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Traditional salad bowl with a rough interior?

J

Jim Phipps

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Mar 9, 2013
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Location
McKinney, Tx
I've been asked to make a salad bowl for a chef who told me all about old salad bowls that were once commercially available to restaurants. He says that the traditional wooden bowls he used had a rough interior and were unfinished. The idea was to crush garlic, anchovies and olive oil into the surface before tossing the salad, rather than to season the greens directly, but the FDA prohibited the use of that kind of bowl in restaurants (for obvious reasons) and now he can't find one for his own use. It sounds like the surface needs to be somewhat abrasive to act like a mortar and pestle.

This goes against everything I know about finishing food use bowls, but I'm always open to learning something new, or old in this case. I've only been making bowls for a few years and my goal has always been the smoothest surface I can achieve, and well oiled with pure tung or walnut oil.

Here's my question for those of you who may remember this style of bowl. Are we talking about a tool finish, rough sanded (like 120 grit), or more like a 220 grit surface, but not burnished or polished in any way? And NO finish? Not even some walnut oil or something more stable than olive oil?
 
Turn one really rough and see if that is what he wants. Maybe even create some dig in's with 60 grit sandpaper on a stiff sanding disk. I suppose that it's easier to crush garlic if it isn't slipping around on a slick surface.

For centuries unfinished bowls with rough surfaces were used. Apparently not too many people became ill as a result.
 
Hi Jim,

This may sound like turning sacrilege--hope I don't get banned from the forum!

I'll share what I've done. I've had similar requests, including a recent commission for a run of ten soup bowls, one of which is pictured below. These are surprisingly popular.

What I do is get a smooth tooled interior then take very sharp 40-60 grit and hold it stationary while the lathe is still turning at a moderate speed. Work your way from center up but lift the sandpaper and then put in back down on the bowl holding it stationary again. The goal is to have even sanding circles...these look better. Then powersand with a soft pad and 800 grit at slow lathe speed. The 800 takes the top off the rough surface and leaves a buffed, rough surface.

The rough interior can be adjusted with various grits of sandpapers...for a very rough interior I've used 40 grit and the sharpest paper I've found are the Fein multimaster triangles--just for handsanding. I don't use the multimaster on bowls at all. I think this black sandpaper is silicon carbide. It finishes much cleaned than our usual aluminum oxide. I also run a quick pass of synthetic steel wool at the very end of interior sanding.

I still sand the rim and exterior through grits to 400 or so...just a rough interior.

I would lean toward a walnut oil finish--especially with the anchovies.
 

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"for obvious reasons"? Many test have been done and wood is a very safe product in the kitchen. Most woods do not support bacterial growth. I'd think a regular negative rake scraper would leave a surface that would have a tooth to it is dampened the first time.
 
I refinished a 100 year old bowl that was my mothers grandmother. It was obviously machine made and had the tool lines to show on the interior. The outside was smooth. The best way to copy that look is what Zach suggested. Slow the bowl down and move some 40 to 80 grit gradually from bottom to rim.
 
Richard Coers said:
"for obvious reasons"? Many test have been done and wood is a very safe product in the kitchen. Most woods do not support bacterial growth. I'd think a regular negative rake scraper would leave a surface that would have a tooth to it is dampened the first time.
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Richard, that is correct. In fact the Navy did a number of studies on that and there's really little to support the idea the plastics or somehow better than wood.
 
Me
Bill Boehme said:
I think that is a very creative idea and I really like it.
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Bill, me too.

Here's a photo below of the interior of my Japanese mortar and pestle. It is ceramic or pottery or whatever, but you can see the fine texture inside. The purpose is exactly what your client is talking about Jim, which is to crushed garlic, Herbs etc.

Haps you could just show him a picture of something like this and see if that's what he's talking about? If he is using it like I use mine then it'll need to be a fairly hard material because otherwise anything you crush inside of it will just get mashed right into the wood itself. Also, it will need to stand some kind of cleaning process.

