Cheese graters

[lindag]

I usually just grate it in my FP....fast and easy.

[Kim Shook]

I can't find a picture of it anywhere and I've lost track of mine somewhere, but I used to have a little grater that was perfect for putting on the dinner table so that people could add their preferred amount of Parm.  It was about the size of a large coffee mug and about the same shape (without a handle).  You put a chunk of cheese into the lid, which slotted into the bottom cylinder.  The lid had little metal points which held the cheese from the top and the bottom had little metal "shaver" slots which the cheese shredded and dropped through.  I would love to find another one of these.

 

You can grate Parm in the Vitamix, but for how long would it be tasty?  And wouldn't you have to be careful not to melt it?

[Dave the Cook]

35 minutes ago, lindag said:

Don't know that this one is new but the same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago and I had to replace my old microplane.

I do not like box graters.

 

 

That looks like Oxo's replacement for the one we just broke. It's cheap enough, but I'm just wondering if there's anything newer or better. We have a box grater, and it gets a lot of use. For some reason, so does the one that just broke.

 

12 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Not at all new, but I just grated up a block of gruyère and some Parm with the Mouli Julienne that was one of my first kitchen purchases 40 years ago. 
 

Like this
 

 

Sure, but Mouli doesn't make them any more, does it? Has anyone tried the similar version made by Westmark (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)?

[Dave the Cook]

15 minutes ago, lindag said:

I usually just grate it in my FP....fast and easy.

 

10 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

. . . You can grate Parm in the Vitamix, but for how long would it be tasty?  And wouldn't you have to be careful not to melt it?

 

Also, neither our FP nor our Blendtec live on the counter; they both live in lower cabinets. A hand-held grater can live in an easily accessed drawer, can be deployed without an electrical outlet, and ALL of it can go in the dishwasher, and believe me, if you can't go in the dishwasher, you'll need an exceptional résumé to get a spot in our kitchen.

[lindag]

 

that Westmark looks very much like the Mouli I used to own.

Have you looked at the Zyliss rotary grater?

[heidih]

Just tell me it was a lighting issue and that is not blood along the edge. 

[weinoo]

33 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

Has anyone tried the similar version made by Westmark (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)?

 

The thing about that Westmark is that it doesn't look as if it has the perfect disc for using on parmesan.

 

I got my (used) Mouli on eBay (or similar) with 5 discs. It's grate great...

 

 

Note the bottom disc in the picture above. It's the one to use when grating parmesan...

 

 

The disc in the Westmark pictures they show grating cheese is probably not great for parmesan. (And it's made in China, which means it'll probably break quickly).

[Dave the Cook]

57 minutes ago, lindag said:

 

. . . Have you looked at the Zyliss rotary grater?

 

It looks like there are four or five different ones. Got a preference or recommendation?

 

54 minutes ago, heidih said:

Just tell me it was a lighting issue and that is not blood along the edge. 

 

Oops. Sorry -- it's just a reflection of the red hoodie I had on when I took the picture.

[Dave the Cook]

28 minutes ago, weinoo said:

I got my (used) Mouli on eBay (or similar) with 5 discs.

 

Okay, between you and @blue_dolphin, I'm almost convinced.

[lindag]

1 hour ago, Dave the Cook said:

 

That looks like Oxo's replacement for the one we just broke. 

 

 

MY new Oxo grater has a much sturdier handle than the one that got broken.

[lindag]

@weinooMy Cuisinart FP does a great (!) job grating parm with the medium grating blade...it may be just a little coarser than your picture above.

I considered getting the fine grating disc but thought the results  would be just too fine.

BTW, Ina Garten grinds her parm in her FP using the blade.

Edited March 15, 2022 by lindag (log)

[weinoo]

4 hours ago, lindag said:

@weinooMy Cuisinart FP does a great (!) job grating parm with the medium grating blade...it may be just a little coarser than your picture above.

