Playing the Mandolin

Cabbage Sauerkraut Slicer T&D Mfg Co. Indianapolis, Indiana

Food slicers are a popular item for chefs in the kitchen. It made slicing potatoes a breeze for the chuckwagon cooks on the cattle drives and it was highly sought after by early Europeans who immigrated to America as they made their savoring  dish of Sauerkraut.  The unique kitchen implement simplified cutting cabbage and just about any other vegetable.  

Although, while this unique cutting board tool has long been around for many years, the term Mandolin is relatively a 20th century name for the tool.  Prior to 1930, it was known as a cabbage or kraut slicer. 

Pope Pius VI's personal cook,  Bartolomeo Scappi wrote a cook book in 1570 which showed illustrations of the small board with a central cutting blade and with other small perpendicular blades to cut vegetables into thin sticks.  It would not become known as a mandolin until Marcel Forelle, from Toulouse, France, in 1930 was modernized. The cooking tool was then given the name of the musical instrument because cooks "play" their mandolin in the same way as musicians. The folding stand was a design by T&D Mfg before the turn of the century. Prior to the new design, the cook simply held it pressed against his chest to slice the vegetables directly above the dish. 

 Tucker & Dorsey Manufacturing Company

The Tucker & Dorsey Manufacturing Company, made Hardwares and Woodenware Specialties and was established in 1865 in Indianapolis, Indiana.  They became one of the largest concerns in the world exporting goods who's products consists of more than thirty different wood items and embraced over 200 different specialties. The trade was extensive with over one-eighth of the product from the factory being consumed by foreign markets. Over 100 people were employed at the factory at any given time.  

Daniel Tj. Dorsey, was founder and President of the business partnered with Tucker who was known for unique items like the Tucker Alarm Till which allowed merchants to hear a loud bell with opening the money till. T&D Mfg was known for many quality products. Mop wringers,  towel rollers, clothes hangers or coat racks, their products were made with superior quality with affordable pricing.  Even Pullman coaches outfitted many passenger cars with the coat and hat racks as well upscale hotels both in America and Europe.

Today, many of these now antique products remain manufactured by Tucker & Dorsey.  Once advertised as Kraut Slicers or Cabbage Slicers, today they continue to make music in many kitchens or add to the early American decor of many homes.