23 Cooking Gifts for People Who Insist on Doing Things the Hard Way

Traditional tools and grandiose gadgets for home cooks who would never serve store-bought pasta.
Photo of sweet potato gnocchi being shaped on a marble countertop ideas for cooking gifts.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Micah Marie Morton

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Everybody knows at least one home cook who always insists on doing things the hard way. For these folks, cooking is about the act of preparing something as much as it is about the final product. So they bake their own bread, roast their own coffee beans, and probably turn their noses up at any small appliance marketed as “automatic.”

These cooks may be impossible to impress with store-bought baked goods, but it turns out they’re actually pretty easy to buy for. Instead of picking out a gift that might make this person’s life a little easier, consider what might require more of their time or effort. Better yet, check out this list of 23 cooking gifts for people who never take shortcuts in the kitchen.

A cast-iron bread oven

Well of course no one expects this person to buy bread from the store, but I’m willing to bet they're not giving up valuable counter space for an electric breadmaker either. That’s why a high-end cast-iron bread oven (which goes inside of a regular old oven) is the perfect gift.

Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Bread Oven

Challenger Bread Pan

A manual citrus squeezer

Buy a jug of orange juice? What are we, monsters? No, for this person, only fresh-squeezed juice will do. For your friend who needs to squeeze every last drop from the citrus that they may or may not have grown themselves, a manual juicer is an ideal gift. It looks like an old-timey torture device, which makes it even more appealing.

Mueller Professional Manual Citrus Juicer

Verve Culture XL Juicer

The best electric gooseneck kettle

If preparing the perfect pour–over coffee is your friend’s sacred morning ritual, you probably already know that it’s A Whole Thing with a lot of steps: weighing and grinding beans, boiling water, blooming the grinds, setting a timer, and so on. While an electric kettle might seem like a shortcut in the pour-over process, the built-in temperature settings in the Fellow Stagg EKG Pro gooseneck kettle ensure that the water won’t just be boiling hot, it will be at the perfect temperature (195°–205°) for making flawless coffee.

Fellow Stagg EKG Electric Gooseneck Kettle

A sturdy food mill

Why push a button on a food processor when you could move your arm in circles until it hurts? Seriously, though, there are benefits to using a manual food mill—namely the fact that it can separate skins and seeds. This All-Clad model is nice enough for gifting, and it’s dishwasher-safe, though we all know they’re going to wash it by hand.

All-Clad Food Mill

A handheld spice grinder

Speaking of elbow grease, this compact cast-iron manual spice grinder makes a great stocking stuffer for those who prefer their freshly-ground spices really freshly ground. They can also use it to mix up small batches of custom spice blends, and it even has an inner canister for storing extras.

Skeppshult Little Swing Cast Iron Pepper Mill

A manual coffee grinder

Anyone who takes the time to make the perfect pour over in the morning knows that burr coffee grinders are far superior to blade grinders, which employ an Edward Scissorhands–style approach to pulverizing beans. Burr grinders, by contrast, break the beans down by rotating them against an abrasive surface—resulting in consistently-sized grinds and a better cup of coffee. So if your friend is already bulking up those triceps in the name of #tradwife cuisine, you might as well help them go all-in on their coffee game by gifting a manual burr grinder.

1Zpresso K-Max

Peugeot Nostalgie Hand Coffee Mill

A Big Green Egg

The Big Green Egg is a high-quality ceramic kamado grill with a cult following, but it's not for everyone. For starters, when you buy an Egg, you don't get much else with it (not even a stand) so it’s up to the user to research and select all of the accessories. And unlike competitor Kamado Joe's latest release, which fully automates the process of low-and-slow smoking, maintaining the temperature in the Big Green Egg is an art. A time consuming, perfectionist pleasing art.

Small Big Green Egg

A better cast iron skillet

The person who always does things the hard way surely already cooks in a well-seasoned cast-iron pan, but they’re probably not cooking on the best cast iron skillet money can buy. When it comes to cooking gifts, it's hard to do better than this cast iron skill from Lancaster. It's lighter than comparable pans, and achieving the perfect coat of seasoning will give the giftee a new project for the new year.

