Mission-Specific Cooking Gadgets: The 25 Best, Worst, and Weirdest of All Time
Give a pro chef the right ingredients, and he can make a mind-blowing meal with tools no more fancy than a sharp knife and a hot stove top. And then there’s the rest of us. We need cooking gadgets—because we wouldn’t be able to extract the juice from an orange without the help of electrical power, or cook a hot dog without a custom weenie-roaster.
There’s something intrinsically kitschy about cooking gadgets. They’re just so damned mission-specific, performing a single, specialized task, often in the service of the most lowbrow or faddish of culinary trends. Think about it. A 10-inch chef’s knife isn’t kitschy. It can cut, chop, slice, dice, and mince. It’s a work horse. But a melon baller? It ostensibly does only one thing: It creates little balls—of melon! When Mario Batali is making a fruit salad, do you think he cuts his melons with a baller? No, he dices them with a chef’s knife (though he may use a melon baller to create perfectly spherical dollops of sorbet; such is the cleverness of Mario Batali).
On the following pages, we present a condensed chronology of cooking gadgets. Some items have become kitchen staples, while other have been dumped into the compost bin of culinary history. All of the items, however, seem to have been created to simplify the job of food preparation—allowing our lazy asses to reduce cooking chores, and focus on the eating instead.
Mortar and Pestle
1500 B.C. (est.)
Put a rock inside a bowl and you’ve got the mortar and pestle, perhaps the first multi-functional kitchen gadget ever invented. In ancient times, it could grind spices and grains, turn herbs into medicine, and pulverize small stones into pigments for painting. Today, it gives us that holiest of foodstuffs: guacamole.
Fondue Pot
early 1800s
Fondue—melted cheese plus various additives, depending on the recipe—began its life in Switzerland and France around 1800 or so, but it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the improbable dish hit its stride in the United States. Fondue pots now range from simple crocks heated with tea candles or Sterno to gargantuan electric models that create a fountain of goo three feet high (and are typically used with chocolate). Either way, it’s all fattening, liquid goodness to us.
A1 Heeley Double-Lever Corkscrew
1880
Wine may be a sophisticate’s beverage, but the act of removing a cork from a bottle can often be a barbaric experience. H.S. Heeley solved that problem when, in 1888, he patented an improvement on William Burton Baker’s double-winged lever corkscrew concept (which had received its own patent in 1880). Heeley’s design—which affixed Baker’s wings to a top collar, something Baker omitted, perhaps in a drunken stupor—became the basis for the most enduring corkscrew system ever, lasting for over a century until the modern “rabbit” design emerged. The example you see here was sourced by Don Bull of www.corkscrewmuseum.com, home to all manner of clever cork-extracting devices—some of which look disturbingly like Civil War–era surgical tools.
Sunbeam Mixmaster
1930
One fawning website pays homage to the Mixmaster by calling it “the most beloved kitchen appliance of the 20th century,” and that may not be far from the truth. Invented by Swedish engineer Ivar Jepson in 1928 and brought to market in 1930, the Mixmaster was the first stand-up mixer with dual, interlocking beaters, which made it more efficient than the competition—namely the single-beater handheld. Though it launched at the height of the Great Depression, the Mixmaster single-handedly made Sunbeam a household name. This sparkling example of Scandinavian enterprise was sourced from www.OldGreenCanoe.etsy.com.
Electric Can Opener
1931
Before the invention of the can opener, how did one open a tin can? With a freakin’ hammer and chisel, that’s how. Early manual can openers were little more than bizarrely shaped knives that you levered into a can’s lid to pry it open. It wasn’t until 1931 that high-tech got in on the action with the invention of the electric can opener. Today’s industrial-strength openers can crack open up to 12 cans per minute, as your local lunch lady knows all too well.
Automatic Dishwasher
1937
It’s the rare lazy bastard who must resort to machinery for washing dishes. Er, wait a sec. That’s just about all of us. The dishwasher is unique on this list in that its sole purpose is to clean up the mess that the other items on our list create. Today’s dishwasher design hasn’t changed much since 1937, which is when kitchens first began receiving permanently installed dishwashers, complete with rotating sprayers and fold-down doors (though, as you see here, in those original “electric sinks,” the doors were placed on top). Nowadays, dishwashers give sloppy chefs carte blanche to use every dish and utensil in the kitchen over the course of an evening—as long as they’re labeled “dishwasher safe,” of course.
Toshiba Rice Cooker
1955
The Western world largely pooh-poohs the idea of the automatic rice cooker, as rice can be prepared quite easily on the stove top. But this position fails to acknowledge just how much rice is consumed in Asia, where it’s often served at three meals a day. The automatic rice cooker, invented by Toshiba in 1955, took much of the hassle out of rice preparation. Modern units now commonly include overnight timers, alarms, and special monitors to test whether your rice is done.
