New Kitchen Appliances go Space Age
Electric Kitchen Appliances
When I was growing up, time in the kitchen was hands-on work with a chopping board, a heavy oven, mixing bowls, a large refrigerator and the the heat and wonderful aroma of food wafting through the house for an hour or more before something edible appeared on the table. Have you recently been on the market for new kitchen appliances? It feels something like a walk through what you would imagine NASA's computer labs to be like - only prettier, and more advanced. There is no "hands on" anymore - try "pinkies on" instead. This must have been in the making for about 30 years now. Remember how back then, seeing a microwave oven with a button just for the popcorn seemed like a wickedly lazy and still wonderfully tempting way to live? Don't be surprised today to find buttons on them just dedicated to far more complex stuff - pizza, chicken nugget or even breads and cakes. Will we one day expect to see a button on the front of the microwave that says "filet mignon"?
Let's marvel at some of the real advances that are possible in the new era of the super advanced kitchen. Consider an appliance that can make you breakfast exactly as you would see on the picture on a diner menu - perfectly and evenly browned crispy toast, and a great poached egg next to it. That is now possible on a single new device now - a new breakfast machine by West Bend. Or a bread baker, that'll also double as a cake maker - it's all about two unlikely possibilities in one now with the current generation of new kitchen appliances. But let's not forget the one-touch operation that is all important to today's generation of cooks. The old kitchen workhorse, the oven toaster grill hasn't been spared the hand of space age technology either. They now come with a one-touch cookie mode. You just buy your tube of cookie dough at the supermarket, slice them up, and voila!
Expensive kitchenware used to be about a set of super precision German kitchen knives, and grand equipment for canning your own preserves. But those are meant for the serious enthusiasts. There aren't that many of them left now, and the serious money for companies dealing in new kitchen appliances, is in the high-tech mass-produced variety. Kitchen appliance makers actual report that they are selling non-electric low-tech "real kitchenware" about a tenth less this year than last. Meanwhile, electric appliances are selling a fifth more this year. People would rather eat out all the time; but with the economy the way it is, everyone is considering cutting back and cooking at home. And when they haven't been doing that sort of thing in a long time, how can they do without these?
You're seeing new collaborations in the market among makers of supermarket foods and appliance makers for, several kinds of new kitchen appliances. Consider Microwave Science, a Californian company that tries to bring the two kinds of manufacturers together. They have this new feature on their machines, something they call True Cook Plus that'll help you microwave everything to perfection. They are working with all kinds of frozen food manufacturers, to find out exactly how to best microwave their foods. So each participating food maker will print an item code on the box, and all you need to do is punch the code into your microwave, for the best results. So far only LG and Kenmore are buying it.
Electric Kitchen Appliances
