What?
The Joie citrus squeeze and mist juice vaporiser (£6, John Lewis) is a small, graded chamber with interchangeable heads. The reamer attachment funnels citrus juice into the vial, while the atomiser accelerates the liquid into a spray.
Why?
Molecular gastronomy is in, in case you mist it.
Well?
Confronted with a lemon mister, I’m struck by its charming personification. It reminds me of a character from some old jazz standard, perhaps sung by Billie Holiday. “Only me can sweeten he / Cos he’s my lemon mister.” Who is this Lemon Mister, I wonder. Is he Mr Lemon on official documents? Of course, that’s foolishness. It’s not that sort of mister! This is a gadget that allows you to juice a lemon, then spray it everywhere in a misguided citrus spritz. In which case, isn’t it too specific? If there is genuine demand for atmospheric foodplay, why limit things to mist? Why not rustle up a lime fog, or grapefruit gloaming? There surely aren’t many occasions that demand it – salad and fish is the consensus. I don’t know a more undignified way to prepare fish than pumping lemon vapour over it, as if I’m giving it a spray tan, so I go with salad; salad doesn’t have feelings.
As a juicer it is good, worth the price of admission even, clipping on securely and catching pips, while the scale tells you how much you’ve extracted. I swap in the spray nozzle, which is fine too, coating my Greek salad evenly in the blandest vinaigrette ever tasted. But I don’t like it. The exclusive attachments mean the unit is never whole, and must be stored in bits. If there’s one thing I hate in the kitchen, it’s bits of things, cluttering, secretly breeding. More than that, using the tart little aerosol is such a parsimonious displeasure, such a sterile way to dress or marinate.
Ultimately, there is already a good way to get lemon on food, and that is to squeeze one with your human hand. It’s so easy, it is literally easy peasy lemon squeezy. If you think assembling and disassembling this fussy gubbins is a good use of your time, then maybe you’re the aerosol.
Redeeming features?
I dumped out the mister’s contents and filled it with oil, which I used to grease a cake tin, and cake made everything better. Yes, it was a lemon drizzle.
Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?
Back of the cupboard. Or better yet, vaporised completely.
2/5
[“source-theguardian”]
