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Local Roots Menu Preview Evening DiningApril 14, 2014Be one of the first guests to try the brand-new spring Eagle Tavern menu. Local Roots Spring Evening DiningMay 2, 2014Come see how the French have influenced Michigan’s cuisine. |
Click on an artifact below to see how the foods we ate and the ways we prepared them have changed over the last three centuries.
1866-1870
Apple Parer
United States
38.309.1505
Gift of Susan Stebbins Stark
In the later part of the 1800s, trade catalogs were filled with factory-made cast iron kitchen gadgets like this apple parer. All this new labor-saving gadgetry was intended to make meal preparation easier.
Apples were an important part of a mid-1800s diet. They were used in pies, cider, jelly, apple butter, puddings, custards and fritters. This mechanical apple parer clamped onto a worktable, an apple was mounted on the tines, and the crank turned so that the apple revolved as a blade cut away the apple’s skin. It was much easier than peeling apple after apple by hand! Apple parers weren’t the only kitchen tools available. Patented cherry stoners, lemon squeezers, nutcrackers, and food choppers all did their part to make the housewife’s food preparation chores easier. |