He's a chef, so i'm sure that he has considered this; but as a person who teaches food safety as part of my job, it's just something that I tend to think of.

IMG_0179.JPG
 
Jim Phipps said:
The idea was to crush garlic, anchovies and olive oil into the surface before tossing the salad, rather than to season the greens directly, but the FDA prohibited the use of that kind of bowl in restaurants (for obvious reasons)
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I'm guessing the hazard imagined by the regulators is mostly imaginary. Butchers rubbed the surfaces of the butcher blocks with salt when they put them to bed at night; kept the bugs down. I Imagine a salad bowl can be protected the same way (assuming it's even necessary) and it would contribute to the seasoning.
 
The real hazard is not keeping the wooden bowls, butcher blocks, etc. clean. But that goes for any surface. If I were to cut up a raw chicken on a cutting board regardless of the material and not clean it up that could be a problem. Some people say that you shouldn't wash a wooden bowl and instead just wipe it with a paper towel. Maybe if it is just a simple salad that might be alright, but if I had a nice big bowl of shrimp creole, I think that a washing wouldn't be a bad thing. A quick washing, rinsing, and drying won't hurt the wood and it won't smell like a bait shop the next time that I use it. 😀 Dang, now I'm hungry. 😀
 
Raul McCai said:
I'm guessing the hazard imagined by the regulators is mostly imaginary. Butchers rubbed the surfaces of the butcher blocks with salt when they put them to bed at night; kept the bugs down. I Imagine a salad bowl can be protected the same way (assuming it's even necessary) and it would contribute to the seasoning.
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Yes, salt actually can act as an antibacterial, as well as a preservative. Likewise sugar can do the same thing. Has to do with what's called water activity. Here's another link to a scientific American article on that subject. It is something that I discussed with our managers during refresher training.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-salt-and-sugar-pre/
 
Bill Boehme said:
The real hazard is not keeping the wooden bowls, butcher blocks, etc. clean. But that goes for any surface. If I were to cut up a raw chicken on a cutting board regardless of the material and not clean it up that could be a problem. Some people say that you shouldn't wash a wooden bowl and instead just wipe it with a paper towel. Maybe if it is just a simple salad that might be alright, but if I had a nice big bowl of shrimp creole, I think that a washing wouldn't be a bad thing. A quick washing, rinsing, and drying won't hurt the wood and it won't smell like a bait shop the next time that I use it. 😀 Dang, now I'm hungry. 😀
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Actually, even a salad could be dangerous. For example, green onions can have E. coli. Not to mention the package salads can have fecal bacteria, salmonella and who knows what else from bad handling procedures?

Unless you're growing the produce yourself then you don't know if the guy putting your lettuce out at the store has the sniffles or washed his hands after he went to the bathroom or what.

So I come down clearly on the side of washing things. Little salt in a bowl with a little bit of shallow bowl or butcher block oil? not a bad thing

Glad I could alleviate any concerns you had about your food supply. Hope you're still hungry Bill. 😀
 
Thank you so much for all the advice! I failed to mention that the customer is out of state so showing him example photos is just what I need to do.

What would be the most traditional wood for this type of bowl? I have walnut and magnolia on hand right now. I'm in north Texas, BTW.
 
Jim Phipps said:
Thank you so much for all the advice! I failed to mention that the customer is out of state so showing him example photos is just what I need to do.

What would be the most traditional wood for this type of bowl? I have walnut and magnolia on hand right now. I'm in north Texas, BTW.
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I don't know much about magnolia, but I saw online that it isn't a good wood for treenware (wooden kitchenware). Walnut might be OK. I think that it has medium size pores. The best woods for bowls would be the kind known as close grained or fine grained wood like maple and cherry. White oaks and live oaks, even though they have large pores, tyloses in the heartwood plug the pores which makes them ideal for wine and whiskey barrels. Red oak, on the other hand, will leak like a sieve.
 
