Here Comes The Apocalypse – What’s For Dinner?
5 essential kitchen tools for when the electricity goes out.
The other day I was sitting having lunch, reading an Ottolenghi recipe for hummus with the news on in the background, when I suddenly thought – if for some reason we no longer had power, how would I purée that hummus?
Have you recently been thinking a lot about how we live? Whether it’s the impact of our way of life on the environment, energy insecurity due to war, or some other impending doom scenario, it’s fair to say that it would be wise to familiarize ourselves with approaches to reducing our reliance on electricity. As a cook (and a greedy person!) I don’t relish the idea of eating beans on toast for the rest of eternity. So how to blend that hummus? Here’s a few tools that can help you reduce your electricity consumption in the kitchen.
Mouli
A mouli is a fantastically useful device that can be used to purée anything – soups, hummus, sauces, tomatoes. It can make mashed potatoes and even grate cheese. Like a kind of metal colander with a lid, and a crank handle, it’s often called a food mill and usually comes with different gauges of grater to use depending on the application. This replaces your blender or food processor. Put batches of whatever it is you want to process into the mouli and then just turn the handle to pass it through the bottom plate into your container. Simple!
Mortar and Pestle
To purée small amounts of food like pesto, or for grinding spices or even coffee beans for your French press, you’re going to need a mortar and pestle. Just add the items you want to grind or puree to the bowl (that’s the mortar) then use the pestle to pound and grind until you get the texture you want. This is some real stone age technology! You can a mortar and pestle set in many types of materials — marble, glass, wood — but the key thing is that the pestle needs to be robust enough to effectively grind the food. You should consider getting a couple of different sizes. They just look so cool in the kitchen and you can pretend you’re in a potions class at Hogwarts!
Hand whisk
Ok, when things are bad you’re still going to want cake. Need it even. But if you can’t use your KitchenAid or hand blender? You’re going to want a hand whisk aka an egg whisk. Yeah you could use a balloon whisk for some applications but for thicker pastes like cake mix a hand whisk is your guy. And they are super fun. Two little whisks joined together with a handle to hold and another that you turn to operate it. A good workout before all that cake!
Analogue scales
Speaking of cake — how are you going to weigh those ingredients? Ah — you use cups? Well we Brits need our scales, but the digital ones’ batteries are really bad for the environment both in production and in disposal. So how about getting some old school analogue scales like your great-granny used to have? You might consider 2 sets of these as well for small and large volumes.
Cast iron pans
If there’s no electricity and possibly no gas you might be cooking on an open fire. You’re going to need tools up to that task so that’s where I’d recommend some cast iron pans. Not the fancy enameled ones that cost a fortune, some basic ones will do but you can shove them directly in embers or the propane barbecue with no need to fear.
At the end of the day anything we can do to reduce our energy use has got to be a win, and you might even have fun in the process!
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