Apparently, it is the food processor! A friend of mine pointed me towards this and it's too good to not share. A lot of technologies get hyped pretty heavily, I think the Segway electric scooter thing was going to revolutionize everything (I forgot how to spell that, it isn't "segue"), but I didn't expect to see this level of excitement for a food processor--possibly because I grew up in an era with food processors.
It has been labeled, and not without justice, the 20th‐century French Revolution. It is the equivalent of an electric blender, electric mixer, meat grinder, food sieve, potato ricer and chef's knife rolled into one. Its invention, in the minds of serious cooks, ranks with that of the printing press, cotton gin, steamboat, paper clips, Kleenex, wastebaskets, contour sheets and disposable diapers. It has, in many minds, rendered the electric blender a hopeless antique, and we are willing at any time to relegate our old faithful to the Smithsonian.
The new mechanical Merlin is a French import known in this country is the Cuisinart Food Processor. It is a multifaceted marvel that has, as the saying goes, more uses than money. It blends, slices, grinds, grates and purées, or, as one kitchen enthusiast put it, “does everything except sweep floors, wash dishes and talk back.”
(From the New York Times Archive, article titled "Kitchen Help", by Craig Claiborne with Pierre Franey, from March 16, 1975.)
As a communication scholar, seeing the food processor compared to the printing press is interesting. I'd say it is a rather hilarious comparison, except that the article goes on to say, quoting, I think, a French food writer...
“The French are just getting to the point,” one of them said, “where they are willing to invest in something more mechanical in the kitchen than an electric hand beater. I have lots of friends with servants who refuse to install an electric dishwasher. As everywhere else, the age of the servant is on its way out in France. Five years ago almost anybody with slightly above average means could afford the cheap kitchen labor offered them in the form of Spanish and Portuguese cooks, mostly female. But that's coming to an end. Until now the French have simply not thought in terms of kitchen aids but in terms of kitchen help.”
Servants! It looks like there is a really interesting issue there with gender, class, and nationality, as well as technology.
Edit: Could it have been the 20th century French Revolution because, like a guillotine of the previous French Revolution, it chops things with a blade? (I don't think that's what the writer was going for, though.)
