Subsistence cooking equipment

MrsBartolozzi

Having read your post on the other thread Weezl, I thought I'd have a wee look over here and see what it was all about.
Personally, while I disagree with the Marie Antoinette style comment I would question whether a hand held stick blender might not be more appropriate than a food processor. I have both and I can count on two hands how many times I used the food processor in the past 5 years. The stick blender gets an airing a minimum of twice a week, is more compact to store, much easier to clean, and cheaper. Was there any particular reason that a food processor was chosen? (I was brought up in a working class family where kitchen equipment like a FP was thought of as "posh*, and certainly not a necessity and so I wondered if this kind of view might have led to the particular comment earlier).


* perhaps posh isn't quite the word I was looking for, the picture I had in mind was a sort of Women's Institutey, ladies who lunch, have time for cake decorating, "them" not "us" sort of idea which I suspect I'd fit in with quite well these days:rotfl:, but I hope you get the idea.

vandanfc

I think the issue with the stick blender vs food processor as that of power ?? The most basic stick blender at Argos is only 200 watts, but the basic food processor is 450 watts.

But with some digging around it seems that not all sticks are the same. Some 600 watt sticks are the same price as a food processor. I suppose it depends on what you have personally experienced that decides which is best ?

carriebradshaw

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

Having read your post on the other thread Weezl, I thought I'd have a wee look over here and see what it was all about.
Personally, while I disagree with the Marie Antoinette style comment I would question whether a hand held stick blender might not be more appropriate than a food processor. I have both and I can count on two hands how many times I used the food processor in the past 5 years. The stick blender gets an airing a minimum of twice a week, is more compact to store, much easier to clean, and cheaper. Was there any particular reason that a food processor was chosen? (I was brought up in a working class family where kitchen equipment like a FP was thought of as "posh*, and certainly not a necessity and so I wondered if this kind of view might have led to the particular comment earlier).


* perhaps posh isn't quite the word I was looking for, the picture I had in mind was a sort of Women's Institutey, ladies who lunch, have time for cake decorating, "them" not "us" sort of idea which I suspect I'd fit in with quite well these days:rotfl:, but I hope you get the idea.

I guess it's a case of different strokes for different folks then, I use my FP/blender a lot, I'd really like a stick blender, but am not going to buy one until my FP/blender packs in. It was a cheapy hinari lifestyle one and I've had it around 9 years now.

As for class issues can you not just leave them out? If you're in debt you need to survive now, no matter what lifestyle you've been used to in the past, so the project that weezl & co are testing can be used by anyone who would value the advice offered and use it.

Weezl stop pushing yourself so hard and beating yourself up about this,just take a step back, slow things down a bit,you have a small child and are currently baking another one,so what you've been doing up to now is in itself pretty amazing. Above all take care of yourself, go hug your hubby and little Fergus and get hugged back too.

xx

weezl74

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

Was there any particular reason that a food processor was chosen?

hiya Mrs B

The two main reasons are that the stick blender I have can't cope with the skins core and pips of lemons and apples, and also the nut and seed butter which are pretty staple to the subsistence food planner.

I've since discovered that not all stick blenders are equal though, and we have some testers trying the nut butters with stick blenders too so we can see if this is possible

I hope that helps

xxx

Penelope_Penguin

weezl74 wrote: »

I'm losing faith in my ability to do the project anyway, so perhaps this thread and is a timely challenge to not move forward at the moment.

I think I'll bow out of the "debt and class" discussion I'm struggling to get my point across, and don;t think I can say more without really going back to basics on how debt, debt management, and the law work

weezl - you should be proud of what you've achieved. Never again will people be able to say that they can't have a healthy, balanced diet on £100/mth for 4 :T

Penny. x

lynzpower

I honestly dont think that class has any place in this discussion really at all, although I think there is an aspirational issue particularly with food and cooking that Jamie Oliver really uncovered in Ministry of food ( i think we all watched it, I dont need to go on)

I would say in fact plenty of v poor people can get into debt, owing 25k as a student with no income certainly suggests that the government has been pushing debt onto our young people leaving education-and for labour to want every young person to get a degree -yet come out bound in debt/working longer hours ( longest in Europe) putting our babies into childcare yada yada.

Going to university doesnt make anyone anything apart from a graduate

Plenty of peeps going off to uni would have been given a hotchpotch of crockery- my family scavenged around to find me an assortment of all sorts including a slow cooker that my aunt & uncle were given as a wedding present and never used and is still going strong 10 years on from me receiving it.

ariarnia

lynzpower wrote: »

I honestly dont think that class has any place in this discussion really at all, although I think there is an aspirational issue particularly with food and cooking that Jamie Oliver really uncovered in Ministry of food ( i think we all watched it, I dont need to go on)

I would say in fact plenty of v poor people can get into debt, owing 25k as a student with no income certainly suggests that the government has been pushing debt onto our young people leaving education-and for labour to want every young person to get a degree -yet come out bound in debt/working longer hours ( longest in Europe) putting our babies into childcare yada yada.

Going to university doesnt make anyone anything apart from a graduate

Plenty of peeps going off to uni would have been given a hotchpotch of crockery- my family scavenged around to find me an assortment of all sorts including a slow cooker that my aunt & uncle were given as a wedding present and never used and is still going strong 10 years on from me receiving it.

To be honest I doubt there's anything me and my generation can do to shift SLC debt other than wait until it's paid off at 65...

ceridwen

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

It doensn't answer my request for a link to the assertion that "debt correlates with being middle class"

In the current recession, many middle class people, in work, have felt little effect. Their bills may have gone up, but mortgages are at historically low interest rates.

Unless, or course, you can give me evidence to the contrary

<cough>...and its at this point that I have to interject (before my fathers' voice in my ears deafens me wanting me to say this....:))....."We're working class - as we have to work for our money".....so theres many different ways of looking at this.

I dont think we can make generalisations like this.

....and I think we need to drop the "C" word at this point - PLEASE - as I dont think its proving particularly helpful....

Thank you.

Allegra

PasturesNew wrote: »

I really think this is a really posh thing to have. They're only recently used ... my parents don't have one, my siblings don't have them. I don't have one. I've seen them on the telly.

It seems that the list is being compiled by middle class people, for a poorer lifestyle ... let them eat cake eh!

You are quite right in respect of food processors being only a recent invention - but so is a fridge, and really, does it not make life ever so much easier having one of those ? I would not consider a food processor an essential myself - I have one, but am yet to use it as it is fairly easy to cook only meals that need no processing. The mealplan that this list is being compiled, though, does contain a lot of home-made spreads and the like that really do benefit from being blitzed into smoothness.

Of course, a pestle and mortar - or a similar true old-style approximation - could serve in its place if £20 for a processor was too hard to find..... But I do have a sneaky suspicion that anyone trying to work part or full time, look after a house, cook everything from scratch for four, and so on and so forth.... Would after a month or so of pestle-and-mortaring it make ruddy well sure there is money in the next month's budget for a stick blender at the very least !

I really don't think that anyone here was implying that the kitchen of someone without a processor was somehow less worthy - just that having a food processor really could make life, in certain circumstances, a lot easier

laurel7172

Just my two pennorth...I always found a wine bottle worked fine as a rolling pin. It had to be one of the straight sided ones, obviously.

Storage containers...I don't know about other people's workplaces, but I have a bit of a habit of lifting (with permission) the lidded Celebrations/Heroes tubs when people bring in sweets on their birthdays...