Engineer Carl Sontheimer introduced the first food processor to North American consumers in 1973. He spent a year adapting a French industrial blender to the needs of home cooking. The resulting appliance needed several years to build a reasonable amount of popularity before it finally sold well. Sontheimer's invention has changed the way food is prepared all over the world.

Because it can quickly and easily chop, slice, shred, grind and puree almost any food, it is one of the more flexible kitchen appliances available. Additionally, some of the models aid in juicing, beating batter, kneading dough, and grinding meats.

Food processors today come in three sizes: full, compact, and mini. All of the sizes are made up of the same necessary parts: a motor, a bowl with a lid and a feed tube, and a set of attachments. Various models come with both large and small bowls, which can be used interchangeably with the same base.

Common ingredients like cheese and carrots and shredded speedily and efficiently, and in no time at all you can have slices of potatoes and apples sliced with the slicing disc. All you need to do is to push your desired food through the feed tube using the nozzle.

Some additional techniques are required when chopping, grinding, and pureeing. In your standard processor model, attachments will slip on over the shaft, inside the bowl. standard attachments for any processor include the S-shaped blade, as well as shredding and slicing discs. These latter two discs are constructed out of metal and sit atop the bowl, above the shaft. Foodstuffs can be pushed down through a feed tube, where they contact the disc, and are then grated or sliced straight into the bowl.

You will find that the apertures on the shredding and slicing discs can be adjusted so as to create fine, medium, or coarse food bits. Several different versions of these discs can be bought separately if they are not already included in your food processor. Additionally, you can supplement your food processor equipment further through the purchase of more multipurpose attachments, such as a blender processor.

You can also find a particular container to hold all of the attachments in one place, and extra work bowls, which can be handy if you are making numerous things in the food processor and don't want to wash out the bowl between tasks.

Carl Sontheimer originally built the food processor back in 1973, well over thirty years ago. This is one of the best kitchen appliances you will ever find. It can do practically every kitchen function with virtually any food item you can come up with. If you purchase specific models and "additions", you can do other things such as juicing, baking preparation, and plenty of other things. You may want to buy additional attachments for your processor, such as a blender processor that can be used to make your processor more multipurpose.