"Miracle" Kitchen Devices
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Remember the early, heady days of the Instant Pot? Remember Amazon Prime Day of 2016—which history will certainly record as Peak Instant Pot if the history of kitchen gizmos is indeed etched into our shared chronicle of civilization—when Amazon sold two hundred and fifteen thousand of them in twenty-four hours, and would have probably sold more, if that number hadn’t represented its available inventory? Remember the Prime Days of 2017 and 2018, which were also dominated by the Instant Pot?
That, as they say, was then. Now we are gathered to mourn the Instant Pot. This is not an obituary per se, because, although the device’s parent company, Instant Brands, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Instant Pot is still for sale. Instead, we are bidding farewell to that innocent moment when the Instant Pot seemed like it would finally answer every culinary prayer and make cooking dinner a snap.
The graveyard of kitchen fads is wide and deep, littered with the domestic equivalent of white dwarf stars that blazed with astonishing luminosity for a moment and then deteriorated into space junk. The allure of invention in the category is understandable, since preparing meals is a Sisyphean task and anything that promises to make it faster, or easier, or better, or healthier, or more fun, is irresistible—and often, for a while, anyway, profitable for the manufacturer. Some cooking “tools” are so specific and inessential that they are hardly missed: cue the microwave s’mores maker, the pancake pen, the carrot sharpener, the hot-dog slicer, and the butter cutter. Many of these haven’t vanished completely; they have just transitioned from ubiquitous (or at least a fixture on Christmas-gift lists) to rarities, from being items you feel that you must have and will use to dust catchers that will end up front and center in your next Goodwill donation.
Other kitchen devices, such as the fondue pot, are so culturally and stylistically time-stamped that they become shorthand for an entire era and method of entertaining, long after anyone makes regular use of them. (Fondue has existed in Europe for centuries, but it didn’t become the rage here until the nineteen-sixties and seventies; then it oozed into oblivion, rendering fondue pots a flea-market staple.) There is an entire class of appliances that are aspirational: these turn something easy into something a lot harder, but with the promise that it will be better and that you will feel good for having done it. Bread machines for home use were introduced in 1986, and by the mid-nineties millions of Americans owned one and were convinced that they were going to make fresh bread every day for the rest of their lives. Apparently, they did not, and at last count there were more than ten thousand bread machines, many of them pre-owned, for sale on eBay. (“Zojirushi Bread Maker Machine BBCC-V20 Home Bakery 2 lb. This machine was purchased and used a few times by one adult—me.”) Ditto ice-cream makers. And how many of us have a George Foreman grill abandoned in the far reaches of a cabinet? A panini maker? A Crock-Pot? A sous-vide cooker?
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I have, and use, my Instant Pot. Great for steaming veggies and frozen dumplings (it's a Mrs. George thing). I make pork chops in it as well, as well as mashed potatoes.
The sous-vide hasn't been touched in a year.
Air fryer gets used a lot.
Slow-cooker - in storage, because the Instant Pot has that function, although it doesn't work quite as well.
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@89th said in "Miracle" Kitchen Devices:
Despite the many recipes we have bookmarked for it, the reality is we only use the instapot to make hard boiled eggs. True story.
If they had filled the Titanic submersible with raw egg, that tragedy could have been averted.
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I quite enjoyed the Foreman grill but it was a bastard to clean and I chucked it out once the Teflon started coming off
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My kids wore their George Foreman's out in college. In my daughter's case, it was chicken breasts and the precooked hamburger patties I bought from Sysco. In my son's case, he worked PT at Albertsons for a couple of years, taking care of the meat section at night. A benevolent manager let him mark down the quick sale meat. That kid ate a many a ribeye at $1/lb.
