Dream machine
Richard Sennett
My kitchen cupboard is full of abandoned dreams. The electronic icecream maker can turn out tomato–dill sorbet, crème St Petersbourg, and guava icecream; thanks to the machine we could enter a new culinary Ice Age. The mandoline is a gleaming steel tool which can carve perfect julienne potatoes; we would have galettes of these potatoes every week if not every day. There are various coffee pots in the cupboard, some resembling small bombs, others a mini chemistry-lab. All these dream-machines have been used at least once or twice.
Domestic reaction was not exactly enthusiastic as I began unpacking the VitaMix last week. ‘You spent £500 on a juicer?’ Well, yes; I simply had, last week, to have it.
The Vita-Mix is basically a powerful, two-horse-power motor which drives a four-pronged blade inside a big, two-litre plastic container. The motor is part of its appeal. Much stronger than normal blenders, the Vita-Mix can do many more tasks; for instance, the heat generated by the friction of the blades running at full speed allows you to cook soups and sauces. But the real genius of this machine lies at the opposite end of the power spectrum.
Most domestic juicers and food processors are set at a single high speed which, let run freely, turns all ingredients into mush. In making a pâté or a soup like gazpacho you don’t want mush, you want texture; to achieve this result in a one-speed machine your finger has to be quick on the ‘pulse’ button. The Vita-Mix has a variable-speed control; soft veggies like tomatoes can be easily chopped at low speeds; the higher speeds allow you to pulp them. Moreover, by cleverly stacking ingredients in the container — say pork on the bottom, carrots in the middle, onions on top — then running the machine on low, you produce a creditably textured pâté at one go, rather than by working the ingredients separately by hand.
I must confess that I don’t particularly care for fruit juice. The explanatory DVD which accompanies the Vita-Mix presents a young, sweet American couple dressed in identical blue shirts who explain how to get the most nutritional value from juicing, by keeping the white pith on peeled oranges or grinding the entire apple — core, seeds and all. Forget it. You want to put this machine to politically incorrect uses. You can produce a proper mayonnaise by mixing eggs at the lowest speed, which avoids thinning the eggs into froth, then adding olive oil at a slightly higher speed. I have just confected a foie-gras parfait in the Vita-Mix, unctuous, creamy but firm, and unhealthy.
There is one nutritious aspect of the Vita-Mix which promises pleasure. For the five hundred quid, the manufacturers throw in a second plastic container, with a blade specially meant for grinding dry ingredients like grains. This container means you can make bread; after grinding, the machine will knead the dough. One of the abandoned toys in my cupboard is a bread-making machine which kneaded then baked but on a fixed routine, turning out an industrialised loaf. The Vita-Mix lets you play with various wholegrains; the kneading procedure can be varied — a plus since every dough ball is a quirky, individual object.
Machines like this derive from professional tools found in restaurant kitchens, and like its professional parents the VitaMix is a no-nonsense, that is to say ugly, object. Its clunky white base and rubberised lid would make it stand out like a sore in those gleaming, minimalist kitchens featured in style magazines. Nor is it one of those ‘symbolic goods’ like the Aga, recalling an earlier age of home, heat and hearth, a simpler time of domestic felicity, etc. The Vita-Mix is merely useful. Or at least that’s how it still seems to me, this week.
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