An Ode to the Mighty Food Processor [Taste Test]

Your most powerful cooking multitool is maybe abandoned underneath your counter. Maybe you dust if off sometimes, maybe you don’t. But the following time you prep dinner, take a moment to reconsider the food processor .

Mark Bittman did just that inside the NY Times recently, and thank goodness. Because while I’ve processed some food in my day, I’ve never truly appreciated the versatility of a Cuisinart:

The food processor replaces the whisk; the pastry cutter; the standing mixer (for which there are still some uses, but only whenever you’re a dedicated baker); the mandoline (which, to me, remains a superb alternative to the food processor for small quantities); the mortar and pestle, which, irrespective of how lovely, quaint and authentic, is probably one of the most labor-intensive, primitive and damnable set of tools inside the kitchen; and, perhaps most importantly, the grater.

Food processor’s aren’t flashy; they do the yeoman’s work inside the kitchen. And while it could actually feel like cheating not to grate by hand, there’s nothing wrong with embracing the indisputable fact that a thirty-year old technology can do it better, faster, and with less risk of knuckle-scraping.

And they’ve only continued to adapt. Today’s food processors can knead dough, handle nesting bowls, include adjustable sliding discs, and motors that just don’t quit. They are able to make anything from mayonnaise to corn meal to home-ground chicken meatballs. They’re more than just wedding registry fodder. They’re counter top prep chefs that don’t call in sick.

Better eating through technology doesn’t always mean flourishes of molecular gastronomy. Sometimes it means giving a craftsman the sharpest tool. [ NY Times , Photo credit: Andrew Scrivani]

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This post is tagged: chicken meatballs, indisputable fact, molecular gastronomy, mortar and pestle, small quantities