HAND-POWERED FOOD CHOPPER
No. 1, patented Oct. 12, 1897
A dusty device among the souvenirs
appeared here, once from the kitchen possessions
of our great-grandparents, the Wildgrubes,
on their farm near Sheboygan WI
In the days before electric food processors,
muscle power turned that crank
over and over,
over and over.......
grinding chunks of mean meat
into hamburger,
or miscellaneous pig lips and choice snouts
and etcetera into sausage stuffing.
No home was without one,
no estates were without banks of them
for the domestics to churn,
sweat added to the mix.
What's that you say?
You've sort of been through a meat-grinder?
A ramming spiral shaft pushed
and mashed your being through, particle-ized?
You babes born for better things,
innocent lambs.
butchered,
on Wisconsin farms and boardrooms?
Laid low in school-houses
or factories
To be fresh-ground,
meat in conservative markets?
It is not without blood.
"Times change,
and with them,
their
demands."
.............
Ruth Elies and mother Anna Wildgrube
