Kitchomat 101

 Moden cookery is, of course, mediated by machine, and modern cookbooks should reflect that.  Sadly we see that there are still many ‘author’s out there (and we use our scare quotes advisedly as who these days writes for themselves when ChatGPT42 assembles nouns and verbs more entertainingly than any of us?) who seem to think that they are writing for people and not for the kitchen automata (the near ubiquitous kitchomat).

Gone are the days when an author might recommend beating the cook before each service in order to ensure that the food was of acceptable quality.  Also gone are the days when a brigade of staff would assemble to convey dishes from the kitchen to the dining room a la russe, and gone too are the days when a simple meal for two might be served solely by the butler and illuminated only by candlelight.

More recently, the time has passed when the time-conscious might stop briefly at a fast-food restaurant for take-out, or when they might hurtle into a one-stop shop for pre-packaged, pre-sliced and pre-cooked food to reheat in the microwave, the precursor of today’s kitchomats.  Gone too is the antediluvian and, it must be indicated, somewhat childish, obsession with foraging and cooking by individuals.  Why would you attempt something with such proven failure rates by even modestly intelligent people when the kitchomat can be relied upon to faultlessly and repeatedly produce excellent quality in a fraction of the time?

No more shall cookbooks instruct the cook in how to chop, slice, dice, brunoise and, via other pretentious culinary jargon, pretend to understand how lumpen vegetables and bruised fruit shall come together with variously sourced proteins to form a ‘meal’.  Now, as this book shall indicate, we shall provide only the necessary instructions for the kitchomat, and it will feed us.

By way of example, the ‘author’ of this book sat down with ChatGPT42 for a brief, enervating, conversation and, whilst discussing things of a fratricidal nature, asked for a menu for the evening, when the ‘author’s family would be visiting (mostly to show off their new self-driving vehicles).  The suggested menu was:

‘Clear’ tomato water with basil foam,

Sous-vide chicken breast with cauliflower ‘rice’ and carrot ‘caviar’

Banana and peanut-butter smoothie

and, it should be noted, the quotes are ChatGPT’s own.  Naturally the ‘author’ handed this over, unquestioningly, to the kitchomat, knowing that it could only produce a satisfactory result.

The kitchomat, while a technological marvel, does sometimes ask questions if presented with requests couched entirely in natural language.  This is to be expected; the vagaries and ambiguities that arise when people attempt to think for themselves are to be derided at all costs, and precision and simplicity are to be aspired to.  The kitchomat’s first question was to enquire as to what was meant by “‘Clear’”.

Naturally the ‘author’ referred the question by to ChatGPT42 for clarification.  Having established that the resultant liquid should be clear and free of particles in suspension, the kitchomat opted to wash the tomatoes and serve the washing water.  To obtain a basil foam it added a basil purée to its soap dispenser, producing light-green bubbles that popped with a delicious fragrance.

As you, my ‘reader’s (and I am sure that most of you are having a synopsis of this text read to you by your favourite text-to-speech generator) may have guessed, the kitchomat also enquired as the to intended meaning of ‘rice’ and ‘caviar’, which ChatGPT42 responded to.  The outcome was a dish of brutally violated cauliflower and minced carrot served with a luke-warm lump of pale protein.

The kitchomat professed to have no trouble at all in understanding the nature of the smoothie, and I was delighted to hear the familiar whine of the kitchen centrifuge in operation.

Serving such a meal in the modern home is also a dream of ease and elegance.  With no human staff around, there is no-one standing around idle while people eat; there is no danger of food or drink being spilled on guests, and there is no need to have people lean back and forth so that hot dishes can be circulated behind or in front of them.  Instead the kitchomat deploys its dishes to a squadron of roombas which happily and helpfully deliver them to the table.  Indeed, who has not been charmed the sight of a roomba trundling along the length of the dining table carrying with it, say, a hedgehog of cheese-like protein studded with spears of hemi-vegetables?

The tomato water with basil foam was expertly conveyed to the table with minimal spillage and guests were invited to dip their own cups into the tureen (the drinks dispenser was sadly unavailable that evening), and the sous-vide chicken breast was only slightly mauled by the cat en route.  The piece de resistance, naturally, was the peanut butter smoothie, served (as you might expect) with straws.  Sadly the kitchomat had assumed that chunky peanut butter (as is my usual preference) was intended, but this caused blockages in the straws making it hard to eat as intended.  The bananas were pureed into a slurry of pure starch however, so it was possible to ‘eat’ around the island of peanuts and all was not lost!

With this success evident on the page, this book shall now provide recipes in the modern sense: instructions obtained from ChatGPT42 for delivery to the kitchomat so that ‘reader’s may host dinner gatherings fit for a robot overlord!