These are cut using a system evolved from computer circuitry. A pattern chemically etched from a photographic image is pressed into a die to create the tiny blades which run in rows parallel to the base.What would Mrs David have made of the Microplane? When she died, her executors found every room in her four-storey Chelsea home full of kitchen equipment she had acquired on her journeys around the Mediterranean or had thrust upon her by admirers. The Screwpull was the hi-tech corkscrew which came out 20 years ago and took advantage of the then latest Nasa technology. Its central coil was made of a thin toughened metal alloy enhanced with a non-stick coating.Grey’s all-purpose grater is called the Microplane.

Its cutting edges glide rather than rip and tear through food. Unlike other graters, which are pieces of metal with holes punched in them, the Microplane grater has 300 miniature blades. “I say lethal,” she wrote, “because, to me, the extraction of the potent and acrid juices so ably performed by this instrument spells death to any dish into which garlic is thus introduced.” So what did she do with her garlic instead? She crushed each clove with a little salt under the back of a heavy knife.Now the most interesting kitchen gadget since the Screwpull has been created by a Canadian television producer called Penny Grey. Those of us who took our cue from the Mother of Modern Cooking, the prescriptive Elizabeth David, now make it an article of faith to reject out of hand every new, improving, inventive kitchen gadget.
None of us who read her words on the garlic press ever dared use one afterwards Lethal, she called it. MAKE A BETTER mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Thus said Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th-century American sage Does the same apply to a better grater? We shall see. When it’s done, the cheese will have melted and glued the lot together into a crunchy, oozing whole.It’s enough to make you face Monday with less of your normal ambivalence.

After all, there are only six more sleeps until it’s Sunday again.. Top it with a thin slice of Emmenthal or Tilsit cheese, a thin slice of ham and another slice of cheese, all cut to fit the bread per- fectly. Spread another slice of bread and place this on the top, butter- side up.Cook gently until the bottom is golden and crisp, then turn the whole thing over and cook the other side. The whole lot is then placed under a grill and served as hot as you can stand.My own particular favourite cheesy toasty thing, however, is the pan- fried cheese and ham sandwich, one of the true miracles of modern times.To achieve this culinary paragon, simply spread a slice of bread with butter and place it butter side down in a medium-hot pan. According to Jane Grigson, the Welsh considered a cheesy toasty thing as great a treat as a fine, fat rabbit.It is, of course, but I think it more likely that the name came from the famous Welsh sense of humour, as in sitting down to yet another tea of cheese-on-toast and crying, “Oooh, Ma, what a fine, fat rabbit you’ve done for dinner tonight.”For a genuine Welsh rarebit, a slice of toasted bread is topped with a creamy mixture of Cheshire or double Gloucester cheese, egg yolk, mustard, and beer or milk. To truly appreciate the grace and meaning of a croque-monsieur (the name means gentleman’s crunch), one must use only the finest French pain de mie and Gruyere cheese.

The only possible additive is a fried egg, which transforms it, ridiculously, into a croque-madame.The most elegant croque-monsieur is to be found not in Paris but in Venice, in Harry’s Bar. Here they do a glorious finger sandwich version, flavoured with Dijon mustard and cayenne pepper, pan-fried in olive oil and served in a snappy white paper nappy.Not that the Italians aren’t capable of inventing their very own cheesy toasty things. From Naples comes the glorious mozzarella in carozza (literally, mozzarella in a carriage), a Neapolitan sandwich of fresh buffalo mozzarella dipped into milk, coated with flour and egg and deep fried.Closer to home, completing the triumvirate of great cheesy toasty things, is the mighty Welsh rarebit, which originally started life as Welsh rabbit. Even the French manage to take time off from whipping up soaring souffles, slipping truffles under the skins of roast chickens and making rich creamy sauces to wander off to a local cafe, order a vin de pays and munch meaningfully on a croque- monsieur.While describing it as merely a toasted sandwich topped with grilled cheese and occasionally coated with a thick bechamel sauce may be physically accurate, it misses the metaphysical point.