Oof. Favas. Double peeling!
For pomegranate, I like the method where you make shallow vertical cuts along the longitudes/bulges with a paring knife - peel down the skin along the cuts, and the seeds mostly fall into the bowl. No bloodbath scene
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I used this for a while. I don’t know if it works on youthful garlic.
I’ve never had too much trouble opening them, it’s the effort. I’m lazy. I am lazy when it comes to opening winter squash, melons, pineapples, etc…
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No one has mentioned durian? Wait a minute that’s NOT a kitchen task.
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Not to mention scaling fresh fish, and the scales flying everywhere, then finding scales in weird places for days. Maybe this is why I only fish a couple times a year now. Also probably the reason friends have dropped off freshly caught fish without even taking them home - straight from the ocean to my house. Cleaning fish kinda takes the joy out of fishing.
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One of my less pleasurable eating experiences involved fish scales. I was out to dinner with Japanese clients. They had the waitstaff clear away everything but the sake, even the water. Then in came the cruel fish, three six or seven inch fish that had been stunned in hot broth and lay gasping on the plate. I was told to eat them headfirst so that the fins would not stick me in the roof of my mouth. They did, indeed, taste very fresh, but the crunch of bones, the squish of guts, and the dry effect of a mouth full of scales made for sensory overload. Needless to say I needed to eat all three so as not to offend. It was worse than the time they treated me to live large shrimp.
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Cleaning the filter in the dishwasher.
If you’ve never done it, trust me, it will be “the kitchen task you dislike most of all” when you finally get around to it
Just plain nasty. Gutting a fresh fish afterward will be a palate cleanser.
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This method has never worked for me either, even with a firm container (glass jar with lid) and lots of hard shaking.
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Hmmm… I can’t imagine a glass jar being tall enough to get the acceleration you’re after. Have you tried with something that is at least 10-12 inches tall?
Oy! You are super-brave! Good thing they left the saké!
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Only 4-6 inches. My kitchen doesn’t generate 10-12 inches glass bottles.
Me neither, and I’ve done everything Scott (and many others) have suggested regarding the shake garlic in a jar method. At best one of them loses its skin and many of the rest have skins fractured along one edge, so at least I can then get a fingernail under them.
My general method is just grip tightly with both forefingers/thumbs and give `em a good twist.
Peeling the outer skin off broad beans. Unless the sun is shining , I have a beer and the test cricket is on the radio. Then it’s not so bad.
The first time I bought durian I did it out in the garage, just as you alluded to. But I can only get frozen durian halves here and I find it really kills both the odor and the flavor. The second time I bought it, it was the same, so I’ve given up on it.
OTOH, I do still buy jackfruit off and on and that’s quite a kitchen task to get the fruit pods out, too.
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I’m not sure size matters (not pun intended!) for this task. I’ve seen this demonstrated many times by Cooks Illustrated and others in cooking shows and they often use a smaller jar, maybe 5-6 inches tall from the looks of it. I’ve also seen people put bowls face-to-face to form a shaking container and those put together weren’t 6 inches tall.
Oh that reminds me of cleaning the grease trap. That was a bad job. 
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Next time I do this I’ll try to remember to mount a vid cam on tripod and show you how I do it. The reason I like a taller container is the more distance the cloves travel after each change in direction, the faster they accelerate before hitting the opposite surface.
Or maybe (since I was a percussionist growing up) I just possess more hand speed. (c:
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While it is rare that I have any one trick ponies in the kitchen, I eat a lot of pineapple and a device like this is wonderful.
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I’ve thought about getting one of those many times but the “no (or darned few) unitaskers” rule has held me back.
How is it as far as being accepting of larger or smaller fruits? What I mean is, if you had a really fat one, would there be a lot of waste in the leftover cylindrical husk? And if a smaller one, would the blade be cutting so far out toward the periphery that you’d get skin in the product?
I have two sources for pineapple… the Dole ones at the local Safeway (which need to sit on the counter for a week or more to ripen), and the occasional eight-pak of Maui Golds ordered from Hawaii which are damned near perfect (but two to three times the price).
While I have seen reasonable differences in height, not so much so in diameter. I suppose if you have an abnormally fat one there would be a little waste**, but I have yet to have one that this device left skin/hard parts on. Slice the top off, screw it in for 30 seconds, and you have perfectly prepped pineapple.
**Plus the hollowed out pineapples make a GREAT device for serving piña coladas or things like pineapple fried rice.
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