Despite America's love of kitchen appliances, they lack popular pieces of luxury food technology that Europe and Australia have enjoyed for many years.
At first glance, the Thermomix TM5 looks a lot like a complicated blender, but it’s so much more. Promising to make you “not afraid of cooking anymore,” it’s essentially a sophisticated device that can deliver recipes, chop, grind, knead, and actually cook your food. It’s like a smart pot that does it all. While it may not be the best appliance for people who love to cook, it’s perfect for those who have no idea how to cook or simply don’t like it.
Overall the device is actually somewhat complicated.
A large bowl sits on an even larger base and the interior has various accessories, including a steam basket, an attached whisk, a spatula, a knife, and a measuring cup. It's not small at all, and the accessories take up extra space.
A small touchscreen on the device allows you to choose from a variety of different recipes, ranging from soups and pizza doughs to margaritas. Once a recipe is selected, the screen shows step-by-step instructions and also acts as a scale to help users measure ingredients. Users can choose from a variety of different recipes from the cookbook included with the device, but accessing the entire Thermomix library is going to cost you, of course.
The company has rolled out a new dongle in 2017 called Cook Key, which will allow users to access 20,000 different recipes over Wi-Fi.
While $1299 may seem like a lot for the device, 20,000 recipes is an impressive number and is attractive to some (wealthy) users.
While useful, the Thermomix is definitely a luxury that takes up valuable space in your kitchen.
