Specialty Toasters

Careening through history, the development of America's most treasured kitchen mainstay has blazed a path where today there is little that can't be done in about four minutes. The toaster; there was a time when a blazing hot, open-air, flat-surfaced metal plate would slowly warm your bread one half at a time. The more sophisticated model featured two wire slots that held your slices upright while coils flared red hot and threatened to incinerate anything that touched them before shorting and going up in smoke themselves.

Nowadays the toaster is far more reliable in its manifold forms. Had you been born at the turn of the century, you'd have experienced with these one-dimensional toasting contraptions. Hence, it is easy to take for granted not having to watch your toast, perhaps while you wring your clothes over the washboard or percolate your coffee. That said, what else, exactly, can a toaster do? And does it do it better than more conventional methods?

• Bagels: Extra-wide slots are practically par for the course these days, and why not? Bagels are increasingly pervasive throughout the mealtimes of the world. What's better than the ability to toast a thick bagel is when the same toaster has squeezing grates that also accommodate, fluffy, loose, or sometimes gooey breads that would fall apart in other pop-up toasters.