Bill, I agree with you. Hardwoods like cherry, Walnut. Acacia or teak are good and naturally water resistant
 
charlie knighton said:
Does the type of wood make any difference¿???¿??
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As Bill said, I think the kind of wood is worth considering. My family bought a birch burl bowl in 2009 that we've used almost daily since then. My wife comes from the olive oil school of salad making...as in, pour in gobs of oil, garlic, etc.

The bowl has doubled in weight over the years, and I think it's because it's saturated with olive oil. As we all know, olive oil goes rancid over time. The bowl is amazing and beautiful, but I begin to smell a little oil rancidity.

On the other hand, a wood like mountain ash (rowan tree) barely takes a coat of walnut oil. As Bill said, it's a close-grained wood. That's what I use for these types of bowls, and I think it's worth serious consideration, given the anticipated use.

Great thread. I love thinking about what a bowl will be used for before turning it, since it most often doesn't work out that way.
 
What it sounds like to me is that the Chief is making Cesar Salad. To do it really right one uses RAW egg yolk. That potential source of Salmonella is one that I ignore here at home.
 
Zach LaPerriere said:
As Bill said, I think the kind of wood is worth considering. My family bought a birch burl bowl in 2009 that we've used almost daily since then. My wife comes from the olive oil school of salad making...as in, pour in gobs of oil, garlic, etc.

The bowl has doubled in weight over the years, and I think it's because it's saturated with olive oil. As we all know, olive oil goes rancid over time. The bowl is amazing and beautiful, but I begin to smell a little oil rancidity.
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Curious Zach-what are you going to do to "save" the beautiful family bowl????? Gretch
 
Gretch Flo said:
Curious Zach-what are you going to do to "save" the beautiful family bowl????? Gretch
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That's a darn good question, Gretch! I have considered boiling it...but it's such a fine bowl. The oil has made the chatoyance all the more amazing.

For now, the slightly off smell doesn't transfer to salads, so I'm not too worried...maybe I'll install an overhead crane from the pantry to the kitchen to the dinner table.

For what it's worth, I think that the bowl was only finished with mineral oil. I wasn't turning back then, and I really didn't know better about using a polymerizing oil.
 
I will not put the reference in but most of the tests were done on cutting boards and just tested bacterial growth on untreated wood and plastic materials. The result was that wood actually kills bacteria. With plastic the cuts in the surface harbor bacteria and moisture (growth medium) and cause bacteria growth. As far as I know bowls were not tested but that verdict was probably if we ban one (cutting board) we have to ban the other (bowls).
 
Zach LaPerriere said:
For now, the slightly off smell doesn't transfer to salads, so I'm not too worried
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Zach, from what I’ve read and also recommend to folks who end up with my salad bowls is that if they ever need to be “deep cleaned” use a mixture of salt and a halved lemon. Make a loose paste to scrub the surface, wait 5-10 minutes, rinse and repeat if necessary.

I’ve never done it to bowls in my possession, it’s something I read when doing a bit of research into the question of rancid oils in wood.
 
Would it be possible to give the bowl a regular UV light source treatment to sterilize the bowl?
Another option would be the use of a liquid ozone solution on the bowl, this should help with the odor problem.
 
The salt and lemon is as old as cast iron skillets. Both seem to act as oil emulsifiers and disinfectants. Not sure if vinegar works that way as well or not, but it does aid in digestion. An occasional soaping doesn't hurt the bowl at all, though most of the time I scrub and rinse only.

As for olive oil, the arguments seem to go back and forth about 'it will' go rancid on a bowl to 'it CAN' go rancid. As near as I can tell, if there is any food type stuff allowed to build up on the surface, that is what goes sour. Another reason why I prefer the walnut oil as a finish. It does cure, which I think would prevent the food oils from penetrating and then going sour. Not sure though. I had one bowl for over 10 years that had everything you could put in a bowl in it (great for when you do craft shows). No sour issues at all. My newer bowl, maybe 8 years hasn't had as much use, but still no sour problems. Maybe oiled it twice since day one.

robo hippy
 
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