10 Outrageously Unnecessary Kitchen Gadgets

There was a time when a kitchen needed a knife, a pan and a healthy respect for fire. That time is over. The modern kitchen gadget industry has decided that no task is too small to be automated and no utensil too simple to need an app. We present ten of the most gloriously unnecessary offenders currently available to anyone with a credit card and a dream.

The Banana Slicer

The classic. The founding text. A curved piece of plastic that slices a banana, a fruit famous for surrendering to a stern look. Its online reviews remain some of the finest comedic literature of our age, and we recommend them over most novels. Scholars will note it also only fits one hypothetical government-standard banana, gently curved to the left. Bananas curving right must be sliced freehand, like our ancestors did.

The App-Connected Toaster

Why walk to your toaster to check on your toast when you can receive a push notification that your toast is ready, sent from a device eight feet away? We’d blame the toaster, but somebody keeps making eye contact with it in the store and taking it home.

The Wi-Fi Salt Dispenser

Voice-activated seasoning. “Dispense one pinch.” We have automated the single most satisfying gesture in cooking and replaced it with negotiating with a speaker. Progress.

The Smart Egg Tray

It tells your phone how many eggs you have and which one is oldest. Eggs, we’d point out, come in a carton that already displays this information through the advanced technology of looking at it.

The Avocado Saver

A plastic shell that hugs half an avocado to keep it green, with roughly the same success rate as wishing. The avocado browns anyway. Out of spite, we assume.

The Electric Cheese Grater Gun

Hold the trigger and spray parmesan like you’re icing a cake at gunpoint. We admit this one is unnecessary AND magnificent. It stays on the list, but with honors.

The Hot Dog Toaster

A toaster, but exclusively for hot dogs. It does one thing, occasionally, for the two weeks a year you want it. Owning one is a personality trait and weirdly we respect it.

The Butter Churner Stick

Make your own butter in only thirty minutes of vigorous shaking. Or buy butter, which exists.

The Pizza Scissors

Scissors with a spatula attached, solving the ancient problem of pizza cutters working perfectly well.

The Smart Fork

It vibrates when you eat too fast. A cutlery item that judges you. We wrote a whole separate article about appliances judging you, and honestly the fork is the boldest of the bunch. At $99 it is also the most expensive fork either of us will ever own, which adds a pleasing layer of financial regret to every meal it disapproves of.

Could you live without all ten? Absolutely. Will at least one end up in your kitchen drawer by December? We both know the answer. The drawer knows it too. Somewhere in every kitchen there is a drawer that has quietly accepted its role as the retirement home for optimistic purchases, and it always has room for one more.