Advertisements in hundred-year-old magazines provide insight into cooking practices and the culture back then. I recently flipped through the October, 1926 issue of American Cookery, and found an advertisement for a Dandy Chopper. Cooks clamped the food choppers onto a table to grind meats and other foods. I flipped a little further and was surprised to find a second advertisement for a food chopper.
At first, I thought that both advertisements were by the same company, but then I realized that one was for the Dandy Chopper, which was made by the New Standard Corporation in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, while the other was for the Joy Chopper, which was made by the Rollman Manufacturing Company in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.
What the heck? Was Mount Joy the Silicon Valley of food choppers a hundred years ago?
My parents used a similar one. They never got a food processor.
I was going to pull out my mother’s, which I still use from time to time, but I guess I haven’t used it for a while. I couldn’t find it, so I can’t determine the brand. What I do remember now is that, when our new house was built in about 1957, one of the kitchen features my mother insisted on was a pull-out board beneath a counter. It was about 5″ x 3″, and meant specifically as a mount for one of these gizmos. I do remember that it has three differently sized wheels that attached and allowed coarser or finer grinds, and that she always used it for ham salad.
I remember my mother clamping one onto the kitchen table. I have no idea what brand it was, but Mount Joy wasn’t really that far from us. (In fact, we have a friend who lives in Mount Joy, and the last time we were in Pennsylvania, we spent time there 😃)
My mom had 2… I now have 3 cause they don’t wear out and you pass it on to the next generation. I HOPE!