Microplane graters have been around now for about twelve years. Legend
has it, that a home baker somewhere pulled out her old zesterwhich
had done honorable service since the Eisenhower administrationscraped
it over a lemon with such poor results that she said, this thing has got
to go. But no matter what, so did her lemon cookies that were off
to her bridge club in three hours. She left the kitchen and headed
for the garage workshop to tell her husband to drop everything and go get
her a new zester. At that moment, husband was smoothing the sawed
edge of a nice piece of hardwood. She looked at the lightweight stainless
steel rasp he was using and said, gimme that! The rest is history.
Thus was born, the line of graters and zesters called Microplane, made
by Grace Manufacturing, a heretofore woodwork tools outfit. They
are made of stainless steel and have pressed-out and honed cutting edges
that shave rather than shred. This new grater has four different
edges, is very sharp and comes with a plastic cover to protect the edges.
We found one on sale for $12US, marked down from $31US. A good tool
and a good buy.
