Under the Sun
High-tech tinkering
tangles a lowly toasterAll I wanted was a toaster, a simple device that would transform a plain slice of bread into my favorite breakfast food. I figured I'd hit a few stores on a Saturday morning and be home in time to enjoy a couple of brown, crisp pieces of toast for lunch.
Foolish me. I should have known that because a toaster is such a modest appliance that manufacturers, bent on new-and-improving everything, would mutate it beyond recognition.
I had resisted buying a toaster for years because I already owned a Dualit, an expensive British model, but it had taken up residence on the Big Island along with a lot of my other "good" stuff. When in Honolulu, I thought, I could do without toast. As time passed, I gave in to my toastal cravings, firing up the oven broiler to do the deed. But the guilt of using so much electricity for two pieces of bread began to eat away at me, and I was constantly burning my hands -- not to mention the bread -- when flipping and sliding slices under the heating element.
I began the hunt at an upscale kitchen store where customers are allowed to fiddle with equipment and utensils to judge quality and features. The store had several so-called toasters, barely recognizable with the buttons and key pads, digital timers and "operation options," "grip cages" and "renewable, interchangeable drip trays." One wide-slotted unit boasted it could "pre-thaw" a "pre-sliced" frozen bagel before toasting, the six-step process outlined in a half-inch-thick booklet of directions. Another -- a "French-enameled" job available in three trendy colors, with computer-directed heating for "perfect toast every time" -- was equipped with a "presentation" lever that shoveled the toast from the slot while shielding fingers from hot elements.
Whoever dreams up this stuff must be nuts. Why does something as unsophisticated as a toaster get this high-tech make-over? I suspect it's because companies who make these things need us to buy new ones every few years so they can stay in business. They adorn their products with silly functions, forgetting that the most important characteristic of a labor-saving device is ease of use.
A few weeks ago, a New York Times article told of a woman whose daughter accidentally touched the controls of a new oven. After emitting an annoying series of beeps, the oven refused to work. No amount of button-pushing and tinkering would get it going again. The story chronicled other high-tech nightmares involving digitally timed space heaters that can't just be turned on or off, a 700-function car stereo system that takes at least five steps to get the radio to return to a favorite station, a mute button on a television remote that inexplicably triggers a radio to sound off full blast and a digital camera that requires an instruction manual numbering five pages more than the 200 things the camera is supposed to be able to do. Hopefully, one of them is to take a picture.
My quest for a toaster consumed two days. I downgraded the search from high-end stores to discount retailers, thinking that cheaper would translate to simpler. But many of the cheap devices mimicked the more expensive ones in superfluous functions while skimping on materials and workmanship. One had sharp edges that sliced my finger when I tried to coil the cord in the holder "designed to keep counter tops neat." I was resigned to buying another Dualit, but the price was almost 50 percent more than what the original one cost.
Then, in a department store, I saw it. It was chrome and black plastic. It had a little dial that set six degrees of toastiness and a spring lever that popped up the toast when done. The only drawback was a defrost button, but that I could ignore. It was priced reasonably.
I remarked to the clerk that it looked like the toaster from the days of my childhood. He told me that it was a "retro" model and that it was selling well. "People like it because it's kinda simple," he said. What a concept.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin for 25 years.
She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.