You Need This: Microplane Box Grater

The Cutting Edge

By now, almost everyone on the planet knows about the miracle woodworking tool that became  indispensable in professional and home kitchens alike. To briefly recap, Microplane, a small company in Arkansas, developed unique shaping tools used in woodworking, car designs and aeronautics. That in itself was a transisition from their original venture, which was producing parts for the emerging high-tech printer industry. Their photo-etching processs created holes in almost paper thin metal sheets with a chemical, leaving edges that finely slice instead of tearing or shredding. In 1990, Richard and Jeff Grace first developed  shaving tools with unique razor sharp teeth which were sold to large industrial design companies and hardware stores. Pictured here is my original Microplane shaving tool when we first sold them at La Cuisine in the mid 1990s. You can see how it was designed to be attached to a hacksaw handle. 

Eureka Moments

In 1994 a Canadian cook Lorraine Lee in exasperaton “borrowed” her husband’s wood working tool  to grate zest for her Armenian orange cake recipe. Recovering from their Eureka Moment, the Lees who own Lee Valley Tools, renamed the wood shaver as a kitchen zester. And thus was born the tool that not only made citrus zest into velvet but made grated Parmigiano truly the food of gods. I remember taking a handle version of the Microplane grater to my daughter in Bologna, thinking her Italian friends would be amazed and pleased.  I was wrong.  On, no it does not grate it properly, I was told.  But then, her Microplane grater disappeared and she asked me for another. And then it happened several times more.  Now you see them all over Europe, so much so that Microplane has a European division. And like Kleenex, Xerox and iPhone, Microplane is a commonly used noun. Currently the Grace brothers’ company designs and produces over 40 tools (and gadgets) solely for kitchen tasks.

So, About That Box Grater

Even if you have dedicated precious cupboard or counter space to a food processor, I still think you need a box grater. Using one not only works your triceps a bit, but they are efficient to use, and a heck of lot easier to clean and store. I first graduated to Microplane box graters years ago, and after my first one gave in from much abuse, I love the improvements made with this one.  It has five blade styles with a fine and coarse blade on one panel, which I use for zesting, grating chocolate and hard cheeses; a double edged ribbon blade, which  makes it a lot easier to make shavings,  And then there is a a larger coarse blade panel  for apples, cabbage and potatoes  as well as large shaver which is perfect for truffles (which I get once every two years), or ginger slices. The handle is easy to hold and if you tilt it like I do when I grate a lot of  cheese, the grater stays in the tilted position.I particularly  like the sliding plate which holds the grated food until you pull it out over a bowl.  The measurement guide on that corner side is helpful, but you have to tap the grater on the counter to get a rough measurement.  

 The Cake That Changed Our Lives

As a coda to this discursive history, you should make Lorraine Lee’s recipe for the Armenian Orange Cake   It is quite an unusual cake with its sandy base and thick batter spread on top.  I don’t tamp down the shortbread style base layer, merely tap it into place. Use a hand mixer to blend the batter from the remaining crumb mixture.  The thick top batter is better spread out by a fork rather than a rubber spatula, as the latter pulls the batter away from the crumb base.  And do make the whiopped cream topping that accompanies the cake in the recipe. I always use a Thermapen to test cake doneness, and this one perfect between 195 and 200F  It is this cake recipe that created the Eureka Moment in Lorraine’s kitchen and  why we all have a microplane tool in our kitchen drawer. 

Microplane has offered a 20% discount on this model of box grater to KD readers from now until May 17, 2019.  Use the code KD20 when you check out.