Dan Cassidy couldn’t function without his microwave, Marie Tower lives for her blender, and many Canadians would find life far less pleasurable without their coffee machines.
Tower, a registered holistic nutritionist and mother from Fall River, regularly makes smoothies and couldn’t live without her blender.
“I know a lot of my clients and others like the Magic Bullet, which makes it even easier (to blend),” Tower said. “Food processors are also something more and more people are using ... A lot of the recipes I tend to recommend (require a food processor) for grinding up nuts and seeds.”
Dan Cassidy said his microwave is hands-down ‘the one,’ followed by his blender in which he also makes smoothies.
“The microwave just makes things so much faster..In this day and age after getting home from work it’s just so hectic,” Cassidy said. “Not for cooking meat or anything, but heating up leftovers, defrosting meat. Otherwise, you have to heat up the oven and have a long wait time.”
So what’s the one small (countertop) kitchen appliance you can’t live without? The Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa wants to know. Museum curator Anna Adamek is asking Canadians from coast to coast about their favourite small electric kitchen appliances.
The responses will help make up a collection designed to paint a picture for future generations curious about the kitchen habits of Canadians in 2012.
“You can send me as many as you find important for you. I’d also like to know why it’s important,” Adamek explained. “What do you think it tells future generations about your life? With the coffee machine for example, it’s about fast, fast, fast, we need that coffee in the morning quickly.”
Adamek said the small, contemporary kitchen appliances selected for the 2012 kitchen essentials collection will be reflective of today’s traditions, habits and attitudes towards cooking. She’ll be working with a $1,000 budget.
The call for suggestions was put out last week, and the deadline for submissions is Oct. 15.
“From the responses we’ve had so far, everybody has said coffeemakers..From the very simple like what a student would take to a dorm to a more sophisticated cappucino machine,” said Adamek.
“Another (common) response is a Kitchenaid mixer, and people suggest black as the colour.”
To help reflect the national nature of the collection, the appliances will be purchased in Atlantic Canada during Adamek’s upcoming trip. Her colleagues will also take photos of the appliances in various stores during their travels across Canada to show the varying costs, colours and styles.
“If we don’t preserve it now it will be gone. When you work at the museum you really think in terms of decades and centuries,” Adamek said. “This is a snapshot of our kitchen habits for future generations.”
Although she isn’t yet sure where the collection will go, Adamek said the information collected and the appliances selected will be disseminated to the public.
As a Nova Scotian, Cassidy thinks collaborating with average Canadians to determine the 2012 kitchen essentials collection is a great idea.
“You think about years down the road,” he mused. “Microwaves have been around for a little while but in 50 years or so they’ll have something so crazy it would make ours look archaic.”
Until Oct. 15, suggestions for the national collection can be emailed to 2012kitchen@technomuses.ca .
ydentremont@hfxnews.ca
