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Paper short abstract:

This paper describes how domestic food work has been digitalising in Germany thanks to smartphones and kitchen robots. It argues that digital technologies and the access to knowledge online enable new forms of wellbeing. Yet, because it is largely women who use them, this potential is invisible.

Paper long abstract:

Even if smart fridges or drone delivered food are still more futurist visions than everyday reality in most households in Germany, kitchens are long since smart. Smartphones, tablets and laptops are routinely involved in all kinds of domestic food work across the world, from ordering ingredients or entire meals to searching for a recipe, sharing eating experiences or disposing of leftovers via app. Food has emerged as one of the major topics online and on social media. Much more quietly has been the recent success of digital kitchen robots, especially the internet enabled Thermomix of the German firm Vorwerk (elsewhere in continental Europe known as Bimby). With its abilities to, for example, weigh, chop, cook, ferment or steam food but also manage shopping lists, suggest one from among thousands of specially coded recipes and guide through the cooking process, it is transforming domestic cooking in Germany (and also in Italy, France, Portugal or Poland) from the ground up. The first part of this paper describes how domestic food work has been digitalising in Germany thanks to smartphones and the Thermomix, based on ethnographic research among twenty single and family households in Germany since January 2022. The second part argues that digital technologies and the limitless access to knowledge and experience online enable entirely new forms of personal and family wellbeing. Yet, because it is largely women who harness these digital technologies in everyday life, this potential has been invisible, even ignored in the wider public.