A designer gadget that measures spaghetti

spaghetti_measure_render.jpg

UK designer Joseph Joseph has created this awesomely cute spaghetti measuring device that measures out 1-4 servings of pasta with a camera lens-like functionality. For $8.50, it’s one of those kitchen gadgets that you don’t really need, but would make you look like a fancy culinary person, or at the very least, just a design-y person.

Product page (via NotCot)

About Lisa Katayama

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.
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22 Responses to A designer gadget that measures spaghetti

  1. nehpetsE says:

    NOT single purpose at all.
    You can look at people through it while opening and closing the iris and pretend your eye is a cyborg-camera.

    it also might work as a cockring

  2. O_M says:

    …Why does that thing remind me of some sort of Bris that Billy Mays would be selling to Rabbis?

  3. nehpetsE says:

    Even if doesn’t work as cockring, i think we now have a new standard for measuring the diameters of stuff.
    As in “yeah, on the JOSEPHJOSEPH scale, i’m about a 5 and a half”

  4. SamSam says:

    Who weighs their pasta? A box is one pound (in the US). Half a box is half a pound. A third of a box is a third of a pound. Who needs more precision than that?

    (Even better in non-Imperial countries, as a box is 500 g, and pasta is generally 100 g per person, plus 100 for the pot (though sauce-dependent). Seems more intuitive than “a fifth of a pound.”)

  5. Bruce says:

    …or you could just use thumb and index finger for the same purpose. I allow a hole the size of a quarter per person.

    Ain’t opposible thumbs great?

  6. flwombat says:

    I enjoy the designer’s name, and am now wondering if he pronounces each “joseph” differently. Like, his first name is pronounced “jozeph”.

    And hey, maybe this design is just a prototype for a papercraftish version that will actually be built right into the spaghetti packaging.

    No? They’re selling the plastic on right now?

    Ok that’s dumb.

  7. Zan says:

    What’s wrong with cooking the whole box and putting the rest in the fridge like a normal person?

  8. Felix Mitchell says:

    @ Zan:

    Re-cooked spagetti tastes disgusting?

    So how is this an improvement on the old design of a piece of plastic with different shaped holes in it?

  9. scaught says:

    single purpose kitchen gadget. Alton Brown frowns.

  10. HeatherB says:

    I’m with Felix. I don’t recook my spaghetti. Not unless I want to feel like I’m eating rubber or having to add more butter or something which I just don’t want to do.

    Personally I don’t need anything to help me measure any sort of pasta. Especially spaghetti. I’ve been cooking it since I was knee high to a grasshopper and it’s just one of those things you can eye ball if you know what you’re doing.

    This gadget is to get for those type of people who either have no clue how to cook or just like kitchen gadgets.

  11. Brandon West says:

    This device makes way more sense to keep around the kitch: http://www.cooking-gadgets.com/noooodle-spaghetti-measure-trivet/

  12. Anonymous says:

    My friend’s mom referred to the pasta measuring device as the “peter meter”. I can think of similar useful cases here…

  13. haineux says:

    Does it come with its own designer-y storage case to keep it grime free? Because I’m betting it’s NOT dishwasher safe.

    (You COULD keep it in a zip top bag. How un-designer-y.)

    But you can ALSO be ever so trendy and make your own. Bonus points for using an ellipse template.

    Or you can be anal and weigh the spaghetti.

    Or you can do what the unwashed proles do, and eyeball it. Sheesh.

  14. c says:

    Does the Kinsey institute get a bulk rate discount?

  15. ryuthrowsstuff says:

    As a former culinary professional I can say that this is 1) completely useless 2) likely to break after any real use.

  16. mathew says:

    They need to do a version with goatse hands for Boing Boing readers.

  17. geekpdx says:

    Ditch the tab, add a small motor. Then include a snap on attachment to connect it to the lens hood I use with my DSLR. And the iris should be red.

    Boom.
    $50, nearly useless camera accessory.
    I’d buy it.

  18. akbar56 says:

    @#1 scaught

    Alton should frown upon himself for the high number of uni-taskers he still uses.

  19. username says:

    Yup, it would definitely make you look design-y and a very much non-culinary person. More design for the sake of design rather than utility.

  20. PaulR says:

    ryuthrowsstuff: Hear! Hear!

    I weigh my pasta. Length varies, eh? And what if you’re cooking some other shape?

  21. Moriarty says:

    Surely it should be USB powered for some reason.

  22. steve pick says:

    Now if this was the lid of a spaghetti length sized jar, I could see the use. Add a 0 to the meter to indicate it’s closed (because it might not be obvious to many). But on it’s own it’s another thing to dig from the drawer.

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