Grating is the action of rubbing the vegetable or fruit against a rough surface (a grater) to produce small pieces of the food material.
The food material can be grated using manually operated or mechanised graters.
Manually operated graters have been designed for general purpose use or for use with specific commodities such as coconuts. The manually operated graters illustrated below can either be purchased from stores or made at home.
The wooden framed, manually operated, general purpose grater (view image) is made from wood and galvanised sheet steel. The frame is made of 2.5 cm square cut pieces of wood. The perforated surface is made from a curved piece of galvanised sheet steel which is screwed onto the wooden frame. Ideally the sheet of steel should be screwed onto the wooden frame using brass screws to avoid rusting. The holes in the steel are made by punching the surface with a strong 2 - 3 inch nail. The holes should be made by punching the nail though from the underside of the piece of metal. This ensures that the rough edges, against which the vegetable is to be rubbed, are on the outside surface. These graters can be made in any size required. They should however be thoroughly dried after cleaning to stop them rusting.
Other general purpose graters:
Coconut graters (view image) are readily available on the local market. Mechanised graters (view image) are useful for commercial operations only. The supplier of the mechanised grater illustrated below is given in Annex 1.