I considered getting the fine grating disc but thought the results  would be just too fine.

BTW, Ina Garten grinds her parm in her FP using the blade.

Ina is grinding her Parmesan. I prefer mine grated. 

[andiesenji]

I no longer grate large amounts of Parm or other hard cheeses. I can order freshly grated hard cheeses and shredded cheeses also freshly worked, from a local deli, including Kashkaval, a rather strong cheese that is terrific in pasta dishes.

 

I came across this, which I bought in the nineties and never used, stuck it in the back of a cupboard and forgot about it.  I had planned to sell it on ebay but 2020 and Covid happened so I unlisted all my ebay items and closed my account.  I put it in a box with some other stuff and forgot all about it, again!

I found it this morning, while looking for something else.  I may have posted it somewhere on eG a couple of years ago, but not in this thread.  I thought you might like to see what was offered by AMCO in 1992.

 

[weinoo]

9 hours ago, andiesenji said:

I came across this, which I bought in the nineties and never used,

 

I think I had something quite similar; if I recall, it could do a number on the fingers/knuckles as well!

[Dave the Cook]

Wow. Based on its 8-inch diameter and some rough guessing, that thing will hold about 7 cups of grated cheese -- about 1-1/2 pounds. What would you do with all that? 

[andiesenji]

9 hours ago, Dave the Cook said:

Wow. Based on its 8-inch diameter and some rough guessing, that thing will hold about 7 cups of grated cheese -- about 1-1/2 pounds. What would you do with all that? 

It was one of those "spur of the moment" purchases when I was wandering around in The May Co., which had a very large "housewares" department and always had demonstrations of appliances - the reason I bought several that either became favorites, or were used once and never seen again.  And in fact a nice lady was demonstrating this grater and had HALF A WHEEL of the real Parm next to a stack of these graters in their boxes.  She had three open on her table so people could try grating chunks of the cheese, cut into rectangles with one end wrapped so fingers would stay clean.  I tried it, noted it grated very fine - perfect for adding to bread dough, so I bought two, one for my boss who had been complaining about grating his knuckles on a grater that I thought was a danger anyway.  He liked it and used it a lot, while mine was put away because all my grating cheeses were in small chunks and I used a rotary grater.  By the time I bought a big chunk, I had forgotten all about this grater.

Edited March 17, 2022 by andiesenji (log)

[DesertTinker]

19 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

It was one of those "spur of the moment" purchases when I was wandering around in The May Co., which had a very large "housewares" department and always had demonstrations of appliances - the reason I bought several that either became favorites, or were used once and never seen again.  And in fact a nice lady was demonstrating this grater and had HALF A WHEEL of the real Parm next to a stack of these graters in their boxes.  She had three open on her table so people could try grating chunks of the cheese, cut into rectangles with one end wrapped so fingers would stay clean.  I tried it, noted it grated very fine - perfect for adding to bread dough, so I bought two, one for my boss who had been complaining about grating his knuckles on a grater that I thought was a danger anyway.  He liked it and used it a lot, while mine was put away because all my grating cheeses were in small chunks and I used a rotary grater.  By the time I bought a big chunk, I had forgotten all about this grater.

Ah, thanks for the memories of The May Company. It was one of the big department stores in my youth. Higher end stores, May Co., Buffums, Robinsons, Bullocks then next step down Sears, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward…

[Dave the Cook]

To follow up: I found a Mouli on eBay and snapped it up. I have to admit that it does a bang-up job of grating. And it came in the sprightly orange, which, as everyone knows, has sharper discs than the beige version 😉.

 

 

It folds up pretty flat and stores comfortably. However, it's unwieldy for a quick shaving of parm, which was what we used the handheld grater for. So the Mouli will actually replace our box grater. To replace the handheld, we first tried the one lots of people (well, ATK and Wirecutter) rave about, the Rosle steel grater with wire handle (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I didn't pay enough attention to the fact that it's nearly 16 inches long, which is just too damn big. In the end, we followed @lindag's advice and just got another Oxo. She's right, it's much sturdier than its predecessor --

 

 

--and comes in a color to match our new Mouli.

