This is Tammy Proctor. Welcome to another episode of Eating the Past as we continue our deep dive into
spices. As I have been listening to our episodes on herbs, spices, and recipes made with delicious seasonings,
I started thinking about cooking technology. How did people grind spices before we could buy them in those
handy little bottles – pre-ground?
Last week, I talked about how I thought I knew the answer— mostly—but then I decided to consult a book
on cooking technology over the centuries by Bee Wilson, entitled "Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook
and Eat." I ended last week’s episode with a teaser about when the new-fangled and very efficient machines –
food processors and blenders made an appearance.
This week, I’ll talk about that history.
It is probably unsurprising that the first machines for chopping and grinding and speeding up food
preparation were for restaurants, who prepare foods and spices in bulk. Wilson describes one of the first as a
big drum with a rotating blade called the Robot Coupe, developed in 1963 by the French inventor, Pierre Verdun.
Like modern food processors, it had buttons for stop, start and pulse. But it was big! Enter American Carl
Sontheimer who had been an inventor and engineer for decades and who loved French food. Remember
this is the era of Julia Child, who had stormed North America with her cookbook and later TV show.
When Sonntheimer learned about the Robot Coupe in the early 1970s, he decided to transform this machine
into something appropriate in size and cost for homes. In coming up with a name for his new device, he wanted
to recognize the role of French cooking in the development of the appliance, so he called it the Cuisinart. As
Wilson notes, this first Cuisinart was expensive, so it wasn’t flying off the store shelves when it was launched
in 1973.
Enter Craig Claiborne, famed NY Times cooking critic and chef. I don’t know about listeners here, but
I have a couple of Claiborne go-to recipes that I still use despite the fact that they are decades old. Between
his review of the Cuisinart and one in Gourmet magazine, suddenly the Cuisinart was popular – and people
were paying high prices for it.
Wilson quotes Claiborne’s review – he said it was like “the printing press, cotton gin, steamboat, paper clips,
Kleenex” etc – a great invention. The other thing that launched the Cuisinart (and the craze for fancy cooking)
in the 1970s was the development of specialty cooking stores such as Sur La Table, founded in Seattle in 1971.
Wilson explains that customers bought the Cuisinart, then came back for other fancy gadgets – “The machine
had got them hooked on the whole process of ambitious cooking.”
Now I should mention there were other blenders and appliances before the Cuisinart – and also electric mixers
with attachments. We used to live in Ohio, very close to the Kitchen Aid outlet store, which was near the
company that first manufactured the stand mixer in the early 20th century, Hobart Manufacturing.
But Cuisinart really spoke to the kinds of spice mixtures and spreads and sauces that are hard to make by hand.
Want to make hummus – it is a cinch in a food processor. Same with pesto. Want to create a spice blend and
store it in a cabinet? A food processor or an electronic coffee grinder will do the job quickly.
I will say, as Wilson also notes, that for all its convenience and speed and efficiency, sometimes the food
processor takes the joy out of cooking. There is nothing like the smell (or taste) or fun of blending together the
spices for a garam masala or a curry mixture in a mortar and pestle, then dumping it into hot sizzling ghee.
So don’t throw away those food processors, but if you get a chance, take the slow and hard approach once in a
while – grind your spices in a mortar and pestle – the ancient way.
