When I was a kid growing up in a kampong, I used to help my mother with chores in the kitchen; like pounding chilli, pounding fish meat for making fish cakes and fish balls, plucking chicken feathers and so on. One other task involved the above gadget.
Here’s an old photo of my late mother and her sister taken in front of our house. Notice that there are lots of coconut trees in our kampong.
Ok enough of distraction. Here’s the answer.
Answer: It is a coconut grater. Nowadays the process of grating coconut is mostly done by machines and housewives simply bought the grated coconut or the coconut milk directly from the market.
The above photo of a kampong-style coconut grater was taken by my friend YG Ong during a visit to Kuching, Sarawak. It is slightly different from the one we had in our house. For this one, the blade is mounted directly onto a bench whereas in our case, it was mounted on a block of wood.
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Nowadays whenever I visit a supermarket I marvel at things that make life easier, especially in the kitchen. House wives need not be good cooks at the kitchen with all those ready-packed sauces, spices, instant noodles, ingredients and others. Cooking can be done at super speed aided by modern appliances, just for example a micro-wave oven. Now I can really feel what a tough life my poor mother had gone through during those kampong days, slogging in the kitchen to prepare meals for her family single-handedly. A simple coconut grater can bring back nostalgic memory of the past.
Recently I saw an Induction Cooker being sold at the supermarket. Really cool. Can save a lot of washing; plus the 'heating plate' does not get hot. Amazing.
Zen. I don't think it's the coconut grater but the photo of our mother that brings back nostalgic memories for you.
If you ask Victor for his opinion, he probably have a different view as to what this equipment could be use for. Catch it?
Chun See - You are right our mother passed away some eleven yrs ago and as we know parental love is always unconditional. Therefore a lingering rememberance of their presence can always be felt. However, that simple coconut grater does invoke the memory of the difficulties of our time as compared to now, but to be fair to our present generation, they similarly have to face the daunting challenges of the future.
Chun See, Is it a dough hook.
Haven't seen one for years. Can be dangerous with kids running around.
In the market, the stallholders had a machine for grating coconuts. It turned a metal ball with spikes sticking out (like the end of one of those weapons in Chinese wuxia stories). The uncle would hold the halved coconut against the turning ball.
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I just added a photo of blade.
The blade looks very sharp.
Have even used that item - help my mother to 'scrap' coconut 'flesh'. Sometimes too eager will injure the fingers..
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