it’s a holiday It’s still about a week away, and I’m tired from Thanksgiving. I’ve already made four rounds of mashed potatoes, three of mac and cheese, and three turkeys (and there are still waiting in my fridge) as part of testing the Smart Probe to help smoke a turkey outside and prepare a seven-course holiday meal kit for friends and family.
I was eager to finally outsource some of the cooking by testing out two different robo-chef appliances, the Thermomix TM7 and the Posha Kitchen Robot. Both promise to plan my meals and do most of the cooking, which I love.
The Thermomix is descended from a German device launched in 1968 – a time when the most famous robot chef was the cartoon Rosie jetson– It was basically a blender with a heater. It’s since become massively popular in countries ranging from Italy to Portugal to Australia, and over the years it’s added smart features like multi-tier steaming, baking, proofing, a touchscreen, an encyclopedic recipe app, and more. WIRED reviewer Joe Ray called the previous-generation 2020 Thermomix TM6 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) “the smartest of smart kitchens.” The latest version, the seventh generation TM7, was released in August and looks like a giant trophy with a computer screen. It retails for $1,699 and aims to replace almost every appliance in your kitchen. It will also happily order groceries for you on Instacart.
The latest robo-chef entrant is Posha, a Silicon Valley-via-Bangalore startup device that aims for truly autonomous one-pot cooking, once you’ve chopped the appropriate ingredients into small compartments. The Posha Kitchen Robot was released in January at a price of $1,750 and sold out immediately, as does each successive batch. The device comes with a robotic stirring arm and a camera to monitor moisture and brownness. Press a button, and Posha will add the ingredients at the appropriate time, add and stir the masala to your food, add water and oil and cook it, all without your participation.
I used both the Posha and the Thermomix to whip up a spread of Thanksgiving sides: candied yams, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, and chose a more complex wild card entry because I thought my Aunt Katherine might like it — and judged the cooking experience overall. Consider it Robo-Chef face-to-face.
Here’s my experience with each of the Thermomix and Posha—and how each performed on five Thanksgiving side recipes.
Cooking experience with Thermomix
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Photograph: Matthew Korfage
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Photograph: Matthew Korfage
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Photograph: Matthew Korfage
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Photograph: Matthew Korfage
wired
- Steaming, mixing, baking, proofing, roasting, mixing, weighing, ordering groceries….
- A choice of 100,000 recipes, often quite thoroughly tested
- Beautifully powerful and fast blending
tired
- you are still doing all the preparation
- Many recipes still require an oven
- Cleaning that many parts is a tough job if you don’t run a dishwasher.
The history of Thermomix goes back almost 60 years. This is a good thing. It started out, essentially, as a blender that could cook. This is still a very powerful blender that can cook. Gosh, it makes pesto or mashed potatoes just as quickly and easily as anything else. I stood truly awestruck by its raw cooking-blending power.
But it has evolved into much more, an all-in-one device that intends to replace nearly every appliance in your kitchen. Today’s Thermomix has become a beast of diverse functionality.