I Bought It But What Is It? - Union Porcelain Works, dates to 1877

[cogar]

Well antiquers, the mystery of the UPW kitchen implement deepens. It arrived today and it is not a potato masher. All the potato mashers are showing a round bottom. This one is flat and even slightly concave, except for the center where there is a very slight point.

Now Tales, ....... go into your kitchen, ..... boil some potatoes in a flat bottomed pot, .....  get something with a round (non-flat) bottom on it to use as a "masher" ........ and then see how long it takes you to make ....... a pot of "lump-free" mashed potatoes.

ps: A potato masher of that design would not be a good designed one iffen it didn't have a "slightly concave" bottom.

The reason I say so is, with a slightly concave bottom the downward pressure would force the "lumpies" toward the center point of the masher ........ and not to the outside edge out from underneath it.

[hosman321]

If it makes any difference, I feed oyster shells to my birds every day. They are actually quite brittle. They break apart very easily, kinda flaky. I don't believe they are as hard as say...clam shells. But I may be wrong. Just my 2 cents.

[hosman321]

I learn something new every day. Oysters start their lives as males and breed as males. Later in life, they change sex to female and breed as females. Just an interesting tidbit to start the day.

[talesofthesevenseas]

I'm definitely not ruling out the possibility that it is a potato masher, it just doesn't seem consistant with the design of most of them. However it certainly stilll could be. I could mash some potatoes with it to see what happens. I imagine results would vary depending on the shape of vessel the potatos were mashed in- Round bottom bowl versus flat bottom pot. I think most old pots would have been rounded, the type that are hung on a hook in the fire or sitting on legs in the coals. So I'm guessing that a round bottom bowl would be used, right?

[talesofthesevenseas]

Just for fun, I took our mystery masher to a local antiques collective. They had never seen anything quite like it either, but they did suggest bringing it in a week from today, when the lady they thought would be most likely to know what it was would be in.

[cogar]

I think most old pots would have been rounded, the type that are hung on a hook in the fire or sitting on legs in the coals.

I always figured those pots were made that way so one could use a long handled rounded "dipper" to easily get the last bite of food outta those pots.

And of course, a rounded bottom pot heats more evenly on an open fire.

[talesofthesevenseas]

I put the "mystery masher" to use last night. I had a recipe that called for finely ground almonds. After chopping them up, I used the masher as you would a spice grinder. It worked, but it didn't feel quite right and the results were just so-so. Just reporting that I don't think that being a spice grinder was it's intended purpose.