That $6 garlic press was the worst money I ever spent on cooking

I finally broke down and bought a cheap garlic press from the discount store last month. After three uses the handle snapped clean off, right in the middle of making my spaghetti sauce. I ended up mincing the garlic by hand anyway, which takes like two minutes and costs nothing. Anyone else found those little kitchen gadgets just aren't worth it compared to a good knife?

3 comments

3 Comments

diana_flores2513d ago

Right, so the handle snapping mid-sauce is the ultimate betrayal (I'd be so mad about wasted garlic). But honestly, the cleaning thing from evannelson is the real killer for me. Why are those little holes basically designed to trap garlic skin forever? It's like they made the tool specifically to test your patience. The whole point of a garlic press is to be faster than a knife, but you spend more time scrubbing it than you would just mincing the clove. So what's the secret to getting all that gunk off without using a toothpick for twenty minutes?

elliotl2411d ago

The "twenty minutes with a toothpick" part is spot on. It's like the garlic press was designed by someone who never actually had to clean one. But here's the thing, @evannelson mentioned the cleaning, and I think that ties into a bigger pattern. So many kitchen gadgets are made by people who only care about the 10 seconds of crushing, not the 5 minutes of cleanup. It's the same with those microplane graters that shred your knuckles or juicers with a hundred plastic parts that get moldy. The real test of a tool isn't how well it works when it's new, it's how much you hate using it after the third time. That's why I just smash cloves with the flat side of a knife now. Takes two seconds, no special tool to wash, and you don't have to dig garlic skin out of those stupid little holes.

evannelson14d ago

Then you're cleaning garlic out of those little holes for ten minutes anyway, waste of time.