In praise of a unitasker

January 3, 2020 by
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Blame Alton Brown or perhaps even Marie Kondo for the backlash against kitchen tools that have only one use – unitaskers, as Brown calls them. The argument against them boils down to this: why take up valuable kitchen space for a tool that does only one thing? Sometimes, however, the item does that one thing so well that it becomes indispensable. So says Gray Chapman, who says that a butter dish is one such object.

Chapman says that even though a butter dish does not save her time or money, but it provides her with something that nothing else can, which is the promise of never having to “settle for a rock-hard, bread-mauling slab of butter-colored granite.” It’s also aesthetically pleasing.

While a butter dish doesn’t rise to the level of absurdity of some unitasking items such as a selfie spoon, most people would not consider it an essential item. I share Chapman’s love for the butter dish and have for years (when asked by my high school newspaper what my ‘pet peeve’ was, I immediately replied with ‘cold butter’).

However, I have a different unitasker that I just adore. It’s the strawberry coring tool pictured above. After hauling home boxes of strawberries from the local U-pick farm, I immediately reach for this handy device as I prep the berries for jam making. I find it much quicker to use than a paring knife, as one flick does the job of removing all of the white part of the berry without lopping off any of the good stuff.

You probably have a tool or two lying in your kitchen cabinets or drawers that isn’t practical but that you couldn’t bear to part with. What is your favorite unitasking device?

Category: Antipasto

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10 Comments

  • Jane  on  January 4, 2020

    Mine is a cherry pitter. I use it rarely but there isn’t any other tool that would do the job as well so it justifies the space it takes in my drawer.

  • lkgrover  on  January 4, 2020

    I agree with Jane about the cherry pitter. I make a cherry dessert every summer for my father, and it is essential when you have a pound of cherries. I also appreciate my pineapple tool (peels, cores, & slices in 30 seconds!).

  • Achilz  on  January 4, 2020

    I have a sharpened spoon that I use for hollowing the flesh of a raw butternut squash in order to stuff and roast it. I believe the spoon is actually a woodworking gouge.

  • Achilz  on  January 4, 2020

    I thought of another — the egg sliver. It takes up lots of space in the drawer and I rarely use it. But when you want nice even slices of hard boiled egg there is just no better way to do it. I use it for egg sandwiches and kulebyeka.

  • averythingcooks  on  January 4, 2020

    Mine is a wooden thingie that is used to easily turn balls of dough in my mini muffin tin into a perfect little tart shells – think pecan tassies! I suppose it could be repurposed as a cookie flattener but I would probably have scoffed at the idea of anyone buying a special “cookie flattener”:)

  • eliza  on  January 4, 2020

    I don’t have any of the things in the comments above, but I want them all. Especially the wood presser for the mini muffin pan!
    I do have a Braun yogurt maker from the early 90’s that I recently saw described elsewhere online as one of the most useless kitchen gadgets ever invented. I use it to make goat’s milk yogurt…$2 of goat’s milk produces enough yogurt to last at least a week, it’s very easy to make, and saves about $6 since goat yogurt is quite pricey.

  • hillsboroks  on  January 4, 2020

    I wouldn’t be without a cherry pitter (which works wonders on olives too), my egg slicer or my wooden tart tamper that came in a box of stuff from my grandmother’s kitchen that nobody wanted. But I also have to add my indispensable onion goggles and my latest kitchen gadget, an expandable dough cutter. I used it this holiday season to make some fussy cookies very quickly and will also be using it to cut the strips for woven pie crusts and making homemade pasta n the future.

  • kitchen_chick  on  January 4, 2020

    The pictured item is definitely NOT a unitasker. Though sold as a strawberry huller, I’ve used it for a variety of tasks. For example, it’s good for scraping seeds out of halved cucumbers.

    Regarding cherry pitters: I pit from 30-50lbs of sour cherries in the summer. I use a paper clip for cherry pitting. I’ve found it to be faster than my cherry pitter.

  • sir_ken_g  on  January 4, 2020

    Well I have a stanley razor knife that only gets used to slash bread before baking.

  • MarciK  on  January 7, 2020

    This makes me think of my mom’s “bouncy chop”. It had a handle and 3 blades, 2 lower blades that didn’t move and 1 that pressed down to chop up items. It was safe for us to use as kids and kind of fun to bounce up and down to chop things. I’ve bought various unitaskers, and obtained some from others who were clearing out their homes, some I’ve never even used. Probably my most useful has been my cookie scoop.

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