Graters & Zesters (Kitchen Tools & Utensils)

Grating cuts food into many small pieces at once by dragging it across a field of raised teeth. Tooth size decides everything downstream. Large teeth give shreds that melt into ribbons on a pizza, small teeth give a fluff that dissolves into a sauce, and a rasp style grater with dozens of tiny etched teeth reduces hard cheese to something closer to snow.

How the teeth were made matters more than the shape of the frame holding them. Punched teeth are stamped out of sheet metal. That leaves a rolled lip around every hole, so the tool tears food and squeezes moisture out of it. Etched teeth are cut chemically and finish with a burr sharp enough to shave a carrot under almost no pressure. Run a thumbnail across any grater before buying: sharp teeth catch, dull teeth skate. Neither kind can be resharpened, so a stamped grater is a two year tool while an etched one runs five or more if you keep it dry.

Box graters put four surfaces on one frame, usually a large shred, a fine shred, a slicing slot and a rasp panel, and they claim a full cupboard slot in exchange. Flat paddle graters lie in a drawer and need a bowl or board underneath. Rotary graters feed cheese through a drum turned by a crank, keeping fingers away from the teeth completely and suits grating hard cheese at the table. For citrus and spice, a rasp beats all three.

Zest is only the colored outer layer of citrus peel. The white pith below it is bitter, so stop the moment white appears and turn the fruit. Soft cheese behaves far better after 15 minutes in the freezer, which firms it enough to shred instead of smear. Protect your knuckles by stopping with an inch of food left, or use the guard, since grater wounds take skin off a wide area rather than making a clean cut. Wash from the back of the teeth outward with a stiff brush right away, because dried cheese and starch set hard in the openings and blunt the cut.