nutmeg grater is a portable piece of silverware used to carry and grate nutmeg that was, along with a knife, a punch ladle, and a strainer, an essential part of the eighteenth-century bartender’s toolkit. The earliest examples emerged in England around the mid-seventeenth century, when the possession of nutmeg, a costly new spice from Indonesia, was considered an exotic status symbol. Nutmeg graters peaked in popularity during the eighteenth century, by which time nutmeg was a fashionable flavoring for a variety of food and drinks, and in particular punch, the fashionable social drink of the day. See punch.
While some nutmeg graters were designed to sit on the dining table, most took the form of a small silver box, which would have been carried in the pocket or in a traveling canteen that might also contain cutlery, tumblers, and corkscrews. These portable nutmeg graters typically comprised a chamber for holding between one and three nutmegs and a rasp to grate them with, but the design of the casings varied considerably. Circular, cylindrical, or oval-shaped boxes were common, but as the eighteenth century wore on, improvements in manufacturing techniques, the arrival of cheaper, thinner-gauge silver, and a boom in the market for personal silverware gave rise to more elaborate designs including hearts, shells, melons, and strawberries.
Some early designs were remarkably ornate: the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, for example, houses a nutmeg grater from the 1690s fashioned from a cowrie shell encased in a lattice of engraved silverwork.
One famous owner of a nutmeg grater was the writer and punch enthusiast Charles Dickens, who “carried [his] grater on his midnight rambles through the foul-smelling back streets of Shadwell, Ratcliff Highway, and Limehouse to sweeten the air.”
See also spices.
Hewett, Edward W. Convivial Dickens: The Drinks of Dickens and His Times. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1983.
“Nutmeg Grater: ca. 1690 (Made).” Victoria and Albert Museum, LOAN:GILBERT.588-2008. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O156611/nutmeg-grater-unknown/ (accessed March 5, 2021).
“Nutmeg Grater: 1809–1810 (Hallmarked).” Victoria and Albert Museum, M.930-1927. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78651/nutmeg-grater-e-robinson-and/ (accessed March 5, 2021).
Wondrich, David. Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl. New York: Penguin, 2010.
By: Alice Lascelles
A quartet of very elegant eighteenth-century silver nutmeg graters, from when such a thing was a common gentleman’s pocket accessory.
© Wellcome Collection.
A quartet of very elegant eighteenth-century silver nutmeg graters, from when such a thing was a common gentleman’s pocket accessory. Source: © Wellcome Collection.