Anyone use meatball tongs?

[Jenise]

Was shopping on Chefs.com for a new can opener (mine went ker-chunk while I was opening a can the other day and bit the dust) and saw these meatball tongs. Wonder how well they work? I like the idea for the sake of uniformity, although I actually like getting my hands in there and rolling the balls myself. Kind of fun.

http://www.chefscatalog.com/product/301 ... tongs.aspx

I use a similar item for making balls of homemade sorbet.

I generally don't like things like this because they make the meatballs too dense. I like swirling them around in my hand and getting a softer meatball out of the process. This probably comes from my technique for making very light motzo balls. A hard matzo ball is against my particular religious beliefs.

No meatball scoop here. Handses, my precious.

I do use a melon baller and an ice cream scoop.

We use them all time and they don't get too compact.

[Robin Garr]

I'm an adherent to the Alton Brown principle: There's no room for "uni-taskers" in a busy kitchen. Sole exception being the fire extinguisher.

We also use ours making cookies, and a number of other tasks.

I think Dr. Mengele used something very similar.

I think Dr. Mengele used something very similar.

OUCH!

Yes, nowadays most are sold to the North Korean government.

[Jenise]

I think Dr. Mengele used something very similar.

LOL, 'Winger.

You too, Mike.

@Robin: in general, I agree, and that's what keeps me away from Panini presses and their ilk. But I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater to judge single-purpose small hand tools by the same measure: were I to personally live by that standard, among the things I'd have to part with would be the ice cream scoop (after all, a spoon can do it, and it's not like I scoop ice cream all the time--probably no more than once per year), a turkey baster (once again, a spoon can do it), a curved slicing device that divorces corn kernels from the cob, needle nose plyers that have no other job than removing small fish bones, and an asparagus peeler--talk about a specialty item! I really only use it for white asparagus which isn't something I can get very often! So, point is: small hand tools are very often precision-oriented uni-taskers that make food more beautiful, certain tasks easier or certain refinements in preparation doable that otherwise could not be done (like that asparagus peeler--white asparagus snaps so easily, you'd lose half your stalks to any other method).

Interesting divergences of opinion here on the meatball tongs. Perhaps it's a matter of technique to not over-pack them--at any rate, you all have convinced me that I'd like to try a pair. I've got room in the general hand tool drawer for one of these. If they don't work out, I can mail them to Kim Jong Un.

I have the same phenomenon in the automotive realm.

For instance when I am rebuilding a transmission, a factory manual may call for a half dozen special tools to do the job, and yet I can accomplish it using normal tools and a bit of creativity. Those are 'tools you don't need to own'

There are other specialized tools that nothing will substitute for, and I have a collection of them, even though some (cam shaft setting keys for an engine they only made 2000 of) I use once a decade.

There are a group of intermediate tools - where you CAN get awy by using something else, but the specialized tool makes it so much easier that it is worth splurging and buying the right tool.

I'd put Jenise's ice cream scoop in that category.

So - stuff you don't need in food would include olive pitters, spiral vegetable cutters etc.

Don't need but want - ice cream scoops, plating rings, boning knives, grapefruit knives

Things that you can live without (and they'd just clutter up your drawers - anything "as seen on TV"

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NerBE-JorMA

So - stuff you don't need in food would include olive pitters, spiral vegetable cutters etc.

I once bought a book about food decoration and it came with a bag of special-purpose tools: a spiral cutter, a channel knife, etc. I've used one or two, down through the years. But the book was a good read!

I can see Captain Hook using one, but of all Swedes I have seen making meatballs, nobody ever used such an unnecessary utensil.

Greetings from Sweden / Fredrik L

[Jenise]

grapefruit knives

I'm familiar with what those are, but that would actually be a don't need/don't want for me since we use grapefruit spoons which are, btw, not only a superior way to eat grapefruit vs. pre-cutting, which I think leaves too much fruit behind, but also great multi-taskers. Great for scraping the hairy stuff from inside a squash once the seeds are out, and removing the chokes from artichokes.

I'm familiar with what those are, but that would actually be a don't need/don't want for me since we use grapefruit spoons which are, btw, not only a superior way to eat grapefruit than pre-cutting but also great multi-taskers. Great for scraping the hairy stuff from inside a squash once the seeds are out, and removing the chokes from artichokes.

Grapefruit spoons are great.