Give Emily Johnson a couple of good cans, and he or she'll do an excellent opening act. She has spent a whole lot of time fascinated about can openers. Her uncanny data of all issues can opener comes from her job as senior editor on the meals publication Epicurious, the place she's examined dozens of them.
- We Discovered the Finest Guide Can Openers, Lastly (Epicurious)
Correspondent Susan Spencer requested Johnson, "What does testing day appear to be?"
"It seems to be like me surrounded by an obscene variety of can openers!" she laughed.
"And also you simply sit there and open cans?"
"Yeah! Cans and cans of chickpeas, white beans, cranking, cranking, cranking, cranking."
In any case that cranking, she has come to like the basic design with the little saw-toothed gear. She will get nearly philosophical about it: "The can opener is delightfully analog. It's a single-use merchandise that individuals cannot get out of proudly owning."
Individuals have owned can openers for greater than a century, the design evolving ever for the reason that authentic mannequin in 1858. "I believe probably the most attention-grabbing a part of the can opener's historical past is that it was not invented till round 50 years after the invention of precise canning," Johnson mentioned. "Cans had been so thick, like, three-sixteenths-of-an-inch generally, individuals had to make use of a hammer and chisel."
However individuals did not hand over on the concept of cans utterly. In the event that they'd tried, Johnson might need instructed them to, effectively, can it! "You possibly can take these meals that can final perpetually in your pantry and make an entire meal out of them," she mentioned. However, "You want a can opener to get there."
For more information:
Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Carol Ross.
Extra from Susan Spencer on design: