An observation

[unixronin]

Alton Brown has stated in the past that there is no place for unitaskers — tools that do only one thing — in a kitchen.  Yet he has a kettle, a device for boiling water with no other purpose, and an espresso machine, a device for making espresso and steamed milk with no other purpose.  And then there's knives.

I have to disagree.  There is a place, in the kitchen just as in the workshop, for single-purpose tools that do one specific job well, and for multitaskers that can be used for a range of purposes.  What there is NOT a place for is poorly thought out or poorly constructed tools that are intended to perform multiple tasks, but which don't actually do any of them well, or single-purpose as-seen-on-TV gadgets that do one exceedingly uncommon job that you could, with only a little more effort, do just as well with other tools that you already have.

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

well, he SAYS that, but he does have a laundry list of exceptions...

making hot water FAST is useful for other tasks... some of the "hot pots" can cook soup/etc as well, but we know he doesn't go for those.

and the things he does with cast iron, is mostly criminal for PETA ;)

i think he's mostly opposed to things like a garlic press, unless he's also using it to extract oils from SOMETHING other than garlic... and even a garlic peeler is just TOO handy...

so, i agree in general, that gimmicky single taskers are out, but sometimes you get something that does its job WELL, it's a win...

knives... let me tell you about knives ;) who's got a KITCHEN AXE?

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[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

Knives? If you're including knives as unitaskers, you might just be insane. Knives are the most versatile multitaskers in the in the kitchen (in the last 24 hours my 6" chef's knife has chopped, sliced, minced, pared, peeled garlic and acted as a board scraper...prolly more, but that's just off the top of my head. I'm not going to count 'saved me from moving 6" to the right when I stabbed an onion in the basket to retrieve it').

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I like my knives too much to use them as board scrapers. ;)

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I don’t think Alton Brown condemns unitaskers so much as unicapabilities. A knife has one task (cutting), but a plethora of capabilities. A kettle has one task (boil water), but with that you can do anything from make tea to boil an egg, and so on and so on.

My favorite example of the useless tool (if it can even be said to be a tool: useless tool is such an oxymoron) is the automatic egg cracker. Because cracking your own eggs is so tedious and error-prone…

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Right, that's a good way to state it.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I thought those were so you could have perfect egg shells for serving pieces. Like the restaurants that fill the shell with a poached egg yolk and top it with foam of egg white and caviar.

(Don't mind me, I own a Hobart.)