Chop-o-Matic
1956
The godfather of kitchen gadgetry, Ron Popeil (see below) introduced his first gizmo, the Chop-o-Matic, at the exact, perfect time. With our economy booming through the 1950s, and housewives pining for less family-focused servitude (think proto versions of Betty Draper), Popeil’s appliance tore through vegetables in a flash, slicing and dicing them with just a couple of manual compressions. The Chop-o-Matic’s success—sales in excess of two million units—launched an empire that continues today (albeit under new ownership), and spawned dozens of imitators, including the curiously named Slap Chop, which sounds like either a martial arts technique or a cut of beef.
In His Own Words: Ron Popeil
Ron Popeil specializes in kitchen gadgets (his dad, Samuel, invented the Chop-o-Matic), and is one of the most successful “serial inventors” of all time. He’s the “Ron” in Ronco, a TV pitchman of historical proportions, and has been responsible for the Showtime Rotisserie, Pocket Fisherman, and Hair in a Can. We share his wisdom here.
"The most wonderful thing about the infomercial business is that you only need one weekend to know if you have a success. If you make more money than the TV time costs, you’ve got a hit.
When television started, anything you put on TV would sell. Anything. Anybody that went on television with direct response was making money.
I’m working on a new product. It’s a deep fryer. It comes out next year. You say, “Why do we need another deep fryer, Ron?” Other deep fryers—they just don’t deliver. I was inspired by the turkey fryer, but it’s so dangerous and you can’t use it inside. This fryer is safe to use indoors, and can handle a 15-pound turkey. But wait: People don’t have big kitchens. What if I could deliver to you a small machine that you could keep on your counter every day? This fryer uses olive oil. And it’s not just for turkeys. Two chickens in 20 minutes. Chicken fried steak. Perfect French fries. Potato chips take a minute and a half. Have you ever had fried avocado? Fried watermelon? It’s called Popeil’s Olive Oil Country Fryer."
Hasbro Easy-Bake Oven
1963
In the early 1960s, Hasbro answered the question the world had been wondering about for years: Was it possible to bake a cake using the heat from a standard light bulb? It’s tiny, sure, but an incandescent filament reaches thousands of degrees Celsius (literally “white hot”), heating the surrounding air just enough to turn a puddle of goo into a two-bite cake in eight minutes. Hasbro has gone to extreme lengths to keep kids from putting their hands in the scorch chamber, but to mixed success. Including the tyke who required a partial finger amputation, 249 kids were hurt before the most recent recall in 2007.
Electric Carving Knife
1964
The brainchild of inveterate inventor Jerome Murray—he also invented the airplane boarding ramp—the electric carving knife was a response to the belief that women of the early 1960s were so harried in the kitchen that, after preparing dinner, they were too tired and weak to actually cut the food they had spent all day cooking. The electric carving knife is largely a novelty item today, but for a dedicated few, Thanksgiving just isn’t complete without the buzz and whirr of a very small reciprocating saw.
Amana Radarange
1967
Using microwave technology in the kitchen got its start in 1947 (like early computers, they were the size of refrigerators), but it took 20 years for the technology to shrink down in size and price to become acceptable to the masses. The watershed 1967 Amana Radarange looks a lot like today’s microwave oven, only larger, heavier, and with analog knobs. They were hardly eye-pleasing, but by the 1970s, microwave ovens had nonetheless become essential tools not just for reheating leftovers but, in some homes, for preparing entire (albeit disgusting) meals.
Trash Compactor
1968
In the 1970s and '80s, the trash compactor was every suburban kitchen’s must-have symbol of conspicuous consumption. Tucked away between the range and the dishwasher, there it sat, waiting to take your garbage and make it… smaller. It ultimately became so ingrained in pop culture that the compactor was famously futurized in the original Star Wars (remember when our heroes were stuck in the Death Star junk pit with the closing-in walls?) and later anthropomorphized by Pixar as the lovable WALL-E.
Sunbeam Seal-a-Meal
1970 (est.)
Air out. Freshness in. Seal-a-Meal is a vacuum-sealing food storage system that, according to the company, lets you store perishables for five times as long as in a baggie or Tupperware container. It’s unclear whether anyone has ever actually successfully used a Seal-a-Meal for its intended purpose (ahem), but the device and its ilk have since found a second life as an essential component in sous vide cooking.
Cuisinart Food Processor
1971
Now an essential item from commercial kitchens to the average suburban home, the Cuisinart food processor exploded in popularity after Julia Child registered her approval for it in the mid-1970s. The food processor may look like an oversized blender, but inside it hides genuine knife blades that spin at several thousand RPM, helping you transform any solid into a fine liquid mush with just a few taps of the “pulse” button. Yep, sometimes relying on your all-purpose chef’s knife isn’t the quickest path.
Willy Wonka Candy Factory Kit
1971
To promote the theatrical release of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Quaker Cereals marketed this “candy factory” kit, which included all the molds, candy wrappers and scrumdidilyumtious doodads one needed to go into the chocolate bar business. The price for the factory was a mere $1, plus two proof-of-purchase seals from Cap’n Crunch, Life, or King Vitamin cereals. The scheme proved to be a rather convoluted strategy for children wishing to attain chocolate bars en masse, but more than a few industrious kiddies carried the ruse to completion by not just manufacturing chocolate bars, but also selling them door-to-door. This distribution path not only prevented children from eating their own inventory, but trumped curbside lemonade vendors, who lacked the marketing muscle of a major motion picture.