No. 8 Lancaster Cast Iron Skillet, 10.5 Inches

This kind of corkscrew

There are wine openers that require absolutely no skill, and others that will have your heart racing while you try not to break the cork on a $300 vintage cab. These pretty, pricey corkscrews most definitely fall into the latter camp, and make a great upgrade for the kind of person who’s been using a t-shaped corkscrew for as long as they’ve been drinking wine.

Aerin Leon Corkscrew

Christofle Silver-Plated Graphik Corkscrew

A manual pasta maker

Yes, you can get a pasta attachment for the KitchenAid stand mixer. Or, you know, just buy fresh pasta at the grocery store. But none of that is as satisfying as hand-cranking your own fettuccine and tagliolini, now is it? No, it is not—at least not for this person. And if you’re going to give the gift of a manual pasta maker, you might as well make it the best one.

Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine

A gnocchi board set

If the person in question already has a manual pasta maker (because let’s be honest, there’s a very good chance they do) or they prefer completely-machine-free pasta making, put a bow on these little wooden gnocchi boards. Modeled on actual antique tools, they produce perfectly-ridged potato gnocchi, they double as butter paddles, and they have an appealing stocking-stuffer or white elephant-friendly price point.

Gnocchi Board and Wooden Butter Paddle

A serious oyster knife

While the rest of us are more than happy to visit our favorite restaurant and throw all our money at champagne and seafood towers, this person would rather shuck their own oysters, thank you very much. Make sure they have the right tool for the job—which is this handmade oyster knife from Middleton Made, a Black-owned business.

Middleton Made Knives Oyster Knife with Bottle Opener

A Lewis bag

If you know someone who’s really into cocktails—perhaps they make their own syrups or bitters—they need a Lewis bag. It’s the best way to get true crushed ice, because the whole point is to put ice cubes into the bag and then literally crush it with the included wood hammer. And I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t they just hit up the Sonic drive-thru for a bag of the good ice or invest in a countertop ice maker that makes the same kind? First of all, that would be too easy. Secondly, crushed ice and nugget ice are not the same thing, and I’m sure this person will be very happy to explain the difference over hand-made pasta and freshly-shucked oysters.

Lewis Ice Bag and Mallet

A fancy match cloche

For the host who would never be seen igniting the wick of their hand-dipped taper candles with an Aim 'N Flame, there’s this gorgeous amber glass match cloche—complete with 120 long matchsticks for dramatic dinnertime candle lighting. Don't worry, there's also a striker sticker on the side of the cloche so they don't have to forage for a rough rock before setting the mood.

Skeem Match Cloche, Large

A whetstone

Old school knife sharpening is an art—and a time-consuming one at that—which is why so many people prefer to use a multi-stage knife sharpener, or just ship their knives off to be sharpened. But using a whetstone can produce a sharper blade than a mechanical sharpener, and manual sharpening prolongs the life of knives, too. If the person who insists on always doing things the hard way isn’t already using this old-school method, a whetstone is the perfect gift.

Sharp Pebble Premium Whetstone Knife Sharpening Stone

Shun Classic 3-Piece Whetstone Sharpening System

A stovetop waffle iron

There are so many easy ways to make a great waffle. If you’re me, you pick up a box of Eggos from the freezer aisle then pop one in the toaster or toaster oven. If you’re my mother-in-law, you mix up your own batter and use an electric waffle maker. But you don’t need electricity to make a waffle, Silly! All it takes is mixing up some batter, pouring it into an old-fashioned waffle pan, and holding it over an open flame until your arm hurts. Or, you know, setting it on the stove (which might require a little electricity) and flipping it once.

Nordic Ware Hong Kong Egg Waffle Puff Pan

NordicWare Cast Aluminum Stovetop Belgium Waffle Iron

A fermentation crock

Oh, come on, there’s no way this person doesn’t make their own pickles.

Humble House Sauerkrock Fermentation Crock