Wooden, I don’t suppose I have to work too exhausting to persuade you, is a reasonably wonderful substance. It grows out of the bottom after which turns into a few of the most vital issues on this planet: pencils, baseball bats, clogs, porch swings, campfires, crucifixes, tall cabinets stuffed with books (that are additionally wooden, in case you squint somewhat). Solomon’s temple was wooden; so was the Mayflower. So had been Kane’s Rosebud and Prince’s guitar. As constructing supplies go, wooden’s durability-to-weight ratio is principally unmatched, due to the lengthy, skinny, hardy cell construction that helps bushes stand up to excessive climate circumstances.
Wooden does, nonetheless, have its limitations, and lots of of them are discovered within the kitchen. Processed wooden warps, so it must be dried instantly after hand-washing (neglect the dishwasher). Moisture, use, and the passage of time can flip its fibers brittle and uninteresting, so consultants suggest treating it recurrently with oil. Clearly, it has been identified to catch on hearth. And although wooden is of course antimicrobial, if it splinters, these cozy natural crevices are the forms of locations the place mould, mildew, and micro organism love to hang around. There’s a purpose most workhorse bowls in lots of kitchens are ceramic, metallic, or plastic.
None of this appears to matter to the individuals who lately purchased KitchenAid’s Artisan Design Collection Evergreen 5-Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer, which comes not with the model’s commonplace stainless-steel bowl, however with a walnut one. The machine seems to be like one thing you would possibly discover in a glassy, aseptic mid-century-modern rental, perhaps someplace Nordic. KitchenAid, for its half, believes that it “brings the fantastic thing about the forest house” and helps “makers” “really feel like they’re out within the woods experiencing all of the revitalizing components.”
The bowl, as a result of it’s made out of wooden, is somewhat explicit. “Merely hand-wash and dry instantly” begins a video tutorial that the model posted to YouTube, over peppy synths and a shot of an enviable copper-and-marble kitchen. Then the video reminds you to season the bowl recurrently with walnut oil, food-safe mineral oil, and/or food-safe wooden polish. When requested, in a Q&A piece on the KitchenAid web site, about whipping egg whites, an organization rep warns, “It’s not beneficial to make use of the oiled wooden bowl for whipped egg creations.”
This finicky, egg-hostile machine retails for $699 earlier than tax, greater than double the worth of the least costly KitchenAid stand mixer—although it primarily does what all of KitchenAid’s different stand mixers do: present a sturdy, stationary base and a strong motor for mixing dough and batter, hands-free. Paying a whole lot of {dollars} extra for a software that’s additionally extra annoying could seem counterintuitive for individuals who cook dinner primarily to remain alive. However after all, the Evergreen isn’t for these individuals. With this latest launch, KitchenAid is acknowledging one thing that’s been true about its flagship product for years: The stand mixer doesn’t essentially should be straightforward to make use of, as a result of it’s not solely meant for use. It’s additionally meant to be displayed.
In 1919, when KitchenAid first launched the stand mixer, cooking—baking particularly—was mandatory drudgery; the stand mixer promised to make it simpler. Today, although KitchenAid sells all types of different doohickeys, the stand mixer remains to be what the corporate is understood for. When individuals say KitchenAid, they’re most likely speaking concerning the stand mixer, simply the best way Kleenex has develop into synonymous with facial tissue.
What has modified over the previous century or so is the tradition of cooking. For many individuals, cooking is now typically leisure—one thing they do to chill out or exhibit, not simply because they need to. The issues we use to do it are, commensurately, symbols: proof of a lovely life. KitchenAid is aware of this. As the corporate’s advertising director stated in 2007, “Analysis tells us that many much less avid cooks merely need one on their countertop, largely as a result of they like its design.” Certainly: “I NEED it,” one particular person wrote on X concerning the Evergreen. Added one other, “I’d hit my nice grandmama within the ankle w a razor scooter 89 occasions for an opportunity to get my arms on this unhealthy boy.”
In anthropology, fetishism refers back to the veneration of inanimate objects. Karl Marx borrowed the idea in coining the time period commodity fetishism—the concept sure items, beneath sure circumstances, can “transcend sensuousness.” They’ll tackle worth other than and past their precise use or the labor required to supply them.
That’s one solution to perceive the Evergreen. One other is thru the decline of the Prompt Pot, the electrical strain cooker that bought tens of millions of models earlier than its mother or father firm declared chapter final yr. A part of the issue, Amanda Mull wrote in The Atlantic, was that it labored too properly; everybody who needed one purchased one, after which there have been no extra individuals to purchase them.
KitchenAid is owned by the publicly traded equipment behemoth Whirlpool, which made about $19 billion in income final yr, however it’s not exhausting to think about its executives worrying about the identical situation. Colours and supplies apart, the fundamental design of a KitchenAid mixer hasn’t modified a lot because the mid-Thirties; the one I’ve in my kitchen is just not all that completely different from the one Julia Baby had in hers. It’s a easy product that does what it’s speculated to do—combine stuff—and is constructed to final. In a novelty-obsessed shopper tradition, that’s not an asset for a corporation; it’s a legal responsibility.
There are two methods to resolve this drawback. One is to get individuals who already personal stand mixers to purchase extra stand mixers. KitchenAid, and numerous different legacy makers of high-quality home equipment, has lately adopted the “drop” mannequin, which has helped the style business flip even low-quality clothes into collectors’ gadgets over the previous few many years. The method—launch limited-edition or specialty merchandise, generally in collaboration with beloved manufacturers—alchemizes synthetic shortage into consideration, and turns product releases into occasions. It additionally, crucially, encourages individuals to purchase new variations of issues they have already got. This is the reason KitchenAid yearly releases mixers in limited-edition colours, and why, a few years in the past, the almost century-old French enamelware model Le Creuset made a Dutch oven that appears like Harry Potter: Individuals purchase them.
The opposite solution to promote extra stand mixers is to get extra individuals usually to purchase stand mixers—to rope in individuals who don’t want, or wouldn’t purchase, a $700 kitchen software within the first place. That is, to be clear, most individuals, even most individuals who bake. Except you might be recurrently making bread or processing dense doughs, a $40 hand mixer will most likely do the trick for brownies, cookies, and muffins.
However the KitchenAid mixer isn’t only a software—it’s an announcement, a talisman, a flex. Begin in search of it within the background of movie star house excursions and cooking reveals and also you gained’t be capable of cease noticing it. It says I’m collectively sufficient to tackle bold baking tasks, and I can afford an costly equipment to assist me. In that manner, it has much less in widespread with, say, a blender than with a totally completely different object: an engagement ring. Each are costly standing symbols typically acquired within the spring of 1’s life; each are of restricted use and enduring recognition; each are signifiers of home attainment; each are issues individuals excitedly submit to Instagram.
The Evergreen, in response to no less than one early evaluation, does certainly work to make brownies. And within the grand scheme of troublesome developments in meals tradition, an individual of means shopping for a fussy mixer that they don’t want is just not that unhealthy. However make no mistake concerning the message the Evergreen is sending because it sits atop your gleaming counters: On this kitchen we could not make the meals, however we’re tremendous throwing down some huge cash to fake.
