Why you don’t need a Thermomix, but you want one

Say you are struck with a sudden, whimsical urge to make hollandaise sauce. You could put on your frilly apron and, taking your whisk between delicately manicured fingers, gently combine eggs, lemon and butter over a low flame. Or you could drop all the ingredients into a bowl, push a button, and walk away to make yourself a martini, returning 10 minutes later to find a perfect, steaming emulsion ready to be poured over something delightful – say, asparagus that has been steaming in the fumes from your hollandaise.

There’s only one small problem with the second method: in order to employ it, you must first drop an obscene amount of money on a Thermomix.

This machine, a masterwork of German engineering, is a scale, blender, food processor and heating element – all in one tidy countertop package. It will not do your grocery shopping for you, but it comes darn close to fulfilling most of your other kitchen needs. As you might imagine, the manufacturer feels justified in charging a hefty price for this miracle of modern engineering. Purchasing one will set you back four figures.

I own one of these largely because of a book proposal that I slaved over for months before finally shipping it off to publishers. Around draft 987 I grimly told my husband: “If I actually sell this thing, we’re getting a Thermomix.” I sold the thing. We got a Thermomix. And my annual holiday gift guide has regularly extolled its blessings ever since.

Longtime readers know this. In our comments section, one of them recently said: “I’m not convinced a Thermomix is all that useful. Can’t a blender and a stove with a ‘low’ setting accomplish the same thing?” A summer Friday, when thoughts lightly turn to all the marvellous things one could do with fresh produce if only the kitchen weren’t so stuffy, seems just the time to field such a question.

For those who are already feeling the drowsy pull of their hammock, here’s the short answer: No, you can’t really replicate what the Thermomix does with a blender and a low flame.

And for those who still have a few more hours at the office, and need some sort of activity to simulate work, read on for the longer answer.

The miracle of the Thermomix is not in the fact that it purees the heck out of your ingredients (it does, but not any better than a Vitamix costing a quarter of the price), nor that it heats the food (so does a US$20 hot plate). What a Thermomix achieves, that those other appliances do not, is doing both of those things at the same time.