America Feasts: Photos of Our Relationship with Food Photographs: American Holiday Feasts

Working in the kitchen always requires a sense of caution. You have to be mindful of burners, possible contamination, spills, and so on. Chefs, home cooks, and regular people who just want to make a grilled cheese sandwich know this. We’re told to be careful with knives, wash our hands, and use potholders, etc. However, there is one common kitchen tool that even the most seasoned veterans of the kitchen still fear. They're sure to white-knuckle whenever they see a person use it for the first time or the fiftieth, and that tool is the mandoline slicer.

For those who don’t know, a mandoline slicer is a tool used to slice fruits and vegetables into incredibly thin slices or julienne slices (long matchstick-like cuts). The purpose is to create thin, even slices, either so they cook well according to the recipe or to elevate a slice for aesthetic purposes. How it works is the food is slid along an adjustable plane surface until it reaches a sharp mounted blade at a fixed point, slicing the food and letting it fall.