[weinoo]

28 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

And it came in the sprightly orange, which, as everyone knows, has sharper discs than the beige version

 

If you like a French carrot salad or celeri remoulade, it's fabulous for those as well.

[Smithy]

On 4/12/2022 at 4:22 PM, Dave the Cook said:

To follow up: I found a Mouli on eBay and snapped it up. I have to admit that it does a bang-up job of grating. And it came in the sprightly orange, which, as everyone knows, has sharper discs than the beige version 😉.

 

 

It folds up pretty flat and stores comfortably. However, it's unwieldy for a quick shaving of parm, which was what we used the handheld grater for. So the Mouli will actually replace our box grater. To replace the handheld, we first tried the one lots of people (well, ATK and Wirecutter) rave about, the Rosle steel grater with wire handle (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I didn't pay enough attention to the fact that it's nearly 16 inches long, which is just too damn big. In the end, we followed @lindag's advice and just got another Oxo. She's right, it's much sturdier than its predecessor --

 

 

--and comes in a color to match our new Mouli.

 

Damn, Dave, you may start a run on these things. I see on eBay that the prices are all over the map. Did you get a sense of whether most still have good blades? Does a potential purchaser need to worry about dull blades on some of these previously-owned Moulis?

[Dave the Cook]

Dull blades was my primary concern. But I only paid $18, so it wasn't a huge risk.

 

To be honest, if not for the recommendation of people here (whose opinions I trust), and a dim positive-feeling recollection of the Mouli name, I would have dismissed it as a useless gadget. That's because--let's be truthful--it has a very gadget-like look to it. Because of that, I'm guessing most of these have spent the better part of their lives unused, hidden in the back of a drawer.

[Smithy]

2 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

Dull blades was my primary concern. But I only paid $18, so it wasn't a huge risk.

 

To be honest, if not for the recommendation of people here (whose opinions I trust), and a dim positive-feeling recollection of the Mouli name, I would have dismissed it as a useless gadget. That's because--let's be truthful--it has a very gadget-like look to it. Because of that, I'm guessing most of these have spent the better part of their lives unused, hidden in the back of a drawer.

 

The sad truth is that when we moved into our current house there was a blind corner in the kitchen cabinetry with something much like this that had fallen into the crevices and been left by the previous owners. I, er, didn't know what it was and threw it away. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My Mouli grater had rusted badly so I pitched it.  Possibly a mistake.  I'd worry about rust buying secondhand.

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

12 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

Damn, Dave, you may start a run on these things. I see on eBay that the prices are all over the map. Did you get a sense of whether most still have good blades? Does a potential purchaser need to worry about dull blades on some of these previously-owned Moulis?

 

If the disks look nice and shiny in the photos then I don't think you need to worry about them being dull.  A lot of them seem to be unused and in the original boxes. Make sure to get one with 5 disks so you get the fine one that Dave pictured above.  

I bought mine for my first undergrad apartment kitchen so it has been in regular use for decades.  Some of the disks are less than shiny but I don't have any issues with them being too dull to crank out tons of cheese or carrots.    

 

I will say that the older, all metal ones like my mom had have a much smaller space for loading veg or cheese.  One might think the all-metal construction would be sturdier than the plastic but the small hopper is a negative. 

 

The plastic type like I have came in orange (as Dave and I have), beige (like @weinoo got) and white  I believe they perform equally. 

There was a newer white plastic model with a less angular, more curved shape that I heard was a lot less stable.  I think it also had only 3 disks. I'd avoid that.  

 

 

[weinoo]

25 minutes ago, Dave the Cook said:

Because of that, I'm guessing most of these have spent the better part of their lives unused, hidden in the back of a drawer.

I don't know if that's true in France 😉 .