From Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book by Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln (1884): These are a variety of potato and vegetable mashers, also called beetles. Potato mashers are often rounded heavy wooden objects with handles and flat bottoms. Many of the wooden items were handmade. The more "contemporary" potato mashers use metal. These implements were designed to press or mash foods but can be used in multiple other ways as evidenced in Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book. In this book (page 248) the potato masher (or pestle) is to be used to press finely chopped meat tightly into cloth bags, much as a sausage stuffer is used to press chopped or ground meat into casings. This genre of equipment--food mashers/beetles--are the oldest kitchen utensil still being used today. The most popular use of them is for mashing potatoes and for pounding meat to tenderize.
Mrs. Lincoln's Boston cook book : what to do and what not to do in cooking, available at: https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5nd67
Related Items
Beetle, available at: https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m55x25c7x Mallet, available at: https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5g44hq75 Pestle or hammer, available at: https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5qv3c40j
