. And both relied heavily on the phrases ‘IN JUST MINUTES!’ and ‘FOUR EASY PAYMENTS!’
The current generation of single-origin, artisan-only-thanks Australian consumers are mistaken if they believe they’re our first foodies. Long before MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules whipped us into a frenzy of granitas and pork belly three ways, it was the dinner party that held sway, and reality TV had nothing on how competitive these soirées got. This is where the gadgets shone brightest – right after you wiped away the dust accrued since the last dinner party.
Nothing, apparently, screamed stylish sophistication more than vegetables that had been Spiralized™. Think curled and ribboned zucchini strands that looked like pasta, but without that delicious carb hit. Heaven forbid vegies should resemble their innate format when paired with beef Wellington or garnishing devils-on-horseback.
Today, we crave and celebrate produce that’s as close to its natural, gloriously imperfect shape as possible. But it wasn’t always this way. Like fashion photographers on an editorial shoot, we wanted angles – harsh, square, 90-degree angles. Manufacturers melded steel and plastic in response to our symmetrical pleas. They then sealed the deal by catering for a thirst for multifunctionality we never knew we had. Seemingly overnight our cupboards became stacked with perilously sharp blades that minced, diced, sliced and – if you were up for a little Gallic pretension – julienned. We started to use the word bâtonets when we meant chips. And from 1973 onwards we apparently threw up our hands in horror at the prospect of rinsing leafy greens. Salads were to be spun in a plastic tub with a nylon string that you yanked as if trying to start a recalcitrant lawnmower.
On corers clamped to a countertop and operated by a crank, we violated fruit like barbarians, as the perfectly delicious coverings of so many Granny Smiths fell to the floor in crêpe-paperish streamers. Some were so powerful they could eviscerate the innards of an entire pineapple in seconds. What to do with a hollowed out Aus Jubilee, you may ask? Fill it with canned fruit of course. Duh.
Then, there was the legendary citron press, which sounds a bit like a wrestling move but actually required way more strength. The handheld versions demanded serious tonnage in your grip to elicit just a few millilitres of nectar. They also resembled an unholy but holy union between a tea strainer and convex pressure plate. Some of us even opted for the sculptural chrome variety, which was bolted to the kitchen bench. Just like the one you once saw in a café in Nice, where it was actually used more than five times a year.
It wasn’t only fruit and veg that we slashed and burned, there were also carnivorous doodads aplenty. Encased in perspex bubbles and sometimes sounding like Harrier jets taking off, they roasted, toasted and grilled any flesh they came across. The more jobs they did the better, and who cared if none were executed particularly well?
Some of these culinary curiosities have evolved, and now reappear every few years with slicker packaging and increasingly Botoxed spokesfolk. Others accumulated rust in attics and garages until they were either binned or donated to the next owner, whose enthusiasm would wear off quicker than you can say ‘dehydrated beetroot chips’, or sold for a gold coin at a garage sale. Sorry. JUST A DOLLAR!
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