Over the weekend, preparing for the arrival
of an infant English dog, I went out to pro-
vision the house with a maker of smoothies -
the new compulsion among the green Maoists -
for his nutrition and mine, to see that I'll
keep up with him. I foraged a breakfast with
the thing this morning, inducing its opera-
tion for the first time. Immediately, I fell
into a gentle basin of despond, if not fully
a pit, as the device exerted itself in dig-
itally nuanced pulsings and whirrings and
ancillary esoteric frolics, to persuade me
that I'd made a witty acquisition.
I take, needless to say, the contrary view.
I'd been had by a culture of technology over
technique, and left with an incurably glossy,
supersafe chemical compound for a canister of
state-of-the-art extracts and chopped debris.
If only my family were here to indulge a de-
served laugh at my expense, I'd feel I were
still living in a gentler, more humane world.
Our world is one of cutting boards and sieves,
food mills run by hand, and mortars and pestles.
Our engagement with our ingredients is physical,
stylised, an exercise of craft. Apart from the
undeniable lewdness of the machine, there was
its mockery of time and feeling, caring and cre-
ativity to welcome, suddenly, as if some stan-
dard befitting the puppy.
I will not go that way with him.
Adam Prucha
Breville
Hemisphere™ Control Blender
Thorny in California
