The return of the vegetable grater


The return of the vegetable grater
If you are of a certain age (say +50) you may have known, when you were a kid, something that your grandmother had in her kitchen set, the vegetable grater.

A kind of mill, to be turned by hand, and which with cutting discs of different sizes, allowed to grate a lot of vegetables, carrots first in my memory, and then all the others.
15 K 4.6/5 (23 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:VegetablesGraterUtensilToolMaterial
Last modified on: March 20th 2021
For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend User-friendly URL
The return of the vegetable grater
In my memory, it was a big metal thing that could be bought on the markets (from the guy who sold a bewildering number of knives and savers), you needed a certain amount of grip to use it, but it grated pretty much anything and it looked a lot like this:

râpe à légumes métallique



Over time, like almost everything else that was manual for that matter, it disappeared, replaced by robots, robo-cutters, or electric graters, which are much easier to operate.

robot-coupe



The problem with food processors is that they run very fast, too fast even to grate properly, and that they have an annoying tendency to make very thin, very small pieces, too much I think, and on top of that to produce a bit of juice.

For a raw carrot or beet salad, it's not too bad, but for celery (future celery remoulade) or potatoes (future potatoes) or cooked vegetables, it's not good at all, it's much too thin, almost crushed, whereas in these 2 cases at least, you want long and well shaped pieces.

The manufacturers of kitchen equipment have of course reacted since a long time, and propose electric graters, which turn more slowly, and give good results it is necessary to recognize it.

râpe à légumes électrique



But at the same time, we are witnessing a comeback of grandma's vegetable grater, entirely manual, but in more modern materials (stainless steel, plastic), never breaks down, consumes 0 kw, and is easily washed under water

râpe à légumes moderne




It's often a good option to go back to the basics, to the things that stand the test of time, and the vegetable grater is one of them.

What to choose?

- If you already have an electric grater, don't change anything, or if you're looking to save energy, switch to a manual grater.
- If you already have "something that turns fast" like a food processor, it's really worth it to switch to a vegetable grater, and it's not necessary to get an electric one. A manual grater, like the one above, costs about 20 euros, and is very suitable for a family.

Be careful though, don't get a cheap grater, made of fragile plastic, which will break quite quickly. As always for the material, you have to pay the price, it is an investment in time.
The price is forgotten, the quality remains.

We realize that 50 years later, some of our grandmother's tools still work very well, and that we have not done better since.
Same thing for the vegetable mill, but it is another subject...

You've probably noticed that I'm very attached to cooking with children, I often talk about it, convinced that it's the first and most efficient way to fight junk food.
Well, you can very well entrust children with the manual vegetable grater, they don't risk hurting themselves, and the effort to be made is rewarding for them (a little discreet help can sometimes be necessary).
They will be proud to help prepare the carrot salad, next Sunday's starter.

To sum up: To grate vegetables, nothing beats a good manual grater.

Lasts posts
The importance of sieving
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3rd 20251,180
The grease spray
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26th 20254,4195
Cake moulds
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25th 20254,7355
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20252,9465
Add a bay leaf
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31th 20253,0495

Other pages you may also like
The importance of sieving
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3rd 20251,180
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
March 26th 201243 K4.5
The window-pane test in bread-making
The window-pane test in bread-making
The home bread-makers often ask themselves “Have I kneaded my dough long enough?” . A good question, as dough that is insufficiently kneaded will not rise properly or will fall flat when the top is slashed, which is very frustrating. To know when the dough is ready, one can rely on the length...
June 16th 202194 K 23.9
Always secure your cutting board
Always secure your cutting board
When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1st 20253,2755
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20252,9465
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing

Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page