Some people eat steamed rice with almost every meal. In a typical Asian home, a rice cooker is used as often as a coffee maker is used in a typical American home.
And I’d like to see you use an ordinary pot and make better rice than my Zojirushi microprocessor-controlled induction-heating rice cooker.
Dishwashers?!?!!
sob
I haven’t had access to a dishwasher since I moved out of my parent’s house. Three different apartments, no dishwasher. I promise to love one forever and ever when I find a place with one. One day… one day.
I cook and bake a lot, so I do use my oven, blender, food processor, hand blender, and stand mixer.
I don’t really use my toaster, and the coffee maker was made unnecessary by my french press. And microwaves kinda freak me out. So, those three could go and I wouldn’t miss them.
Oh, and obligatory link to Kitchen Appliances that Only Do One Thing
Psst, amaranta: You can get a countertop dishwasher.
Me, I have to go with the redundant crockpot.
My parents once got a device which would revive your stale bread. That’s all it did. I don’t think they used it even once.
It’s not only Asian families that use rice cookers. A lot of people like rice and nothing beats a rice cooker for doing the job. Let’s see you set a timer for your pot to cook rice and have it perfectly ready when you’re home from work! Rice cookers are also real easy to clean because of their non-stick surfaces.
As to the most useless appliance, that has to be the trash compactor. Had one for over 20 years. Maybe used it twice in all that time. When we remodelled our kitchen, that’s the first appliance we did not replace. In fact, if you check out kitchen remodelling outfits, you won’t find a trash compactor in sight (at least where I live). The other useless device is the electric can opener – it never works!
Isn’t that what toasters are for?
Coincidentally I was reading What not to buy for Christmas from The Australian Consumer’s Association Choice. Their top few by poll:
Electric ice shaver
Ice cream maker
Foot spa
Electric can opener
Vertical grill
Aromatherapy diffuser
Epilator
of the foot spa they say “Coming in third - and a triumph of marketing - was the foot spa. An incredible three in 10 people said they have one, but 43% of them rated it as ‘no use’.”
For those of you jonesing for a bread machine, try using your food processor if you have one. It’s just as easy (especially if your willing to put the food processor bowl in the dishwasher) and the loaves are much more satisfying. I makeCuban Bread, which takes about ten minutes of work to make and then an hour of baking (almost no rising time) on a near daily basis.
Okay, that’s just wrong. I get more envious looks for my ice shaver than any other kitchen device I own.
Yes, the admiration is all from drunk people; what’s your point? 
An epilator is the tool of Satan. I was given one as a gift. I used it once. One half a leg. I do use my foot spa, though.
Our most useless appliance is the television. We use it to watch movies maybe once every couple weeks.
I’m not sure that it applies to the thread at hand, but I am still traumatised by the colossal uselessness of the internet fridge. I just can’t imagine why that would be worthwhile.
Other than that, I’ll vote for the iron. I don’t think I’ve ever used one - so far, it has been sufficient to go with the alternative technique of not caring that my clothes look terrible.
~ Isaac
I would say the one kitchen item I could do without would be the microwave (which is not to say I don’t use ours several times a day, just that if it weren’t there, I wouldn’t miss it all that much). All it does is do things faster, and with a loss in quality. Since I am a stay at home dad in a small town, I’ve got the time it would take to do things without a microwave. Just use the waiting time to play with the 6 month old!
I love my dishwasher, oven, microwave, iron, and cordless can opener. 
I hardly ever use my Fry Baby, blender, toaster, or ice cream maker, but so far the only one I’ve gotten rid of is the toaster. I don’t usually have bread in the house, so I absolutely don’t miss that thing.
Next to go will be the Fry Baby: I only bought it to cook frozen pierogies, but have since discovered that they can be baked and come out just as yummy. I haven’t used it in the almost 3 years since I moved into this house, and I don’t plan to take it with me when I move at the end of summer.
The blender is one of those things that I just feel like a grownup should own, even though the last time it got used was at my office’s Cinco de Mayo party when I loaned it to some folks for a margarita contest. But I like my blender: it has a nice chrome base and a glass container. And you never know, maybe someday I’ll date someone who likes to blend things. Or something. Anyway, I plan to hang on to it.
I could definitely live without the ice cream maker, but it was a gift (that I didn’t ask for) and there is some sentiment attached to it. It makes perfectly good ice cream, in fact I love the banana ice cream that I make with it, but I just don’t eat ice cream very often – plus I have to buy all of the ingredients each time, as I don’t keep things like sugar or cream around the house. And I have to plan at least a day in advance, because its consistency is best after it has spent a night n the freezer. All in all, I’d rather run out to the grocery store and pick up a pint of Breyer’s. I’ll probably get rid of it eventually, but first I have to break the news to the friend who got it for me.
I’ve never used my bread machine. It was a hand-me-down, so I don’t feel so bad, and maybe I’ll use it one of these days.
On the other hand, I’d use a foot spa every other day…
We had a traditional rice cooker for about five minutes. As far as I could tell, it would burn the rice unless you put in about five cups. We do have a steamer, which makes rice and vegetables, and it is great.
My vote is for the air popcorn popper I won. The popcorn is fine, but to be useful you have to melt butter for the popcorn, and add it to the bowl (which gets hot) then clean everything up. Plus it makes too much. Microwave popcorn works just fine for me.
I don’t own either an electric can open or an electric carving knife, but my parents did, which is why I don’t.
I don’t have any use for the toaster. I put bagels in the oven to cook. I can’t remember the last time I toasted a piece of bread.
Okay, I have to step in and defend my electric can opener here. First off, it helps if I explain that there are two items of kitchen utensil that hate me and want to make my life hell. The first is the toaster–I can’t keep one for longer than a couple of months before it either stops toasting or turns into a random carbonizer. I’ve gone through fifteen or so toasters in the last twenty years and my mother is still using the one we had when I was a kid. It’s not fair. The second item is hand can openers. I’ve bought the cheap ones from the dollar store and the spendy ones from Kitchen Kaboodle and the weird European ones that disassemble the bead around the top and it never fails–I use the effing things for a few weeks and they stop working. Just. Stop. Working. The only hand can opener that I have that still works is the weird P38 style one on my keychain which takes about a month to open a can of tuna, and you get the juice all over the place. I sat down one day and figured out I’d paid fifty bucks in the last five years on stupid nonfunctioning can openers. Lest you think I’m a wuss, let me make it clear that my animals will NOT find it amusing if they don’t get their tuna and wet food additions to the kibble, every day on the dot. I have to open a lot of cans and it hurts my hand trying to open a can with a clapped out can opener. So I finally got tired of it, bought a nice little Black & Decker space saver can opener that mounts under the cabinet, cost me twelve bucks and opens every kind of can there is, including the dented ones. It doesn’t hurt my hand, it’s also a great bottle opener, it’s been operating like a charm for two years now and I love it. Diss not the can opener, for some of us it’s a necessity!
Deep fryers, now, those are really useless. Put some oil in a wok, works a charm and MUCH easier to clean. Trash compacters too–my mom has one because her kitchen is microscopic and doesn’t have room for a trash can, but she gets to the point where the bag gets so heavy she has to call someone to take it out of the compacter for her and that makes it stupid as far as I’m concerned.
Automatic ass reamer.
Refinement of the electric donkey bottom polisher, no doubt!