Grinders

Mechanical grinders saved time and required relatively little physical strength and thus were a vast improvement over women’s age-old chore of pounding and chopping foodstuffs by hand. Among the first grinders to be developed to deal with new food imports into Europe were those for spice and coffee. By the late seventeenth century, small, geared, forged-iron grinders were designed with an upper holding hopper, hand-cranked grinding surfaces, and a lower collecting chamber. This basic design continued to be used during the next centuries. As costs of spice and coffee dropped, inexpensive casings of wood or tin replaced the iron grinders. Electric versions appeared in the last decades of the twentieth century in response to gourmet interest in the freshest flavors.