Metal Things: Silver Filigree Nutmeg Grater (probably) by Samuel Pemberton (c. 1800)

Silver filigree nutmeg grater, probably Samuel Pemberton, c. 1800.
Held at Birmingham Assay Office.

This delicate object was made to be carried on the person, and would have held a nutmeg in the larger compartment [see below], and had a surface for grating which opened the other side. It was fashionable over the eighteenth century to carry nutmegs which could be grated into coffee, chocolate, punch and other alcoholic drinks. Nutmeg was beautifully fragrant, and was relatively expensive. It was used to freshen breath and some believed it to have medicinal qualities too.

Showing the opening of the grater, with a section
to hold the nutmeg and another for the grater.

See my post on: Birmingham Filigree

Find more metal & Birmingham objects: Nutmeg Graters / Silver / Samuel Pemberton / Filigree 

Enamelled Edibles (c. 1760s)

 

Selection of enamel boxes, probably Birmingham, Bilston or Wednesbury, c. 1760-85.
Sold at Sotheby's in a lot of 15 for £15,000.

Find out more about eighteenth-century enamelling here.

Eighteenth-century enamellers produced an array of novel containers for eager consumers, including edibles such as apples, pears, lemons, gherkins, eggs and nutmegs. Many of the larger boxes were bonbonnières for holding sweets, often used to enhance the breath, the smaller boxes might hold perfume or, especially those shaped like nutmegs, be nutmeg graters. Nutmeg was a common addition to drinks over the century, thought to aid digestion and also sweeten the breath. Nutmeg graters would include a space to carry a whole nutmeg and a small metal rasp inside, so that nutmeg could be grated into drinks at will such as cider and punch (a treatise on 'cyder-making' from 1753 is here).*