Coconut Grater

This exceptionally well designed and crafted coconut grater has a rectangular carved wooden board adorned with peacocks at the head and floral creepers along the edges. Attached to the board is an iron blade having a circular saw-like grater below which a semi-circular bowl is carved out by hollowing the board. When a halved coconut is pressed against the grater and turned right and left, it gets grated and the pulp falls in the bowl below.
The coconut grater comes from Tamil Nadu. Grated coconut is profusely used in daily south Indian cooking. The elaborately carved grater certainly comes from an aristocratic Tamilian household. With the coming of mechanised or even motorized graters and grinders, the elegantly made grater of this genre is now relegated to museums.