The most useless kitchen gadgets of all time which we’re all guilty of buying

It was an ad I saw for an oil-separating pickle jar that got me thinking on these lines. Targeted at those who want their pickle without the oil, it seems like a jar fitted with a sieve, through which the oil will drip away into another container. Can you imagine cleaning the thing? The horror of it! To my mind, this one belongs right up there with all those gadgets we keen amateur cooks buy, with such enthusiasm, use thrice and then banish to some dark corner in a kitchen cupboard. C’mon, own up, you’ve bought a few of these, haven’t you?

Garlic press: What’s wrong with putting the garlic cloves on a chopping board and giving them a good bash with the flat side of a knife? This is a fiddly gadget and no fun to clean either, with bits of garlic getting stuck in the holes.

Apple slicer:  This gadget was popular on the shelves of kitchen equipment shops not so long ago. It promised to core the apple and slice it into eight perfect wedges and didn’t do anything a sharp knife couldn’t do.

Onion chopper: You place an onion in the contraption, press it down and the onion, reduced to chopped bits, falls into an attached container.  The onions may not drive you to tears, but the cleaning and storing of this clumsy thing most certainly will.

Herb cutter:  Again, what’s wrong with a sharp knife and a chopping board? But when I saw that lovely little wooden board and the cutter with its curved handle I thought I might feel like Nigella Lawson while I attacked a pile of parsley. It sits in its box in some forgotten kitchen corner now.

Cake slicer: This one, designed to slice a cake horizontally, perfectly, is another temptation I fell pray to. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. As it happens, I just halve my cake with a bread knife.

Egg cooker:  This one that usually holds eight eggs and runs on electricity is another contraption that takes up way too much space for the job it does – cooking eggs.

Egg timer: It’s just a mini clock with a fancy name. You can make perfectly good eggs without this one.

Milk boiler: Darling of South Indian kitchens of a decade or so ago, its only purpose was to set off a loud whistle when the milk was heated through. We get by pretty well without these vessels these days, so they couldn’t have been that useful.

Roti maker: The TV ads showed phulkas puff up dramatically while being cooked on this electric griddle. Anyone who’s used one knows that it doesn’t quite work like that.

Popcorn maker: Do you really need a not-so-elegant machine to pop a bowl of popcorn? Of course, it might be put to good use by those who eat popcorn on a daily basis, but for everyone else, a paper bag in the microwave or even a pressure cooker works just fine.

Besides these, those who shop at fancy food equipment stores and buy kitchen gizmos abroad can also be lured into buying avocado slicers, cherry pitters, asparagus steamers, hotdog steamers and an endless array of such gadgets which all seem like a good thing at the time and then end up being, well, useless.