Whisk

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Different whisk

A whisk or whisk , in Switzerland Whisk in Austria Schneerute called, is a kitchen appliance , pitched with the liquid or semi-liquid ingredients and mixtures frothy or finely mixed and homogenized be. The whisk is named after the egg whites produced by whipping egg white and the construction of the device, reminiscent of a rod whisk .

The whisk became an increasingly common kitchen appliance from the end of the 18th century, but households were still using other aids to whip up ingredients in the 19th century. However, it cannot be ruled out that individual households produced forerunners of this kitchen appliance themselves before the 18th century, but none has survived. However, there is a picture in the cookbook “Opera” by the Italian Renaissance chef Bartolomeo Scappi , published in 1570, showing a kitchen appliance that resembles today's whisk. If it was actually a whisk, this tool initially did not catch on.

Designs and applications

Front of a whisk

It is available in various shapes and materials in stores. It usually consists of about half a dozen to a dozen elongated, elastic wire loops made of stainless steel or partly made of plastic , which are arranged radially and lead into a handle . The handle is mostly made of metal or stainless steel, sometimes made of plastic or wood. Other modified types of whisk are:

  • Plate whisk - Flat whisk, as unlike a whisk, the wire loops form a hollow body and lie on one level.
  • Mixing whisk - kitchen utensil that is similar to a whisk and is used for stirring, often the insert of a kitchen appliance, a hand mixer.
  • Spiral whisk - The spiral whisk has a larger stirring surface on the bottom than the whisk. A spiral attached to the end of the rod ensures that a saucepan or bowl with as large a surface as possible is stirred. With the flexible spiral whisk, all areas of the pot, both at the bottom of the pot and at the transition between the floor and the wall, can be easily reached.
  • Pot whisk - The pot whisk is suitable for working in pots thanks to its unusually angular and flat shape.

The whipping of suitable liquids is done with oblique circular movements of the whisk from the wrist. As a result, numerous air bubbles are drawn into the liquid and crushed, so that a fine foam is created. When mixing watery with oily liquids (e.g. vinaigrette ) or liquid and powdery ingredients by flat, oscillating movements, the ingredients are finely divided and intimately mixed, which leads to homogenization or emulsification .

Kitchen history classification

The need to whip ingredients until frothy did not develop until the Renaissance, when egg whites were discovered as a raising agent. If cakes and other pastries were made before this period, yeast was used as the leavening agent, but this always gave the pastry a bread-like texture and yeasty taste. In addition to the development of pastries loosened with egg whites or refined with egg yolk masses, the desserts that were served also changed: Syllabub , a mixture of egg whites, wine and cream, was one of the most popular desserts in fine dining in the Elizabethan era . Part of the Elizabethan banquets was the so-called “ dishful of snow ”, which were made from egg whites, cream , sugar and rose water and which were piled on large plates. The development of such dishes was initially not accompanied by further technical developments in the corresponding kitchen appliances. The fact that these dishes nevertheless belonged to the repertoire of wealthy households in the 17th century was ultimately due to the fact that such households employed sufficient staff to manually carry out the time-consuming whipping of egg whites, egg yolks or cream.

Even though the whisk was the most technically suitable kitchen tool for emulsifying quantities of liquid and was increasingly found in households from the end of the 18th century, until well into the 19th century it was still common in many households to use a small bundle of egg whites or egg yolks Open barked twigs (typically birch twigs) or even tied feathers. Individual traditional recipes indicate that the taste of the egg whites was refined while being whipped by incorporating peach branches or narrow strips of lemon peel. A recipe from the shaker religious community from the 18th century even recommends using only peach branches in spring.

Hand mixer operated manually with a crank ( snow hammer ) for whipping liquids: No less labor-intensive than working skillfully with a whisk.

“Cut a handful of peach twigs that are filled with juice this time of year. Cut off the ends of the twigs and knock them a little, then use them to beat the cake batter. This gives the cake a delicate peach taste. "

Alternative tools were the whisk , but cooks also used spoons or knives with a wide cutting edge. As a further method for the production of egg whites , the food historian Bee Wilson lists the procedure, which she describes as unsavory and particularly inefficient, in which egg whites are repeatedly sucked up with a sponge and then pulled out again. Whipping egg whites with such tools was always a very time-consuming process: Recipe information speaks of half an hour of work to whip egg whites for pancakes . As late as 1823, cookbook authors Mary Eaton pointed out that three hours of work should be planned for whipping the egg whites for a large cake. Since the expenditures for servants made up only a fraction of the expenditures of a wealthy household for a long time, there was little pressure to innovate from Wilson's point of view. This only changed when, after the Industrial Revolution, the employment of servants became increasingly expensive and, at the same time, technical progress in metalworking made it possible to develop inexpensive kitchen tools that reduced the amount of work. Between 1856 and 1920, no fewer than 692 patents were granted in the USA for manually operated hand mixers, which, in Bee Wilson's opinion, required no less effort than skillful emulsification with a whisk. It was only with the advent of the electric hand mixer , which was developed in the first half of the 20th century, that the associated workload really changed forever.

Whisk in figurative meaning

Since the foam figuratively for something vanity, Inflated stands, one describes whisk a person who wants to make with little substance much effect, a braggart or boaster.

See also

Related kitchen appliances include:

literature

Web links

Commons : Whisk (and related kitchen gadgets)  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files
Wiktionary: Whisk  - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Ammon : The German language in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The problem of national varieties. De Gruyter, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-11-014753-X , pp. 342, 366 ( limited preview in Google Book Search ).
  2. a b c Bee Wilson: Consider the Fork . P. 213
  3. ? Whisk. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .
  4. Pot whisk. Retrieved on October 21, 2019 (German).
  5. a b Bee Wilson: Consider the Fork. P. 212.
  6. ^ Flo Morse: The Shakers and the World's People . UPNE, 1987, ISBN 0874514266 , p. 51 (Retrieved August 15, 2012).
  7. Amy Bess Williams Miller, Persis Wellington Fuller: The best of Shaker cooking . Macmillan, 1970, ISBN 0020098103 .
  8. ^ Bee Wilson: Consider the Fork . P. 214.
  9. ^ Bee Wilson: Consider the Fork . P. 218.
  10. ^ Bee Wilson: Consider the Fork . P. 224.
  11. Manfred Papst : Encore: From the honest craft of foam beating , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , March 17, 2002
  12. Tips / 060: Foam beating - desired and undesired results , Schattenblick , March 8, 2014