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Recently, we were cleaning out my grandparents house and found a couple of tools in the kitchen that were odd. One is this small tool that looks like a chopper, but it's very lightweight. The blade is only a couple inches long (toothpick shown in photo for scale) and quite thin, so it wouldn't cut anything hard or tough. Does anyone know if there's a specific task this might have been intended for?
I think it's a simple herb chopper.
Google brought up several sorts when searched for 'antique', some of which are similar in design. Of course, the ones making it to the antiques market are not going to be the simpler designs from the post-war austerity years, but I think there's sufficient similarity of form.
It might be a vegetable chopper for cutting soft vegetables. Here is a contemporary Kitchen Craft model, although it has a wider blade for scooping.
It looks a bit like a mezzaluna for chopping herbs, but they tend to have curved blades allowing you to easily go back and forth over the herbs. A straight blade is better for making a single, downward cut.
