It is maybe the most frustrating utensil in the kitchen. Awkward to hang and too big to put in the spoon jug; it won’t sit in any of the piles of bowls and pans, but it is too important to put away. What’s more, it’s annoying to wash, dry and fit together and, invariably, three days later I notice that there is some dried tomato skin stuck on the base. Despite all this, I love my food mill with a passion.
Now, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Victor. While Jean Mantelet did patent his moulinette presse-légumes in 1932, which went on to sell by the million and make mouli a proprietary eponym, it turns out that an inventive Belgian called Victor Simon patented his very clever passe vite (pass quickly) four years earlier, in 1928, having designed it to aid his wife in making soups and purees. The passe vite was a huge success, because it was and still is an ingenious object in three parts: a bottomless bowl, a perforated sieve plate, and an arm crank fitted with a bent metal blade that, when rotated, crushes the food inside it and forces it through the holes in the plate.
