1. Spiralizers
Putting the fun into veggies or just cluttering up your cupboard?
If eating noodles with any kind of sauce wasn’t messy enough, now you can have the same fun on multiple nights a week by turning your vegetables into pretend noodles – and doubling your laundry at the same time…
The history
It’s been a while since the spiralizer craze was in full swing. According to Wikipedia’s spiralizer entry, it originated in the USA in 2014 and a whole industry of gadgets and books sprang from there. 2014! That’s a bit of a shock. (So much has happened in the world since I last thought about curly vegetables).
I do have a spiralizer, just a little hand-held one, given to me as a present. I used it a bit back in the day when it was all the rage but, honestly, it’s lethal, even with the special bit you attach to the vegetable so you can hold it as you apply it to the blade and twist. Of course, it depends on what vegetable you’re working with but nobody wants dubious streaks of red in with their dinnerplate of healthfulness, now do they? I guess the danger element is kind of why I gave up on it.
Random thoughts on spiralizers
1. Genuine question: are curly vegetables still in fashion? Or have they turned into a marker for generation bashing?
2. I am sure my little plastic and metal spiralizer is not alone and there are gazillions sitting abandoned and unloved in cupboards all over the globe. Thank goodness I didn’t have a table-top one or an electric one. Now that would be significant clutter if that was lying abandoned somewhere in my kitchen.
3. The spiralizer has always bothered me. Not because of its primary purpose but because surely, here in the UK, shouldn’t it be spelled with an ‘s’ and not a ‘z’? I mean, in modern UK English, we write specialise, synthesise and symbolise – spiralize just looks wrong to me! (Yes, this kind of thing takes up way more of my brain space than it should. 😉)
4. On the plus side, making vegetables into fun, curly strings can be a great way to get children to eat them – and it’s a big win for spiralizers when that works! (Back when I was a youngster though, I remember my Granddad peeling apples with a knife and making a curly cascade of shiny green peel. Yes, I was impressed (life was simpler then 😉) but it didn’t particularly encourage me to eat it.)
5. I’ve poked around on the internet and yes, it looks like spiralizing is still en vogue. There are tons of different ones on sale and publications are still putting out “10 best spiralizers, tried and tested” kinds of articles, even now in 2024. The principle is good and if you’re trying to cut down on carbs, spiralizing veggies and pretending they are noodles is obviously the way to go. It’s all healthy natural food and that’s only to be encouraged in a world that’s increasingly awash with ultra-processed take-away fodder.
You know what? I reckon curling my veggies could be worth another shot – I might dig mine out and try it again this week.
Just watch out for the typos in the next post when I’ve lost a finger end…
Random star chart rating
· Essential for survival: 0/5
· Negative impact on the planet from abandoned gadgets: 4/5
· Marks for food presentation creativity: 4/5
· Danger to fingers (hand-held version): 5/5
So… spiralizers – do we really need that? What do you think?