A grater, also known as a shredder, is a kitchen utensil used to grate foods into fine pieces.

Uses

Food preparation

Several types of graters feature different sizes of grating slots, and can therefore aid in the preparation of a variety of foods. They are commonly used to grate vegetables,

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

and lemon or orange peel (to create zest), spices, such as

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

and nutmeg, and can also be used to grate other soft foods. They are commonly used in the preparation of

toasted cheese Cheese on toast is made by placing sliced or grated cheese on toasted bread and melting it under a grill. It is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, the Caribbean and in African countries. It is also known as r ...

, Welsh rarebit, egg salad, and dishes which contain cheese sauce such as macaroni and cheese,

cauliflower cheese Cauliflower cheese is a traditional British dish. It can be eaten as a main course, for lunch or dinner, or as a side dish. Cauliflower cheese consists of pieces of cauliflower lightly boiled and covered with a milk-based cheese sauce, for whic ...

. In Slavic cuisine, graters are commonly used to grate potatoes for preparation of dishes, including

draniki Potato pancakes are shallow-fried pancakes of grated or ground potato, matzo meal or flour and a binding ingredient such as egg or applesauce, often flavored with grated garlic or onion and seasoning. They may be topped with a variety of condime ...

bramborak Potato pancakes are shallow-fried pancakes of grated or ground potato, matzo meal or flour and a binding ingredient such as egg or applesauce, often flavored with grated garlic or onion and seasoning. They may be topped with a variety of condim ...

or potato babka. In tropical countries graters are also used to grate

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...

meat. In the Indian subcontinent, the grater is used for preparation of a popular dessert, Gajar Ka Halwa. Graters produce shreds that are thinner at the ends than the middle. This allows the grated material to melt or cook in a different manner than the shreds of mostly uniform thickness produced by the grating blade of a food processor. Hand-grated potatoes, for example, melt together more easily in a potato pancake than food-processed potato shreds.

In music

In Jamaica and Belize, coconut graters are used as a traditional musical instrument (along with drums, fife, and other instruments) in the performance of kumina, jonkanoo, and sometimes mento.

History

The first attested graters were made out of bronze, and also silver alloys, in the early first millennium BCE, examples of which were uncovered from burial sites in Greece and Etruscan Italy. In line with Homer's Iliad these were sometimes used to grate goat's cheese in the making of a type of

Kykeon Kykeon (, ; from , "to stir, to mix") was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek drink of various descriptions. Some were made mainly of water, barley and naturally occurring substances. Others were made with wine and grated cheese. It is widely believe ...

, a

fast Fast or FAST may refer to: * Fast (noun), high speed or velocity * Fast (noun, verb), to practice fasting, abstaining from food and/or water for a certain period of time Acronyms and coded Computing and software * ''Faceted Application of Subje ...

breaking drink. The modern cheese grater was invented in France in the 1540s by François Boullier. His pewter design was intended to convert hard cheeses into something more edible.

Variants

Spiralizers are complex food-processing machines with grater-like mechanisms. These mechanisms rotate by the turn of a cluster to produce ribbons or noodles.

Images

Image:Micro Plane.jpg, A microplane Image:Zest Grater.jpg, A Zester Image:Muskatreibe fcm.jpg, A

nutmeg grater A nutmeg grater, also called a nutmeg rasp, is a device used to grate a nutmeg seed. Nutmeg graters are normally metal, cylindrical or half-cylindrical, the surface perforated with small rasped holes. The nutmeg is passed over the surface to g ...

Image:Terka.jpg, Multiple graters Image:GingerGrater.png, Porcelain ginger or garlic grater Image:Oroshigane.Sharkskin.jpg, Sharkskin grater File:Chirava c.jpg, Traditional

coconut grater Coconut milk is an opaque, milky-white liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts. The opacity and rich taste of coconut milk are due to its high oil content, most of which is saturated fat. Coconut milk is a traditional food in ...

design in the Indo-Pacific

In popular culture

* Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, got the idea for the Shredder's armor from large cheese graters which he envisioned on a villainous character's arms to be used as weapons. Originally called "Grate Man", the Shredder is known as the primary antagonist in the TMNT franchise. * Wisconsin sports fans are often called

cheesehead Cheesehead is a nickname in the United States for a person from Wisconsin or for a fan of the Green Bay Packers NFL football franchise. Current usage Wisconsin is associated with cheese because the state historically produced more dairy produc ...

s, and some wear cheese hats. In 2013, sports fans of Chicago and Minnesota replied to their rivals by wearing cheese graters.Cheddar shredder
- Chicago Tribune, 26 December 2013

References

{{Kitchen tools Food preparation utensils French inventions