While I was momentarily intrigued by the potential of multifunctional ‘robots’ to make cooking-related work lighter, I struggle to imagine losing my autonomy around culinary chores
Losing out on the collaborative possibilities of cooking with my kids feels like too high a price to pay. Representation Pic/istock
Unnerved by the inefficiency of our hand mixer, I found myself longing for the cheap Bajaj mixer I had bought when I moved into my apartment in Kailash Hills, which served me well for almost 10 years. When I was setting up our first rental apartment in Tramin, I hadn’t fathomed the extent to which the food I was accustomed to cooking depended on a good blender. Mediterranean culinary traditions make do with either a mortar and pestle or a hand-held mixer. This meant that the shop we visited in Bozen had no other options. For five years, I have been making do with the hand blender we settled for back then. I curse it each time I use it. The cafreal masala I make with green chillies and fresh coriander as the base always feels too coarse or not puréed enough. I evolved all kinds of hacks to make the process smoother — substituting whole spices with their powdered equivalents, using pre-made ginger-garlic paste, adding more water than I normally would — but I rarely manage to keep my frustration at bay.
So, the other day, I had a look at my finances and decided I could potentially afford something called a ‘Bimby’. I first used this device, marketed as a ‘kitchen robot’, several years ago, when I was contributing to a charity baking sale at the Tramin Christmas market. I was amazed by how the same gadget could be used to weigh, grind and knead ingredients. I did a preliminary search online and suddenly felt both overwhelmed and horrified by the sheer range of functions the device could eloquently perform, from chopping to grating to weighing to blending to steaming, roasting, and stewing. If you pressed a button initiating a left-ward rotation, it could even make you a risotto! You just needed to usher in the ingredients. Intrigued, I had a look at the cost, around two lakh rupees.
It wasn’t the price that left me feeling outraged. It was the notion of outsourcing the tedium of cooking. I tried to imagine our lifestyle under the potential purchase. What could it mean to suddenly be freed of the task of finely chopping at least five onions in order to make a gulasch or to poach eggs with such ease, not to have to wonder about the temperature of the water or to have to set a timer to ensure they are just the right amount of done so that the egg white is tender and the yolk runny enough? Just the other day I had bravely experimented with the idli rava I had purchased from a desi online store, soaking a cup full of it with leftover rice. I’d ground the mixture hours later, with my rubbish hand blender, behind the closed doors of the bathroom when both my little ones were asleep. I ground the soaked urad dal and methi seeds separately and left the batter to ferment overnight. The next morning, I left it in a preheated oven because the lower temperatures of late summer weren’t conducive to nurturing the bacteria.
When I read that the Bimby could also be used to ferment things, I was both lured and alarmed by the proposition. The steamer function was a selling point, but there was nothing wrong with the steamer I had improvised, using a wok, a stainless steel plate and two sheets of perforated aluminium foil. I didn’t have the forms, so I used the four vatis in my possession. The prep and cook time were spread across the course of 24 hours. It wasn’t ‘efficient’ so much as done in between things. I didn’t have time to make sambhar or a coconut chutney. We ate the idlis with a podi that I bought online, mixing it with the Amul ghee that was purchased simultaneously.
Out of curiosity, I searched various online forums to scan for people’s opinions about whether the Bimby was worth the cost. The unanimous answer was no. Several commenters stressed that the only people who say it is worth it are those who made the purchase and are too ashamed or proud to confess their regret. The deterrent, for me, was my inability to imagine losing my autonomy around kitchen chores. Sure, there are times when I wish there was a readymade meal for me, or when I miss the ease of food delivery services that are a staple in bigger cities but don’t quite exist in small towns like the one in which I live. But the idea of losing out on the collaborative possibilities of cooking with my kids felt like too high a price to pay. Only some weeks ago did I find my three-year-old at the kitchen counter, happily slicing the cherry tomatoes I had left there while I had to attend to the tiny one who needed a diaper change. I returned to find all the tomatoes unexpertly chopped and placed inside the pan, ready to be seasoned and stuck into an oven. I concluded that what I need is a simple food processor or heavy-duty mixer, not a robot.
Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She posts @rosad1985 on Instagram
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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