Unique Wood carved antique Nutmeg Grinde grater Nutmeg Rasp

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Unique Wood carved antique Nutmeg Grinde grater Nutmeg Rasp:
$82.00

Please see photos to verify item, condition etc. 100 percent not a reproduction. Valued over 150.00 dollars!!!

This is such a great item and in perfect condition. Looks great in any display and always gets conversations started.

A nutmeg grater, or nutmeg rasp, is a device used to grate a nutmeg seed.

Why Early America Was Obsessed With Wooden Nutmegs

BY SARAH LOHMAN

Although today we’re primarily familiar with nutmeg as a powder that comes in little plastic bottles, it’s actually the pit of the fruit of a tree native to the Banda Islands of Indonesia. Throughout the 18th century, the Dutch controlled the Banda Islands, keeping nutmeg scarce and prices high in international markets. In America, where nutmeg was a popular flavor in 18th and early 19th century cooking, the spice was extraordinarily expensive—so expensive, unscrupulous vendors allegedly tried to replicate nutmegs in wood.

At the time, America’s rural communities were connected by a network of itinerant peddlers, or “hucksters,” who sold household goods. The peddlers were often associated with dishonest dealings (part of the definition of a “huckster” today), and the original “wooden nutmeg” was a euphemism for a general mistrust of such people. Thomas Hamilton, a British traveler who toured America and documented his findings in Men and Manners of America in 1833, said of peddlers in New England: “They warrant broken watches to be the best time-keepers in the world; sell pinchbeck trinkets for gold; and have always a large assortment of wooden nutmegs and stagnant barometers.” In The Clockmaker: Or, The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville, published in 1839, the main character is called “a Yankee pedlar, a cheatin vagabond, a wooden nutmeg” by an incensed rival.

Nutmeg graters are normally metal, cylindrical or half-cylindrical, the surface perforated with small rasped holes. The nutmeg is passed over the surface to grate. The grater may be combined with a compartment for storing the nutmeg seed between uses.

In the late 17th century nutmeg and nutmeg graters became associated with drinking punch, at that time a fashionable alcoholic beverage. Through the 18th century it was the fashion for men to carry nutmeg in a pocket-sized silver container equipped with a grater in order to add freshly grated nutmeg to punch.

Nutmeg graters are a bartenders\' tool, used for adding freshly grated nutmeg to hot toddies, eggnogs, and other warm drinks.

Any grater capable of fine grating, such as a microplane, can be used to grate nutmeg.