Food Scoop v.s. Bench Scraper: The Ultimate Mise Mover
As someone who’s verged on being a hoarder in the past, I really loathe clutter. As a result, I’ve worked hard to get my kitchen, my wardrobe, my toolkit, etc., down to essentials and pieces I really like. I’m not a minimalist, but I’m far from a maximalist. As a result, I have a strong dislike for single-use kitchen gadgets. Banana peelers, avocado corers, and ice cream makers can get lost. When the Food Scoop first turned up in my life, my gut reaction was to reject it. That is, until I started using one. Every. Single. Day.
Now, my food scoop lives in my cutlery drawer, next to my cutting station. Prime real estate in my kitchen. I love this silly thing! Here’s why:
I do a lot of prep for a home cook. Life is busy, I have a family, so I prefer weekday cooking to be minimal. That means cooking 5 days' worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner every Sunday. A big cutting board and a honking 240mm gyuto make that much chopping a lot easier, but there’s always the matter of getting said mise en place into a pan, pot, or lunch container. In comes the food scoop. I used to scoop up food with my knife and dump it in the pan, but with a kid running around the kitchen and mountains of veggies, that became tiresome (and dangerous). My food scoop significantly cuts down on the number of trips, and brings the danger down to zero. Simple, effortless, and fast.
While you may not be doing the mountain of prep work I do in a weekend, I guarantee a food scoop will make your cooking life easier. Still using your knife to move food into the pot? You need a food scoop. Picking up your cutting board to scrape everything in there? You need a food scoop. Got sensory issues and hate getting garlic goo on your hands? You DEFINITELY need a food scoop.
“But what about a bench scraper!” I hear my chef friends clamouring. Fair, I love a bench scraper. They’re excellent for scraping down wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks at the end of the day, and pretty good at scooping small amounts of ingredients, but the Food Scoop has them beat several times over for capacity. I have both, but I always reach for my food scoop during prep work. The bench scraper comes out when it’s time to clean, especially if I’ve been kneading any kind of dough on my countertop.
Even if you’re a gadget hater like me, you’ll be delighted by just how handy a food scoop is. Now get scoopin’!