Mr. Coffee
1972
In the 1960s, percolators fed America’s growing coffee addiction by recirculating boiling hot, previously brewed coffee through already extracted grounds. The result? A bitter (if not aggressively caffeinated) mess. The madness changed in 1972 with the introduction of the home drip coffeemaker, courtesy of Mr. Coffee. The gadget’s success can be chalked up to one key quality: It really did make the best coffee you could get at home.
Crème Brulee Torch
1980 (est.)
Every newly-wed couple’s crème brulee torch remains firmly in the box in which it arrived, anxiously awaiting the day when said newlyweds will actually make a crème brulee. But while the torch may lack practicality at home, it’s a regular fixture in high-end restaurants—where a standard, high-capacity butane torch is used to put a crispy shell on all manner of dishes. It also speaks to the ingenuity of the modern chef: Turning a dangerous industrial product into a culinary essential.
Mr. Snowman Sno-Cone Maker
1983 (est.)
Back in our day, we didn’t have any fancy ice cream, or, God forbid, gelato. No, if we finished our dinner, we just ate ice. That’s right, ice. Maybe a little artificially colored syrup on it if we were well behaved. Waffle cone, you say? Ha! We got a paper cup to eat the ice out of. Not even a cup, really. More of a soggy, nasty paper cone. That’s right, a cone—to ensure we’d never be able to put it down on the good furniture. Now, get out of my yard!
Gold Medal Breeze Machine Cotton Candy Maker
1987
Cotton candy took the world by storm in 1904, when it was rolled out at the World’s Fair to a crowd with mouths so agape, they happily forked over half the price of admission just to sample the stuff. Now, the sticky science experiment is a staple of the carnival world, and enterprising types can even make it at home. Gold Medal—the king of cotton candy—makes a variety of home machines that push superheated, spinning sugar through tiny holes in order to create those inimitable edible threads.
George Foreman Grill
1994
Officially called the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, the venerable George Foreman Grill is a product that has never made any sense at all. For starters, “Big George” is an enormous (read: not lean) man—over 250 pounds when this machine was introduced. Still, he had just retaken the heavyweight boxing championship at the age of 45, so something had to have been working for the guy. He captured the mind of the country, and people bought into the product that bore his name: An electric grill with an angled base that lets fat drain out to a tray. Representing the perfect collision of celebrity power and a suddenly health-conscious America, the Foreman Grill has sold over 100 million units to date.
Presto Pizzazz Pizza Oven
2000
It’s not a turntable. It’s a pizza cooker that lets you take a rock-hard frozen pie and cook it right on your countertop without an oven. This absurd idea is essentially a hair dryer attached to a rotating disc that spins your pizza underneath a cooking element, cooking it slice by slice. It looks (and is) ridiculous, but hordes of consumers swear that it’s the absolute best thing to hit the kitchen since the electric twirling pasta fork.
LG Internet Refrigerator
2002
Refrigerator technology hasn’t progressed very far since the invention of the in-door ice dispenser, but web technology is forcing the fridge into the future. LG’s Internet Refrigerator includes an integrated hard drive, a 15.1-inch web-connected touchscreen LCD, digital camera, surround sound speakers, and a titanium body. You can use all this tech to write notes to the family, watch a movie, get recipes, or just keep tabs on what’s inside—and whether it’s spoiled. The first model cost a mere $7,999.
Deion Sanders Hot Dog Express
2005 (est.)
That’s right, Prime Time Sanders has a third claim to fame beyond playing in the NFL and MLB. (Aside from the hip-hop career, we mean.) He’s also got a hot dog cooker with his name on it. Not content to let George Foreman hog all the sports-themed culinary glory, Sanders’ doohickey simultaneously cooks up to 10 wieners the way God intended them to be cooked: On old-school Kwik-e-Mart-style rollers. Includes plastic tongs—so you don’t suffer an electric shock from touching the rollers with metal. Classy.
Back To Basics Combo Toaster and Egg Poacher
2005
Why sully a pan to poach an egg when you’re already making toast? Back to Basics mashes two iconic breakfast items together, letting you poach a fresh egg while your toast is simultaneously browning. It won’t cook bacon, but it will “warm your meat” in lieu of the egg. Of course, it will also warm your heart, too.
Mini Cupcake Factory
2010
Calling this device a “factory” is about like calling Mind of Mencia a comedy, but that doesn’t take away from its awesomeness. Essentially a highly specialized waffle iron, the device churns out seven miniature cakes every five minutes and is small enough to fit on any cubicle desk. It’s the latest—and one of the best—examples of how highly specialized kitchen gadgetry can get, because, yes, it’s totally useless for anything else at all.
